UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OHCHR - Press Conference: UN Human Rights Committee's findings

Good afternoon.

Sorry for our slight delay.

Welcome to the Human Rights Committee press conference on its finding about Chile, Guyana, Indonesia, Namibia, Serbia, Somalia and the UK being with us today on the podium, we have Mr Santopais, Vice Chair of the Committee, Mr Guja and Mr Gomez, members of the Committee.

The Committee will first walk us through the main concerns and in the second-half of the press conference you have a chance to ask them question without further delay.

I would now pass on the floor to Mr Santupais, Vice Chair, please.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

So in the present session and it's reporting procedure of the government, the committee held reach and constructive dialogues with the delegations of Chile, Koyana, Indonesia, Namibia, Serbia, Somalia, United King of Great Britain, Northern Ireland.

Most of the reviews were conducted in person with the respective delegations present in the conference room.

Koyana requested a review to be conducted in hybrid format and the Committee accepted this request.

Furthermore, most of the reviews were conducted under the simplified reporting procedure, allowing non reporting and late reporting states to begin engaging with the Committee.

In this regard, the Committee was pleased to initiate a constructive dialogue with the delegation of Somali, which presented its initial report which was due for 35 years.

During the current session, delegation generally engaged with frankness and the desire to achieve a meaningful dialogue.

We have noted positive developments since the last reviews of the State party of being before us, while at the same time identifying years of concerns and making recommendations to the State parties.

An important element to take into consideration is the fact that many of the country's reviews come at the right moment.

Some of them are engaging in constitutional reforms or in a substantial change of the massive legislation and policies on very important subjects, for which the concluding observations of the Committee may be of particular relevance.

A follow up report on concluding observations relating to four countries was concluded.

The four countries were Finland, Paraguay, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.

Regarding the visual communications, we can see the 19 draughts in the session relating to 43 communications.

19 were decided on the merits, nine were declaring admissible and 15 were discontinued.

Regarding the communications aside and on the merits, the committee found violations in 90 of them.

Due to the **** number of individual communications spending consideration by the GT body system, almost 2000, of which more than 70% relate to the Human Rights Committee alone, A strategy strategy was agreed upon with petition section to substantially increase the number of cases consider for the upcoming sessions.

Should I move to the countries on Chile?

The Committee considered the seven periodic reports.

There were several areas of concerns raised, for instance, fighting impunity and human rights violations, committing during the military dictatorship, anti terrorism legislation, violence against women and girls, prohibition of torture and the cruel and human or degrading treatment or punishment, right to peaceful assembly, fair trial rights and judicial independence.

Nevertheless, the priority recommendations the committee address 3 important areas of concern.

The first one, gender equality and humans participation in political and public life and their representation public and private sectors as well as equal rights between spouses.

The second area of concern was excessive use of force in the context of social protests and the third one was the rights of indigenous people and people of African descent.

Moving to Serbia, we considered the 4th Periodic Report of Serbia.

There were several areas of concerns raised, for instance, discrimination and marginalisation faced by the Roma community, gender equality, violence against women, including domestic violence, disappeared persons and the accountability for past human rights violations.

Prohibition of torture and the cruel, inhuman or degraded treatment or punishment.

Asylum seekers and the principal of non rufulumal.

Independence of the judiciary and the public prosecution.

Right to privacy and surveillance.

Right of peaceful assembly.

Concerning the three priority recommendations on this country, we address the issue of eight crimes.

The second area of concern was protection of journalists and the third area of concern was participation in public affairs.

May eventually they have more on this issue.

If you'd like to going to the third country, Somalia, we consider this country as well.

It was initial report as I referred to, and the priority recommendations that we addressed was, first, excessive use of force and killing of civilians by armed forces, law enforcement officers, Al Shabaab and other terrorist groups.

The second area Administrative of Justice and impendence of the judiciary and the third rights of the child.

Thank you, Thank you, Mr Asanto Pais.

Now, may we have Mr Guja to present the next two countries.

Good afternoon.

The Human Rights Committee.

We've reviewed the 8th report of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the COPS and in our dialogue.

We shared our concerns on several issues such as accountability for past human rights violations in relation with the adoption of the Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy and Reconciliation Act adopted in 2023.

The Human Rights Committee is particularly concerned by many provisions of the ACT, such as the Conditional Immunity Scheme, the independence of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, the absence of power to investigate the serious violations of human rights.

The Commission has only the power to review the allegations, which does not meet the requirements to bring people to justice and to ensure the right of victims and their family to justice and truth.

Among other serious issues, the Committee expressed its deep concerns regarding the Illegal Migration Act and the Rwanda Safety Bill.

The Committee considers that this legislative framework is seriously at odds with many of the UK basic international obligations, not only vis A vis the Covenant, but also with regards to the ECHR, the European Convention on Human Rights and the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Statues of Refugee in the CARBS.

In the concrete observations, the Committee urged the State party to repeal this legislation.

Other concerns related to counterterrorism measures, slavery and trafficking in persons, structural racial discrimination, application of the Covenant overseas and in UK dependencies, voting rights of prisoners are also including in our conclude the observations.

The Committee also requested the State party to clarify its position on the potential withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Human Rights Committee also reviewed the third periodic report of Guyana under an hybrid mode.

Our last Conclude your observations were adopted in 2000, so more than 20 years ago.

In the current conclude your observations, the Committee expressed its concerns about corruptions, issues, the situation of indigenous peoples in the country and especially their legal status and rights, questions of violent violence against women and femicide, problems of independence of the judiciary and backlog of judicial proceedings, among other issues.

Questions were asked about the combination of the protection of environment, the fight against harmful impact of climate change and the oil and gas destructive activities.

The Committee insisted on the need to ensure the management of natural resources free from any corruption, waste and with the meaningful and effective participation of affected population, including fishermen and indigenous peoples.

Referring to the recent ratification of the Escazu Agreement, the Committee highlighted the importance to combine the right to a dignified life, protection of Environment, Protection of natural resources and extractive companies activity.

The Committee also noted with great interest the upcoming constitutional reform, but insisted on the need for the State party to use this momentum to put important parts of its domestic legislation in line with its covenant obligations, especially regarding the non discrimination framework.

Other topics such as the much needed reform of the electoral system, crackdown of the civic space, use of torture by police officers, aid speech and protection of disadvantaged groups such as LGBT people are also including in our conclusion observations.

Thank you, Mr Guja.

Now we have Mr Gomez to present Indonesia and Namibia.

Thank you.

Thank you and good afternoon.

Yes, regarding Indonesia, our our main concerns were related in in the 1st place to the accountability for past human rights violations.

The Committee is concerned by the pattern of extrajudicial executions and welcomes the Supreme Court decision in delivered in 2023 upholding the conviction of six law enforcement officers for the premeditated ****** and mutilation of four Papuan people in Timika.

But we are concerned by multiple reports of extrajudicial killings and enforced of indigenous peoples in Papua, which have not been investigated despite the State parties commitment to do so.

The Committee also regrets that following the acquittal of Isaac Sato in 2022, there is still a lack of information on the charges brought against other military officers who participated in the reported extrajudicial killings of four Papuan children in Pani in 2014.

We are also concerned on the outcomes of investigation into and 4th disappearances of pro democracy student protesters between 2/19/27, excuse me 1997 to 1998 and on the locations of the mass graves of the estimating estimated 500,000 victims, 500,000 victims of the anti communist massacres between 16/19/65 and 1966.

We are concerned that the decisions abducted on January 2023 on 12 cases brought before the non judicial resolution team procedures human rights violation is still not public.

Therefore, we we recommend Indonesia to guarantee the independence and the partiality of both judicial non judicial accountability mechanisms, to promptly investigate all human regulations to afford full reparation for all victims, to ensure access to public information regarding such cases, to guarantee that morning and commemorative activities for victims are conducted without restrictions or threats and ensuring that the Commission of human rights commerce hands findings are followed through by law enforcement agencies.

The second issues, The second issue that was object of our concerns is the the persons deprived of the liberty and conditions of detentions, especially the persons we disable with mental disabilities.

Because we welcome the adoption of the Correctional System Act law in 2022, and we welcome also the adoption of local regulations and bylaws prohibiting shackling to these persons.

The committee, however, regrets the lack of information provided on penalties or effective remedies afforded to the victims and their families in the 4441 cases of shackling that have been identified by the Ministry of Health.

Therefore, we recommend the state party to harmonise laws and policies, including local regulations and bylaws on the detention of people with psychological disabilities with international human rights standards and harmonised laws and policies.

Also to to approach their situation as a as a health situation and not as a prison situation.

The the third issue we are worried about is the freedom of expression.

We regret the limited information on laws on policies to protect individuals exercising freedom of speech, including human rights defenders, community leaders and journalists.

And we are also worried about the Article 240 of the amended Criminal Code and the modification of the law on electronic information and transaction that allows to criminalise insulting the President of the Republic and other public officials.

The important thing is that we have also fixed the follow up procedure for March of 2027.

That means that the state will come before the committee again on that day to verify whether the recommendation have been implemented or not.

As regarding Namibia, well you know that Namibia is a well is a multi party democracy since its independence and well that there have been even a soft transition of a change of presidency and regularly there have been holding elections.

Nevertheless, of course human rights are a challenge for every country and also for Nanibia.

The main problem that we have identified regards the right of indigenous peoples.

We are concerned that the state party does not recognise community such as the Sun, the Himba, the Oba 2, the Oba Jimba and Oba Timba as indigenous people because they are referred to in the laws as marginally marginalised community, not as indigenous peoples.

And therefore they are deprived or some of the rights that that correspond to these indigenous people, such as the consultation regarding the extradition of natural resources on their lands.

And we are also worried about the fact that some of the of the ancestral land of those indigenous peoples are are now of the property of of the state, but not of these ethnic group groups.

Therefore, we have recommended the state to consider recognising communities such as the one I mentioned with the as indigenous peoples with concomitant rights recognised in international standards such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Mr Gomez.

Now we may open the floor for questions.

If you have any question, please raise your hand.

We can also take question from online.

It seems you have presented very clearly and so far we don't have any question from our online participant at the moment.

Sorry, we have three questions online.

Oh, I didn't see any hands raised, but now it's for you have FA Antonio.

OK.

Thank you very much.

My question is on Chile, sorry because I haven't had time to read the report.

There is many reports going on this morning.

So I would like to know if in the report there are some recommendations for Chile regarding the treatment of migraines, because it's something that is is on the news there every day.

Some parts of society have linked the increase of migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and other countries to a rising security.

This has also provoked narrative against immigration.

So I want to know if this has been touched by your report.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for your question.

Yes, we did deal with the problem of foreign nationals, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

We mainly we're concerned with the law 21325 on migration and aliens.

We took note of that law.

But we recommended to the State party to ensure that persons in need of international protection would have unhindered access to territory and to fair and efficient individual refugee status or international protection determination procedures in order to ensure respect for the principle of non ruffal law.

Also to guarantee compliance with due process standards and the principle of non ruffal mining expulsion procedures.

That was one of the consigns that you have raised.

And also to promote migration policy based on human rights, including the principle of non discrimination and ensuring that legislation conforms to international human rights standards.

And of course a very important subject that ties with the concern that you have raised is the need to implement awareness raising campaigns to promote a culture of respect for migrants and their rights as well as the non criminalisation of irregular migration.

That was one of the problems relating particularly to the Venezuelan population.

But we asked the State party to consider these persons not as criminalised persons, particularly as victims.

I don't know if this satisfies your question.

If not, please return.

Thank you.

And we have victim member.

Could you please unmute yourself and identify your media please.

Thank you.

I'm from West of war, Indonesia.

I want to ask you, Sorry, we can't hear you quickly.

Sorry, we can't hear me.

No, we can't hear you quite clearly, can you?

No, sorry.

I'm Victor Mambo from West Papua, Indonesia.

I would like to deliver a question for you whether on 2019 Commissioner of Human Rights as the investing of a man to visit.

Hello, Can you help me?

Hello.

Maybe I would suggest you type your question and then we will answer your question.

OK.

Thank you.

Yeah, I will type this question.

Yes, thank you.

And then now we can go to Dennis.

Please identify your media organisation as well, please.

My name is Dennis Shabral and I work for Demerara Wales online news in Guyana.

My questions are one can you say what's how are the questions that are being posed by the representatives of the of the UN committee determining?

Can you say whether, how do you react to claims by the, by the government here that the opposite that the, that you're saying that the opposition had contaminated the, the, the United States normally are on the UNHRC by virtue of the types of questions it asks?

Thank you.

Thank you for your question.

Actually, we made very clear, including our chair and the members of the of the Human Rights Committee, we made very clear with the delegation that when we ask question, we use exactly the same methodology for all states, all states party to the Covenant.

It means that we prepare the questions based on credible information, reliable resources we received.

And we explained also to the delegation that all the report and all the information we refer to in our dialogue were put on the website of the Human Rights Committee.

So it's also something the chair explained at the beginning of the dialogue and we highlighted this, this element.

So I mean, we, we use indeed public document, public information.

And the interest of the dialogue is not to accuse any, any state and and Guyana here in this case, but it's to bring the attention of the state to some of the information we we received some statistics etcetera, etcetera and to give the delegation the opportunity to provide their feedback or to provide their replies.

So that's the methodology we use with all the states.

Indeed, sometimes we receive some criticism and but it's public and transparent methodology.

So I mean we, we, we cannot say more.

I would say and I, I can understand that the state is not happy with the way we draught our questions.

But these questions reflect some concerns and serious concerns we have in terms of implementation of the covenant in the state party.

So I would say it's the the logic when the state does accept to ratify an international instrument, it also accept to be overviewed by the Human Rights Committee as the monitoring body of the Covenant.

Thank you.

I can see Dennis, do you have a follow up question?

Yes, I would like to know, broadly speaking, will Diana be punished if it does not implement any of the recommendations that have been highlighted in the in the final document?

And what are some of the sanctions that that Guyana can possibly face if it does not take any action to resolve those many issues that you've pointed out in your concluding document?

Excellent question, thank you very much.

No, we do not punish any states actually our what, what we call our concluding observations in in our concluding observations we make recommendation and the idea and the logic of these recommendations is really to guide states parties and to help state parties in their process of implementation.

We have what we call.

So when we issue the conclude observations, we have indeed these three priority recommendations and then we have a follow up mechanism.

And the follow up mechanism is precisely A mechanism that was adopted by the Human Rights Committee to try to to help the state to implement the the concluding observations.

But again, I mean the report is not a judgement adopted by a tribunal.

So we are not a tribunal.

We do not have, I would say the function or the mission to punish any state is really something that may must be taken by the states as a sort of guiding document with our concerns, with our recommendations to better implement the covenant in the territory of the state.

So I hope it answers your your question.

Thank you, Mr Gujja.

Now we have Nick from New York Times.

Nick, you have the floor.

Yeah.

Thank you for this briefing and for taking the question.

Looking up the UK and the Overseas Operations Act that you mentioned, I mean the UK delegation, I think in the course of the hearing said that this still left open the possibility of prosecution in all cases.

So I'm, I'm wondering why you, you, you don't accept that reassurance and you still feel that this is a bill that is worth repealing or significantly amending.

Secondly, when you look at the Public Order Act, the counter terrorism legislation, the Investigatory Powers Bill, I wonder if you have any wider concerns about the UK's trajectory when it comes to protection of civil rights?

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you also for for for raising this point.

So on your first question, I mean, this was a serious, this is a serious concern.

So we we put this in the conversation because it's really a serious concern.

It's not a new issue.

This impression of impunity, absence of investigation, absence of prosecution for allegations of war crime or grave violations of human rights, torture and so on committed obviously.

So we of of course we are very happy to receive this insurance from the state party.

But we, we, we would be much more happy to read to to to have you know precise information on prosecution, investigation and if needed sanction of soldiers or UK agents when they commit crimes or serious violation of human rights.

So I mean again, it's, it's good to hear that the that the state party is willing to improve the implementation of accountability, but we cannot say that we are satisfied by this general answer.

On your second question, it's really something we have, we have also shared with with the UK delegation what you call the trajectory and it's a very concerning trajectory.

I have to say especially and and a couple of members of the Human Rights Committee highlighted this in the dialogue, especially after the Brexit.

And what was an important element of concern for the Human Rights Committee is that even after the Brexit, the UK agreed, especially when the with the Windsor agreement to continue to apply fundamental rights, to continue to apply, apply some pieces of legislation or some pieces of EU framework and what in many, many sectors you have mentioned.

So the Public Order Act and so on, the counter terrorism measures indeed we we have and we are witnessing a really regressive trend and trajectory.

So important part of our dialogue with the delegation and important part of our conclude the observations aim at highlighting this very concerning trend and trajectory in many, many sectors when dealing with civil and political rights.

And I hope our message will be heard by the UK.

Thank you, Mr Guja.

Earlier we had a reporter from Indonesia where we couldn't hear him.

He typed a question and then I just read it out for you.

They he's asking whether the Human Rights Committee will have any plan to visit Wet Papa, because that was mentioned from our previous **** Commissioner, but it didn't happen.

So is there any plan that the Human Rights Committee will do something?

Thank you.

Thank you for the question.

Now we are not planning to visit Papua because we have not the the means, not the right to do such an action.

We have strong recommendations about the situation in Papua, but we are not in our mechanism.

These kind of visits are not foreseen.

If I might just add something on this is a very well known concluding observations and that the decisions by the Human Rights Committee are used by other agencies of the United Nations and the Office of the **** Commissioner to pursue engagement with the state parties concerned.

So it's to be expected that the concluding observations that we have just issued on Indonesia will be taken up by the Office of the **** Commissioner and the country task force teams there so that they could pursue and eventually an engagement with the authorities of the state party to be able to delve further into the matter, to be able to monitor the situation on the ground.

So even if it is not the the Human Rights Committee that is directly implicated on this, I'm sure that the Office of the **** Commissioner will will pursue the the concluding observations that we have issued.

Thank you.

Could could I add something also?

Yes.

And as I said before, on the 29th of March 2027, we will start a follow up procedure in which we will hear not only the state party but also the organisations of civil society to verify whether this specific recommendation on Papua has been implemented or not.

And then according to our procedure, we will qualify the, the, the, the, the grade of implementation of our recommendation.

And of course these will make part of our report that we will send to the General Assembly of the United Nations afterwards.

This is our mechanism, our follow up mechanism.

Thank you both of you.

Do we have any more follow up question or new question?

Yes, we have one.

Nabila, you have the question, but please identify your media organisation, please.

Hi.

Hi, My name is Nabila from Temple.

I'm sorry, I think I missed some of the things you said in the beginning of Indonesia's report.

I'd like to clarify something about a recent incident involving the Indonesian army and indigenous Papuan people.

So the army recently admitted that their soldiers tortured A Papuan civilian.

Was that particular incident discussed at all in the session?

Thank you.

Yes, it was discussed.

In fact, we we stated that we were we welcomed the the decision of the Supreme Court upholding the conviction of six law officers for the premeditated ****** and modulation of four Papuan people in Timika.

We nevertheless we think that the situation is not good and that this is one of the reasons why we recommend the state party to follow these kind of fight against impunity so that in three years time we will we will see if something has been done on these fields or not.

Thank you.

Any more questions?

I think we don't have any more question for now.

So Vice Chair or experts, do you have anything to add before we close the press conference?

DSP yeah, maybe something I mean, for for people who are attending this this press conference, it's extremely important when we issue Congress observations that in your own country, you try to disseminate as widely as possible and as I would say, simply as possible, our carbs in for for the broad audience, because indeed these are quite technical documents, but these documents are also adopted by the human Rights Committee to to for the people.

So, so please also as media try to disseminate as much as possible in in the most simplest way, the the the concerns of and the recommendations of the Human Rights Committee.

It it would be very appreciated.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much.

I would also to add something on the importance of the concluding observations that they've issued.

I mentioned before that they would be touched upon and followed by several UN agencies, but they would now turn to two other stakeholders that are very important to us, the first national human rights institutions.

More and more they are relying on concluding observations that we have issued on their respective counters in order to engage with the respective governments to improve the situation of human rights in their in their countries.

And the second one is civil society organisations.

So, civil society organisations are one of the backbones of the work of this committee.

We rely on the information not only for the preparation of the list of issues that we submit to state parties, but also for the preparation of the dialogue, for the conducting of the dialogue and for the follow up of the dialogue.

So the process that we have just ended, it's, it's not ended, it just started.

I mean, now that we have issued concluding observations, we are beginning the process of monitoring them.

And for that, it is absolutely essential that national human rights institution, civil society organisations and also the media keep track of what we have determined in order for them also to follow closely within the boundaries of their respective states the level of engagement of the State party and following the determinations that we have just issued.

Thank you.

Mr Thomas, do you have something?

So I believe our press conference has come to an end.

Thank you very much for your participation and have a good day.

OHCHR - Press Conference: UN Human Rights Committee's findings - 28 March 2024