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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

Central Pais,

Vice Chair of the committee

Ms

Ti

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 will have a chance to ask them questions.

Without further delay, I would now pass on the floor to Mr Santo

Pais

Vice chair, please.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

So in the present session and the AIDS reporting procedure of the Covenant,

the committee held rich and constructive dialogues with the delegations of Chile,

Guana Indonesia,

Namibia, Serbia,

Somalia,

United, King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Most of the reviews were conducted in person with

the respective delegations present in the conference room.

Guiana

requested the review to be conducted in a

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 engagement with the committee. In

this regard,

the committee was pleased to initiate a

constructive dialogue with the allegation of Somali,

which presented its initial report

which was due for 35 years.

During the current session, delegations generally engage with frankness

and the desire to achieve a meaningful dialogue.

We have noted positive developments since the last

reviews of the state party appearing before us

while at the same time identifying areas 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 engaged in constitutional reforms

or in a substantial change of domestic legislation

and policies on very important subjects

for which the concluding observations of the committee

may be of particular relevance.

A follow up report concluding observations

relating to four countries was concluded.

The four countries were Finland,

Paraguay, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.

Regarding individual communications, we considered 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 decided on the merits,

the committee found violations

in 90 of them

due to the high number of individual communications

spending consideration by the treaty body system,

almost 2000,

of which more than 70 per cent relate to the Human Rights Committee alone.

A

strategy was agreed upon with Petitions section

to substantially increase the number of

cases considered for the upcoming sessions.

Shall 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,

inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

right to peaceful assembly, fair trial rights and judicial independence.

Nevertheless,

the priority recommendations. The committee raise

three important areas of concern.

The first one.

Gender equality and humans,

participation in political and public life and

their representation in 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 fourth 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 accountability for past human rights violations,

prohibition of torture and the cruel,

inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

asylum seekers and the principle of non rueful

REMO

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 hate crimes.

The second area of concern was protection of journalists

and the third area of concern was participation in public affairs.

We may eventually delve more on this issue If you would like to

going to the third country Somalia, we consider,

uh, this, uh, uh

country as well. It was the 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 independence of the judiciary

and the Third rights of the Child.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister. As

Santo

Pais now May we have Mister Guja to present the next two countries?

Good afternoon, the Human Rights Committee.

We've reviewed the eighth Report of the

United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland

in the

Cubs 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 rights of victims and their families 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 regard to the

the European Convention on Human Rights

and the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees

in the Cops. 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 concluded 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 concluded observations were adopted in 2000, so more than 20 years ago.

In the current concluded observations,

the committee expressed its concerns about corruption issues,

the situation of indigenous peoples in the country

and especially their legal status and rights,

questions of

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 the environment,

the fight against the 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 the 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 L

people are also including in our concrete observations.

Thank you, Miss Tigua.

Now we have Mr Gomez to present Indonesia

and Namibia. Thank you.

Thank you

and good afternoon

regarding Indonesia. Our main concerns were related in

the

first 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

delivered in 2023 upholding the conviction of

six law enforcement officers for the premeditated murder

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 party's commitment to do so.

The committee also regrets that following the acquittal of Isaac

Sat

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 Panai

in

2014.

We are also concerned on the outcomes of the

investigation into enforced disappearances of

pro democracy student protesters between

1927

1997 to 1998

and on the locations of the mass graves. Of the

estimated 500,000 victims, 500,000

victims of the anti communist massacres between

1619, 65 and 1966.

We are concerned that the decisions adopted on January 2023 on 12 cases brought

before the non judicial Resolution Team procedures

human rights violation is still not public.

Therefore, we

recommend Indonesia to guarantee the independence and impartiality

of both judicial and non judicial accountability mechanisms

to promptly investigate all human rights violations

to afford full reparation for all victims.

To ensure access to public information regarding such cases to guarantee that

mourning and commemorative activities for victims

are conducted without restrictions or threats,

and ensuring that the Commission of Human Rights Commas Hands

findings are followed through by law enforcement agencies.

The second issue, the second issue that was object of our concerns is the

persons deprived of the liberty and conditions of detention,

especially the persons with disabled with mental disabilities,

because we welcome the adoption of the Correctional System Act Law

in 2022

and we welcome

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 minister of Health.

Therefore, we recommend the State Party to harmonise laws and policies,

including local regulations,

and by laws on the detention of people with psychological disabilities,

with international human rights standards and harmonised laws and policies also

to

approach the situation as a health situation and not

as a prison situation.

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

We regret the limited information on laws and

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 recommendations have been implemented or not.

Regarding Namibia.

Well,

you know that Namibia is a wealth is a multi party democracy since its independence

and 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 Namibia.

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

We are concerned that the State Party does

not recognise communities such as the sun,

the Himba,

the O,

the O

Jima

and ova

timba

as indigenous people because they are referred

to in the laws as marginally marginalised,

not as indigenous peoples, and therefore they are deprived

of some of the rights

that correspond to these indigenous peoples, 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, uh of the

ancestral land of those indigenous peoples

are, uh are now of the property 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 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 questions, please raise your hand.

We can also take question from, um 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.

Now it's for

you. Have

Efe

Antonio.

Ok,

thank you very much.

My question is, uh, 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, uh,

recommendations for Chile regarding the treatment of migrants because it's

something that is, uh is on the news there. Uh, every day,

Uh, some parts of society have link the the increase of migrants from Venezuela,

Colombia and other countries to a rising, uh, insecurity.

This has also provoked a narrative against immigration.

So, I, 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 concerned with the law 21 3, 25 on migration and aliens.

We took note of that law,

but we recommend that 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 refoulement

also to guarantee compliance with due process standards and the principle of non

mining expulsion procedures. That was one of the concerns 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 criminalization 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 our question. If not, please return.

Thank you.

And, uh, we have, um, Victim member. Could you please amuse yourself

and identify your media? Please

thank you.

I'm

from West Pua,

Indonesia.

Uh, I want to

Sorry. We can't hear you.

Sorry. We

can

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

Hello. Sorry.

I am Victor Mamo

from West Papua Indonesia.

I would like to deliver a present for you.

Uh, about, uh,

on 2019,

Uh, Commissioner

of Human Rights.

Ask the

international government to fix it.

Hello? Can you help me?

Hello?

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

OK? Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

And then now we can go to Dennis.

Please identify your, um, media organisation as well, Please.

Sure. Uh, my name is Dennis Charo,

and I work for the

Mira Waves online news and Diana.

My questions are

one.

Can you say, uh,

what's

how are the questions that are being posed by

the representatives of the of the UN committee Determining

who,

um, can you say whether, um 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

um, the the, uh, the United States. Normally,

uh, on the UN HR C by virtue of the types of questions he asked.

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

referred 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 element. So

we use indeed, public document, public information

and the interest of the dialogue is not to accuse any state and Guyana

here in this case.

But it's to bring the attention of the state to some of the

information. 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,

but it's public and transparent methodology.

So

I

mean, we cannot say more, I would say, and 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 logic. When a 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. Um, Dennis, do you have a a follow up question?

Yes, I would like to know. Broadly speaking.

Oh,

we

will Guyana be punished?

Uh,

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, what we call our concluded observations

in our concluded observations, we make recommendations.

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 concrete 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 help the state to implement

the concrete

observations. But again,

the report is not a judgement adopted by a tribunal. Also, 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 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 question.

Thank you, Mister Guja. Now we have a nick from New York Times.

Nick, you have the floor.

Yeah. Thank you for this briefing and for taking the question.

looking at the UK, um,

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 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, um, when you look at,

the public order act, uh, the counterterrorism legislation, the investigatory

powers Bill Um, I wonder if you have any wider concerns, uh,

about the U K's trajectory when it comes to protection of civil rights.

Thank you.

Yes, 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 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 overseas.

So,

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

But we would be much more happy to have 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 it. It's good to hear that the leg

that the state party is willing to, uh,

improve the implementation of accountability.

But we cannot say that we are satisfied by, uh, this, uh, general answer

on your second question, it's really something we have. Um

we have also shared with with with the UK delegation what you call the trajectory.

And it's a very concerning trajectory, I have to say, especially,

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 with the Windsor Agreement,

to continue to apply

fundamental rights to continue to

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

counter terrorism measures.

Indeed 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 conclusion. 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.

When we couldn't hear him, he typed a question and then I just read it out for you.

Um, they,

uh he's asking whether the Human Rights Committee will have any plan to visit we

papa,

because that was mentioned from a previous high 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.

We are not planning to visit Papua because we have not

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.

Can answer

Yes,

if I might just add something on this, uh

is a very well known

concluding observations. And the decisions by the Human Rights Committee

are used by other agencies of the United

Nations and the Office of the High 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 High 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

Human Rights Committee that is directly implicated on this,

I'm sure that the Office of the High Commissioner will

pursue

the concluding observations that we have issued

a

venture.

Thank you. Could I add something also?

Yes.

And as I said before,

on 29 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 of

Papua has been implemented or not, and then, according to our procedure, we will

qualify 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.

Um, do we have any more, uh, follow up question or new questions?

Yes, we have one.

Nabila,

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

Hi.

Hi. My name is Nabila from Temple.

Um, 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 stated that we were We welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court

upholding the conviction of six law officers for the

premeditated murder and mutilation 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 this kind of fight against impunity.

So that in three years time we will

see if something has been done on this field or not.

Thank you.

Any more questions?

I think we don't have any more questions for now. So,

vice chair or experts,

Do you have anything to add before we close the press conference?

DS P.

Yes, maybe something

for people who are attending this press conference.

It is extremely important when we issue Cong

observations that in your own country you try

to disseminate as widely as possible and,

as I would say simply as possible, our

CS for the broad audience. Because indeed these are quite technical ducks.

But these documents are also adopted by the

Human Rights Committee to for the people.

So please, also as media try to disseminate as much as possible in

the most simplest way

the concerns and the recommendations of the Human Rights Committee,

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

issued I mentioned before

that they will be touched upon and followed by several UN agencies,

but

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 countries 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 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 institutions,

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 in

following the the terminations that we have just issued.

Thank you,

Mr Gomez. 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