UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OHCHR Press Conference: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for being here this afternoon for the press conference hosted by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The committee today will present its findings on Bolivia, Bulgaria, Germany, Morocco, South Africa and Vietnam.

Joining us today on the podium, we have Miss Shepherd, Chair of the committee, and three other committee members, They are Mr Payande, Mr Yuen Si Kyun and Miss Miss Net.

Miss, Madam Chair, you have to flop for your opening remark.

Thank you very much and good afternoon everyone.

Those joining online maybe from different time zones, so I should also say good morning or good evening, depending on your time zone.

It's my pleasure to be here again for another opportunity to introduce the media to some of the work that we have done in our 111 session.

I want to introduce Miss Almis Nad to my left and Mr Yongsuk Yong to my right and Mr Pandey to my extreme left.

These are the main rapporteurs for the countries that we did this session, but I also want to inform you that there were six reviews, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Germany, Morocco, South Africa and Vietnam.

And for this press conference we have all the country rapporteurs or Co rapporteurs with us, so that even if it's not the members on the podium who we will ask, you know about the countries they represent, there are those in the audience who can also take the floor.

So the committee, in addition to the interactive dialogue with States parties, worked on our rules of Procedure and we held a joint event with the Committee on migrant Workers.

We're trying to elaborate a joint general comment on xenophobia against migrants.

We also held a meeting with States parties to update date them on recent developments of of a procedural nature and substantive nature that occurred in SERD and to exchange on matters of interest for SERD, including the acceptance of the individual complaint procedure and the equal geographical representation in the membership of the third.

So what I want to do now is to actually pass the floor to those at the podium who will give an overview of the countries for which they served as Co rapporteurs and and rapporteurs.

So I'll begin with Miss Al, Miss Naad who worked on Vietnam.

OK, Thank you.

I will start with Vietnam.

I was the code.

I was the reporter for Vietnam.

The committee called for a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to establish to abolish it, citing concern about it this appropriate appropriate application in cases involving ethnic ethnic minorities, many of whom were convicted under vague and broad Criminal Code provision.

The committee also raised its concern that official data on the number of individuals sentenced to death or on death row and executed is not published.

It recommended that Vietnam collect and publish death penalty data.

Disaggregated by ethnicity, national origin following the United Nations safeguard protection of the right of those facing the death penalty.

The Committee express its deep concern that alleged harassment, intimidation, ****** and the use of force against if no religious community group, including the Christian Monontard and the Buddhist Kamar Korn, who refused to renounce their faith or to join the state controlled religious in association.

The Committee called for an immediate end of such act in conjunction with the investigation, prosecution, appropriate penalties for those convicted and effect effective remedies for victim.

While raising its concern of a registration requirement for religious association, the Committee recommended that Vietnam review and amend this requirement while guaranteeing the equal enjoyment of everyone, particularly those from ethno religious minority group so to manifest their religion or belief.

The above, I think the above the report and everything will be will be on the session web page.

Thank you.

Miss Almisnad.

Let me pass the floor to Mr Yuen who covered Germany and Morocco.

OK, thank you, Madam Chair.

As Madam Chair, you just stated was a rapporteur for Germany.

Now these are the findings on Germany.

Despite the measures adopted by the State party, the committee was disturbed by the increasing number of extremist organisations and groups, including right wing extremist political parties such as the Alternative for Germany, the Afd, whose programme is reportedly based on the national ethnic concept.

The Committee called on Germany to implement effective measures to prevent and combat the creation and registration of organisations or groups, including political parties, that promote and incite racial hatred, and to ensure that electoral democratic processes do not tolerate such groups, including political parties that promote ideas of superiority of one race.

The Committee was also concerned about alleged racial profiling and excessive use of force and I'll treatment by law enforcement officers against ethnic minorities.

The committee asked Germany to prohibit racial profiling by law and establish an independent, complete mechanism to investigate all such abuses.

The committee welcomed Germany's acknowledgement and apology for the genocide of the Over Hero, Hero and the Nama peoples and colonial wrongdoings in Tanzania.

The committee, however, voiced his concern over the lack of full reparation for colonial wrongdoings.

The committee recommended that Germany implement comprehensive restitution and compensation for the descendants of victims.

It also asked the state party to adopt an extensive policy for repatriating colonial objects and cultural artefacts, particularly the restitution and repatriation of ancestors human remains.

Let me now move to Morocco.

While welcoming the official recognition of the AMAZIG language in the Constitution, the Committee expressed concern that was not sufficiently taught in schools and had limited broadcasting space in the audio visual media, making it difficult for AMAZIGS to use their language in legal proceedings and official documents.

It recommended that Morocco intensify its efforts to implement the constitutional provisions and the relevant organic law and increase the teaching of Amazon at all levels of education.

He also asked Morocco to improve the presence of the amazing language and culture in the audiovisual media and to revise the legal framework so that the amazing language is used equally with Arabic in courts.

The Committee welcomed the 2013 National Immigration and Azaram Strategy, but expressed concern about the allegations of racial profiling and excessive use of force by Moroccan Moroccan police and other law enforcement officials against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, as well as arbitrary arrests, detentions and forced relocation from the north to the South, Which disproportionately affected black migrants from sub-saharan countries.

The Committee called on Morocco to prohibit racial profiling in its legislation and make appropriate measures to end arbitrary arrests and the detentions, forced relocations and excessive use of force, particularly regarding regarding migrants, asylum seekers and refugees from sub-saharan countries.

It also asked the state party to investigate all racial profiling.

I'll treatment and ***** of authority by law enforcement officials, prosecute and sanction those responsible, and then show that victims have access to effective remedies.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr Yuen.

I now pass the floor to Mr Payande, who will update us on the summaries of South Africa and Bolivia.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

With regard to the Plurry National State of Bolivia, the Committee expressed concerns about persistent structural issues within Bolivia's justice system, such as the lack of independence, inadequate budget, limited geographical coverage, and the absence of translation and interpretation in indigenous languages and justice services.

The Committee recommended that Bolivia expedite its judiciary reforms to ensure judicial autonomy and impartiality, guarantee comprehensive coverage, including in remote areas, and provide culturally sensitive adaptations in the justice service to protect victims of racial discrimination.

It also called for the allocation of sufficient resources to the Pluri National Public Defence Service in order to empower the justice system.

The Committee furthermore restated its concern that the non discrimination principle had not been applied adequately and that there weren't enough steps taken to address structural racism, stereotypes and prejudices impeding the establishment of a truly pluralistic society.

It recommended that Bolivia consult with indigenous original Campesino peoples and nations, with the Afro Bolivian people, and with human rights groups working for migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons in order to implement guidelines to combat racism.

The Committee also proposed the establishment of inclusive spaces for intercultural dialogue through the departmental committees to nurture mutual understanding and acceptance within Bolivia's diverse society.

Turning to South Africa, the Committee raised concerns about the delay in adopting the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill since 2016 and the lack of comprehensive laws criminalising racist hate speech and hate crimes.

The Committee also expressed concerns about the prevalence of hate crime and racist hate speech, including in the media, on the Internet and in social media, particularly against non citizens.

The Committee called on South Africa to accelerate the legislative process and to adopt measures to address the spread of racist hate speech across all platforms.

The Committee was particularly alarmed by the rise in harassment and large scale and organised violent attacks against refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and migrants perpetuated by civilians by organised vigilante groups and law enforcement officials.

It was also concerned about the lack of information on investigations into these violations and abuses, as well as on remedies and support for victims.

The Committee urged South Africa to conduct effective and impartial investigations and to ensure that law enforcement authorities respond objectively and proportionately to hate speech, to harassment and violent attacks against non citizens and to guarantee their protection, including the protection of their property.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And the country rapporteur for Bulgaria isn't here at the moment, but I'm going to ask Miss Almis NAD to give an overview of the interactive dialogue with Bulgaria.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, Bulgaria was also one of the country which has been reviewed this session by SERT Committee.

The Committee voices concerns about the absence of comprehensive integration programmes for migrant, refugee, asylum seeker and state person, as well as the continuous difficulties in their access to essential services such as education, healthcare.

The Committee recommended that Bulgaria establish A functional local integration mechanism for for those people to have access to education, employment, housing, racial social assistance and healthcare services and adopt the National Strategy and Action Plan with time frame for monitoring the implementation.

The Committee was concerned that a considerable number of Roma was unable to obtain identity documents limiting their access to education, work, healthcare, voting and free movement and hindering their marriages and birth registration.

It suggested that Bulgaria speed up the amendment of the Civil Registration Act to address Roma people obtaining identity cards.

It's also asked the Bulgaria to provide durable solution to ensure that people without identity document can enjoy their fundamental rights under the Convention.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Miss Almisnad.

I should also say that the Committee has the Early Warning Urgent Action procedure and during this session we did adopt quite a few letters, about 12 letters, and most of the issues covered by the Early Warning Urgent Action Task Force had to do with indigenous peoples and various violations.

But we have not yet sent the letters to the state parties concerned and so we won't be able to say anything more about that in this session.

And finally, I wanted to say how useful we found the interaction with over 30 state parties that came to meet with us because we were able to answer their questions and issues of concern to them, to encourage those who have been behind in their reporting to us and also to update them on the work, critical work of SERD.

So thank you very much.

Now we can open the floor for questions.

And then you have the first question.

Please identify your name and organisation.

Thank you.

My name is Yuri.

I'm the correspondent of the Russian agency RIA Novocity here in Geneva, in at the UN.

All my questions are for Mr Yuan about your report of Germany.

I wrote it, it was really interesting, but there is something that I just don't understand, because during the interactive dialogue that you have with state parties and with parties about Germany, the Russian delegation raised the problem of Russophobia in Germany.

They were speaking about the fact that in Germany, Russians and Russians descendants that are living there can't, for example, song some songs that are talking about the victory against Nazism, especially during the party of 9th of May.

At the same time they were talking about the fact that Russian cars, it means cars with Russian numbers were taken by, in some case by the authorities only because they are under Russian numbers and they were not give back.

You are not at all talking about it in your report.

And you are also in your report talking about the racial discrimination with discrimination in sport.

And there is no mention of the fact that Russian athletes who have only because they have Russian nationality and Russian passport, can't go to Germany, for example, for competitions, even for international competitions, only on the basis of their nationality.

Why are you not talking about it in your report?

Thank you.

First of all, thank you for your interest.

So the question is you've you've asked on Germany?

I don't think that, you know, in my, in the concluding observations, we covered Russians living in Germany or, you know, Russian property.

It would be difficult for for me at this stage to answer beyond what was covered in the, you know, in the, in, in the, in the report I made.

In fact, I didn't cover that that subject, nor was it raised.

Now you speak about sports.

We did, we did put questions to the to to the state party.

And I remember very well, one of the specific questions was the effect that, you know, there was one famous football player, German national but with with Maghribian ethnicity who abandoned his career because he felt racially discriminated.

But again, this was not brought up officially, you know, in it wasn't one of the, let's say, hot topics.

There were much, much more other more important topics which we covered.

You know, I hope I have been able to to help you on these points.

So if you've got other questions, I'd, I'd love to to answer them.

Thank you.

I have just one, one you.

You are saying that there is other topics that are more actual maybe or more bigger and that's why you are not talking about it in your report about Russians.

But does that mean that because you are not talking about it, this is something that for your committee don't doesn't exist?

I'll try to reply you by saying that when we deal with a country report, we usually go back to the previous country report and we as a starter, we try to see are there problems mentioned in the previous concluding observations which haven't been corrected.

So we go along that basis and you'd appreciate it as well that a country report, when we deal with the country, we've got six hours, six hours, and it's very difficult to cover each and every subject.

Now it looks as if you're prompting me to say something about what we found more important.

Well, I can tell you we have, for example, hate crimes, police profiling, those are the matters which we we felt were were more, it covers more a more wider purport and scale.

OK, thank you.

If you'll allow me, I would just like to say that wherever there are cases of racial discrimination, ethnic profiling, whether in sport or other aspects of life in any country, the committee is concerned.

So even if this particular issue was not raised by NGOs or did not come up in the interactive dialogue, it doesn't mean that the the third is not concerned with any of these kinds of actions against any group wherever they occur.

So I wanted to just reassure you that it's not as if we're ignoring the broad topic, it's just that the task force were not asked to deal.

The task force wasn't asked to deal with this issue during the dialogue.

Thank you, Mr Union.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I've got some written question and the first one I have is about South Africa.

There are numerous reports regarding the rising xenophobic hate speech on social media resulting in explosive violence, large scale violence including killing, shop looting and destruction of properties against thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing sub Sahara countries.

What are the committee's findings on violence against non citizens and what are your recommendations?

Thank you very much.

Indeed, the whole topic of attacks, hate speech, hate crimes against non citizens, including migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and people who are assumed to be non citizens, that took up large part of the dialogue that was raised by numerous civil society organisations and we had a very intense dialogue on these issues.

The committee showed itself very concerned about these developments and it made a number of recommendations, recommendations that aim at adopting measures to protect people from these kinds of attacks, adopting measures to ensure that law enforcement is actually available and reacts to these to these matters and measures to, to to address issues.

One, to address cases that that have arisen.

So criminal prosecutions and other cases, support for victims and possibilities of legal remedies for victims.

So there were a number of cases and this is also related to the overall atmosphere to to hate speech, which is a prevalent issue in South Africa, hate speech against non citizens in particular.

And so we also made a number of recommendations that the state party pay more attention to this, put more emphasis on on addressing the issue and take measures to improve the situation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Payendi.

And the second question I have is about Vietnam.

Why are ethnic minorities more vulnerable to being sentenced and executed under the death penalty?

Thank you for the question.

I mean, we have a long discussion with the civil societies religious group and we brought to the attention of the state party that the discrimination in particular in terms of death penalty that there should be some rethinking about it and and maybe try to adopt.

I mean at first there had to be investigation about those who are in death penalty and why, what are the reason for that and look into this issue seriously.

I mean, we have recommended to the state party that we discuss with them all of the issue about death penalty and we hope that our recommendation will have some impact on the way the the society or the official in the country will conduct the the issue of death penalties.

Thank you.

The next question is for Germany.

Can the Committee elaborate about its recommendation regarding a comprehensive approach to reparation for colonial wrongdoings, example in Namibia and Tanzania?

Thank you.

Well, in fact, it's one of the topics which there has been a lot of progress.

And in fact, we, I think we, we, we, we must commend Germany for the willingness to discuss and ways and of Ways and Means of settling the issue of discrimination and in fact, let's say, results of the colonial, colonial past.

Now very few people even know that Germany is classified #3 when it comes to colonies, you know, with the strongest links with, with with with colonies #3 Germany now.

Anyway, I think Germany is specially known for the atrocities that were committed in Namibia and in Tanzania.

Now of course, we we are happy to note that interstates, you know, are they are taking place between Germany and those two countries and significant progress has been made, but certainly not enough.

So there is still some, let's say some lagging behind which need to be to be covered.

And that is why we've recommended that Germany looks after the aspect of reparation.

Now, in the case of, I think in yeah, we had to states, to communities, which I've mentioned in my address few days ago, the hero and then a number of people who who, who suffered a lot of violence and we can even say examination, you know.

And so government, we're asking the the German government to negotiate with the representatives of those people, the descendants of those people who are still living in their country and not sort of keep them out of discussions.

So approximately small as around the things.

Yes, thank you.

Whenever the issue of reparation comes up in global discussions, one of the recurring complaints of the affected communities is that there is insufficient negotiation with those who have been still, who have been affected by colonial wrongs and who continue to suffer in the post colonial period from the legacies of those wrongs.

And so the extent of compensation must match the extent of atrocity.

And also the, the, the, the offending country should not decide what is the reparation package without consultation.

And the time frame should not be unreal.

So we, I think, would like to see more negotiation.

There are many communities.

I remember doing the suffrage movement and they used to say nothing about us without us.

And I think that this can be applied to all those who are involved in compensation talks and in the whole process of reparatory justice.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I have one more question that can be for any expert on the podium.

Could the committee explain the intersection of religion and racial discrimination under the convention?

Is is it freedom of religion?

Religion is one of your is also fall into your mandate?

Thank you for the question.

Well, actually the convention is convention against racial discrimination.

And if you look at Article 1, paragraph one of the convention, you will find that religion as such is not a ground for discrimination that would make the convention applicable and that would fall within the mandate of the convention.

However, there are two exceptions and those are two big exceptions.

The one is that we the question already raised the the the term of intersectionality that we often see that religious minorities or religious groups and ethnic ethnic characterizations or ethnic self identification of groups fall together.

And in that sense, whenever we have ethno religious minorities or ethno religious groups, they fall within the mandate of the convention and therefore the committee.

And the second point is that Article 5 of the Convention allows for or, or encompasses the right to freedom of religion for the the people protected under the convention.

So that whenever there are ethnic groups, ethnic minorities which are discriminated against, not because they are religious group, but in with regard to the, the freedom of their religious exercise, then this also falls within the mandate of the of the committee.

And we've addressed that in a number of cases in this session, for example, with regard to Vietnam.

Thank you.

I don't see, I don't have any, I don't see any question online now.

So, Madam Chair, would you like to give your concluding remark?

Thank you very much.

Let me again thank those from the media in the room and those online who pose questions.

I want to thank colleagues from the committee who are in the room, in the audience and those on the podium.

I, I want to emphasise that third continues to work towards the elimination of racial discrimination, sticking to its mandate.

And I thank all colleagues who have taken countries, who participated in task forces and who conducted the, the dialogue.

And I want to say also that we didn't mention that in this session.

And Miss Stabernacke is in the, in the, in the room and she has been a champion in terms of her work on reviewing the Rules of procedure.

And I think our constituency would like to know that we have been working on the Rules of procedure because sometimes you have to revisit your methods of work and your rules of procedure.

So we have been doing that, we have been, we are still elaborating a general recommendation and again, Miss Tabernacchi is working on this on general recommendation 37 on the right to health because COVID-19 taught us about the inequalities that affected marginal marginalised communities.

And finally, the the whole issue of the Treaty body strengthening process came up quite a bit in our deliberations.

Everybody knows about 68268.

It's like, you know, something that comes up all the time.

And so SERD is also participating in in the process in terms of the predictable review cycle, the digital uplift, and of course the harmonisation of methods of work.

So I wanted to mention that SERD is one of those treaty bodies involved in this process, which is a larger project of the United Nations.

So thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

If there is no more remark from any of the experts here on the podium, anything.

So our press conference comes to an end now.

Thank you.

OHCHR Press Conference: UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) - 08 December 2023