The BCHR in the Human Rights Council Geneva
11-03-2010
On the sidelines of the meetings of the Human Rights Council that are currently being held in Geneva, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights participated in two symposiums at the United Nations. One of them addressed the continuous violations, harassments, and smear campaigns which the defenders of human rights were facing in the world. Bahrain and the Republic of Colombia were the examples that were mentioned.
The BCHR in the Human Rights Council Geneva
11-03-2010
On the sidelines of the meetings of the Human Rights Council that are currently being held in Geneva, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights participated in two symposiums at the United Nations. One of them addressed the continuous violations, harassments, and smear campaigns which the defenders of human rights were facing in the world. Bahrain and the Republic of Colombia were the examples that were mentioned.
Besides the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, the Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders Ms. Margaret Sekaggya, and Mr. Peter Splendor representative of Amnesty International in Geneva, Ms. Gail Imreani Representative of the Asian Forum, and Ms. Rosen Drury for the World Organization for Building Bridges all participated.
The second symposium was held on Friday, 12 March at the United Nations and it addressed the issue of the deterioration of human rights conditions in the Arab world. The president of the BCHR, Mr. Nabeel Rajab spoke in the symposium, and so did Mr. Nedhal Darweesh from the Committees for the Defense of Democracy Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria, and Ayaz Al-Maleh from Syria, in addition to Rasha Al-Shahawi and Sami from Egypt.
Rajab spoke of the deteriorating conditions of human rights in Bahrain and which witnessed evident violations on several levels, among them the increase in the political naturalization process and discrimination against the Shiite sect, and a decline in Bahrain’s level in freedom of opinion and expression, and the continued prosecution of human right defenders. In addition to the spread of corruption among the influential figures in the State apparatuses and the government’s approach towards creating fake civil society institutions to discredit the activity of the just human rights institutions. The symposium also addressed the conditions of the migrant workers and the discrimination practiced against them.
The symposium was attended by the representatives of the diplomatic missions in Geneva or the participating countries in the meetings of the Human Rights Council, as well as a large number of delegates of international organizations, or their representatives in the Swiss capital, Geneva. The symposium was under the patronage of Amnesty International, the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, The Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition and the Forum of Asia.
