OHCHR-CERD Press conference 31 August 2023

Good afternoon everyone.

Thank you for joining the press conference hosted by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

A very warm welcome, particularly to the media who are joining us today online, particularly to all the Senegalese journalists in our Dhaka office.

I'm Vivian, Media Officer for the committee here in the in Geneva and we have a Co moderator, my colleague Habibu in Dhaka.

We are very pleased to have 4 experts from the committee today to present their country reviews at this press conference.

We have links to me, Miss Savinaki, and then in the middle we have Mr Belsashek and Miss Esdeme.

And finally we have Mr Bayande.

They will give an overview of their finding on Croatia, Italy, Namibia, Senegal, Termanstein and Uruguay, and they will also take question from you without further delay.

Now let me pass on the floor to Mr Belshazzak.

Thank you and good afternoon.

And my name is Mijao Belsazzak.

I'm the Vice Chairperson of CERT.

To my right is Madam Samatya Stavrinaki, also the Vice Chairperson of of the committee.

To my left is Madam Regina Senema, member of the committee.

And we have also Mr Murdoch Payanda, member of the the committee.

We would like to tell you about what happened over the session and of course, we'll be pleased to receive your questions.

And first of all, there have been 6 reviews that took place throughout this session.

These reviews concerned Croatia, Italy, Namibia, Senegal, Turkmenistan and Uruguay.

All these reviews took place in the presence of State delegations and with the participation of other stakeholders, of course, such as national human rights institutions and NGOs.

During that session, the Committee also worked on its rules of procedure and it pursued consultations regarding the elaboration of its general recommendation on the right to health with experts, inter alia, from World Health Organisation and the academia.

We would like first of all to give you some key highlights on the third activities, first of all on early warning and urgent actions, activities of the committee and then about specific state reviews as regards early warning and urgent action.

Under this specific procedure, we adopted a statement on the United States Supreme Court Court's decision on the affirmative action in colleges and universities.

That was a judgement of the Supreme Court of the US of June 29th, 2023.

We also adopted a decision on the lack of equitable and non discriminatory access to COVID-19 vaccines.

As regards the first of the statement concerning the US Supreme Court's judgement, we called up in the United States and its public authorities at all levels to actively develop and implement targeted measures that would effectively address the adverse impacts of the aforementioned judgement on educational opportunities of African Americans and other under represented communities.

We encouraged educational institutions in the United States of America to adopt and continue to implement programmes and policies to increase and retain the enrolment of students belonging to African American and other underrepresented communities in order to attenuate the consequences of centuries of race based exclusions.

As for the decision on COVID-19 vaccines mentioned above, we invited state parties to prioritise human rights concerns and to incorporate strict human rights guarantees, including a mechanism that commits governments to suspend intellectual property rights in a health crisis.

In the draught Pandemic Prevention, preparedness and response.

A court currently under negotiation of the World Health Organisation.

We also called state parties in the global N to provide resources to enable poorest states to satisfy the core medical capacities that they are expected to have in place under the International Health Regulations and to enable vaccines, relevant medicines and other necessary equipment and supplies to be available to all in a non discriminatory manner.

These two texts, I mean the text of the decisions undertaken under early warning and urgent action procedures, are available on the third website.

Now turning to to the key highlights on concluding observations, I would present these highlights on Croatia and Turkmenistan, and my colleagues will then continue on other states that have been under consideration during that session.

As regards Croatia, the Committee expressed concern over reports of racial discrimination against Roma and Serb minorities, particularly in employment and education.

There was also an concern expressed over the gap between cases registered officially under the Anti Discrimination Act and the much larger number of cases indicated in surveys on ethnic or national minorities and non citizens.

The Committee recommended that Croatia intensify its efforts to combat all forms of racial discrimination by fully enforcing the Anti Discrimination Act, particularly in employment and education, and organising awareness raising campaigns targeting vulnerable groups.

The Committee was also concerned about domestic courts need to complete the prosecution of those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and the overall decrease in the investigations and prosecutions since 2013.

The Committee also questioned the differences in sentencing of serpent Croatians convicted of these violations.

The Committee asked the State party to expedite the prosecution of the remaining perpetrators and also to effectively investigate into trial all such cases, regardless of ethnicity.

As regards to Manistan, the Committee welcomed the State party's efforts in preventing statelessness.

Nonetheless, the Committee remained concerned by the low number of officially registered refugees and the lack of data on asylum applications, including the number of rejected cases.

The committee also voiced concerns about accusations that the existing barriers deter new asylum seekers, especially Afghans.

It recommended that Turkmenistan revise it's refugee and asylum policy, promptly register all applications and refer applicants for international protection at borders to the appropriate asylum authorities and refugee status determination procedures.

With respect to Turkmenistan, the Committee also raised concerns about the lack of information on complaints regarding racial discrimination Acts handled by law enforcement, domestic courts and other authorities, including the Commissioner for Human Rights.

Committee suggested the State party establish remedies and redress mechanisms for victims of racial discrimination.

Now, as regards the key highlights on the concluding observations concerning other states reviewed, I would now like to give the floor to Madame Senemer to present the findings on Italy and Namibia.

Madamas Senemevusavelapa, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, for giving me the floor.

With regard to Italy, the Committee was alarmed by politicians and **** level government officials using hate speech and racist political discourse against ethnic minorities, particularly Roma, Cinti and communities, Africans and people of African descent in the media and on the Internet.

The Committee urged Italy to effectively apply its legislation to combat hate speech and incitement to Russia discrimination and ensure that all hate speech and racially motivated crimes are effectively investigate and those found guilty are punished regardless of their official status.

The committee also raised a red flag at racist acts during sports events, including physical and verbal attacks against athletes of African descent.

It asked Italy to investigate all racist abuses in sports and sanctions those responsible.

The Committee was disturbed by the recent legislation, particularly the Law on Immigration and Security in 2018 and the Control Law in 2023, which made migrants, asylum seekers and refugees more vulnerable to human rights violations, especially violations of their rights to life and security.

The Committee also expressed concern at the legal restrictions that have been put on search and rescue at sea operations, which may prevent organisations from rescuing migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

It urged Italy to take all necessary measures to combat discrimination against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees and protect their rights to life, security and physical integrity.

Italy was also asked to guarantee the migrants and asylum seekers can apply for international protection and access to refugee status determination procedures.

As for Namibia, according to official statistics, members of Khoisan and Ochihiro language groups experienced double the depth of poverty compared to the European language group in Namibia.

The Committee expressed concern that Namibia's development policies and programmes do not effectively address the desperate socio economic levels of different ethnic groups or take into account the negative effects of intersectional forms of poverty.

The Committee recommended the Namibia collect disaggregated information to compare progress made through relevant measures and adopt A gender sensitive approach to implement the country's development policies.

The Committee was deeply concerned about hate speech and incitement to racial hatred at sport events, in the media and on the Internet.

Additionally, the Committee raised its concern over the lack of information on the numerous complaints brought before the Ombudsman concerning hate speech and incitement to racial hatred.

It asked the Prosecutor's Office and other Namibian authorities, in cooperation with relevant bodies such as the National Rugby Union Editors Forum of Namibia, Ombudsman and Internet service providers, to investigate and prosecute all racist hate speech and incitement to Russia discrimination.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you very much, Devrinaki, to present key highlights concerning Senegal and Uruguay.

Thank you, Chair I.

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Where of the Committee's concern, The Committee also highlighted the low representation of the Afro descendant population, especially women, in decision making and management positions in the private sector.

The Committee recommended that Uruguay implement A comprehensive strategy against child poverty, ensuring children of African descent have access to education, healthcare and food.

It also recommended that Uruguay carry out a comprehensive employment strategy, such as providing technical and professional training to help the Afro decentred population, particularly women, move from the informal to the formal sector of the economy.

The Committee noted that Uruguay has no investigation records of police racial profiling or other discrimination cases, despite reports indicating the persistence of field treatment, racial profiling, ***** of authority, and excessive use of force against Convention protected individuals and groups.

The Committee thus expressed concern that the National Directorate for the Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Interior lacks the independence to investigate.

The Committee recommended that Uruguay ensure that racial profiling is clearly prohibited in legislation and establish an adequate, resourced and fully dependent oversight mechanism to investigate complaints of excessive use of force and racial profiling by law enforcement officials.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Madam Stabilinaki.

SO session.

So I would now perhaps ask Vivian for some assistance in coordination of that part.

Thank you.

Members, we can take question now.

If you have any question, please let us know and raise your hand.

Or we can also let my colleague Habibu in Dhaka to ask question on behalf of the journalist over there.

Habibu, can you turn on your mic?

OK.

Now we have Associated Press.

Jamie, you can have the floor.

Great.

Hi.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Vivian, for taking my question.

I wanted to ask about the case of Italy in particular.

There have been a number of incidents lately.

Particularly involving Naku the, the, the, the Mulan strapper, Lukaku.

I'm, I'm, I'm curious what specific event in sport and in soccer are you concerned about and, and, and what should the Italian authorities be doing about it?

Question maybe first to to Mr Pyande and maybe then other members of the committee could also compliment the answer.

Mr Pyande, you have the floor Well.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Chair, and thank you very much also for the question.

As Mr Seneman has already introduced, the issue of racist hate speech has played a significant role in the dialogue with the State Party of Italy.

We have raised concerns generally about incidents of racist hate speech and even normalisation of racist hate speech in the country, including with regard to to to utterances by politicians and members of the government.

And this has also had a particular aspect when it came to to sports.

So the Committee was concerned by wide range of reports on incidents concerning in particular, but not only soccer where there had been verbal attacks, but also physical attacks on athletes, mainly athletes of African descent.

And the Committee has noticed that Italy has some legislative and regulatory instruments in place to address racism in sport.

But nonetheless, the reports we received and we, we didn't single out specific incidents, although some incidents were raised by some members of the committee during the events in an exemplary manner.

The Committee has recommended that the state party assess its framework, that it takes measures to ensure more effective implementation of the framework that is in place and to to to invest to invest more in awareness raising campaigns, trainings, other measures to tackle this the significant problem.

Thank you.

Thank.

You for next question.

OK.

The next question we have Yuhi, could you please?

Yes, thank you for taking my question.

Have there been any discrimination against Russian old passport holders in Italy and Croatia, such as bank account closures based on nationality, for example, like it was the case in France or in Switzerland?

Thank you.

Thank you for this question.

Well, it concerned Croatia and Italy.

I can answer as regards Croatia, as I was the country rapporteur in that case and to the best of my knowledge, we have not received some specific information concerning any any acts of this kind which would be well some Russian citizens would be involved with respect to to Croatia, with respect to Italy.

I would perhaps refer the question to to my colleagues who were more into the review process concerning Italy and Madame Cinema de France.

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Are we ready for next question?

Yes, we have three questions from Senegal.

Habibu, can you turn on your mic now?

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I think we can take the next question please.

Do we have a, another question?

Maybe we I can see some media from Italy.

Do we have question on Italy or any other country?

Jamie, you have the floor.

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Thank you, Madam Salma, before we go to next question, just allow me to to add 1 one point here.

Even though I was not the country rapporteur for Italy, I'd like to raise your attention to the fact that our committee obviously is reviewing a recent report and the very recent practise.

But we also and try to have the context in mind.

And we also try to well have have in mind the the, the past in terms that we compare also our previous concluding observations.

We also pay attention to the follow up process and moreover, and here where the why.

I also would like to, to, to bring your attention to this.

We also take account on reports and information from, from other sources, including UN sources.

And there was a visit, a country visit in Italy in 2015 of the Working Group of Experts on people of African descent.

That was actually a long time ago.

That is 8 years ago, but I just recall since I've been part of that visit that the problem of racism in sports has also been mentioned.

Now I think it matters also in a comparative perspective to to see that there have been some measures taken, obviously, and it's the problem.

It's not new, but I would encourage also to apart from having regard, apart from focusing on our very recent review and report also to see see this specific problem in a in a perspective and also referring back to to some activities of of UN mandates that also concerned the problem of racism in sport.

Having said that, I think we could take one more questions.

OK, maybe we can have one final question.

If you have any question to follow up, you can raise your hand now.

Otherwise I will pass the floor for you for a concluding remark.

Journalist, if you have question and then you want to ask by e-mail, do send it to me.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Perhaps before concluding of my concluding remarks, I'd like to ask my colleagues if they would have anything specific to add at this moment and, and if not, well, let me first of all, thank all of you who who take interest in our activities.

The the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination wants to be visible.

We would like our activities to be known to the outside world and obviously all interest taken out in our activities is greatly appreciated.

I thank those of you who who participated in this, in this conference, and also those who will decide to refer to our reports, to our documents, because, as I mentioned on the beginning, apart from reviewing country reports, the agenda of the committee is, is quite busy.

It includes very important cases also on the early warning and urgent action procedures.

There have been also one individual communication considered and decided against Slovakia during that that session.

So our activities are, I would say can be seen on different, different fronts.

And in conclusion also I'm, I would like to mention something I should have, perhaps I should have started with that.

The last day of session, August 31st is at the same time in International Day for People of African Descent.

As you may be aware, there is a lot going on with respect to the rights of people of African descent.

Our committee obviously is engaged in these activities.

There is a permanent forum which which is in in operation.

So I would just would like to take this opportunity on the International Day on people of African descent to bring your attention to, to the UN agenda as regards this this issue.

So I would like to also thank again my colleagues for for being here.

I'd like to thank the the Secretariat for the always professional assistance.

Thank you very much.

And this would conclude our press conference.