UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OHCHR Press conference: Human Rights Committee (CCPR)

Good afternoon.

Thank you for joining us today. Um, to the

UN Human Rights Committee press conference.

The committee today is going to present

its findings on six countries including Ecuador,

France, Greece,

Iceland, Pakistan and Turkey.

Being with us today on the podium, we have M

Tania Abdul Roo,

chairperson of the committee.

Mr Jose Santos,

Pais

Vice Chair

and Mr Carlos Gomez. Committee members,

they will first walk us through their findings,

including their recommendations and concerns.

Then in the second part of the press conference, we will take some questions

without further delay. I will pass on the floor to madam chair, please.

Thank you very much, Vivian. Good afternoon. And thank you for being here.

I will provide you some general information about the

work of the Human Rights Committee in this session.

Uh, under our reporting procedure, we held

constructive dialogues with the delegation of Ecuador, France, Greece, Iceland,

also, Pakistan and Turkey.

In all our reviews, we have noted positive developments,

identify areas of concerns and made recommendations.

All six concluding observations will be

in our website soon. This afternoon,

uh, we adopted a list of issues. Uh, of Latvia also sees uh, more list of issues.

Priority report,

uh, to Benin, Cameroon, Monaco, Poland, Slovenia and South Africa.

Uh, about the individual communications. Uh,

the draught related to

308 communications.

287 were decided on the merits. So

10 of them were declared inadmissible.

Uh, 11 communications were discontinued

regarding the communication decided on the merits,

the committee found violations in

287 of them.

The committee, uh,

just, uh, adopted a total of 303 180 decisions.

This means that this year, thanks to the measures

taken by the committee to deal with this high number of communications before,

uh, the committee was able to adjudicate 446 cases in 2024.

we adopted also the progress report of follow up

to views concerning individual communications regarding to Colombia,

Ecuador, Finland, Greece,

New Zealand, Sweden, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.

And also, um,

we are, uh, working on the next, uh, session of the Human Rights Committee

in March. Uh,

that will be

reviewed period reports about Albania, Burkina Faso, Mongolia, Montenegro,

IT and Zimbabwe.

The committee will also adopt, uh, list of officials and list, uh, to

Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Mauritius,

New Zealand and Samoa.

Thank you, Vivian.

Thank you, madam Chair. And then maybe we can have Mr Central Pa

to start presenting the countries. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

So we will concentrate on one part of our

activities relating to the review of state parties reports.

I would like to say at the outset that six countries have reviewed

all the delegations engaged with the committee in a fair spirit and

trying to divest their their abilities to answer our multiple questions.

Having said that, I would address now Iceland, Pakistan and France.

I will begin with Iceland.

A very curious

event happened for the committee's review

because exactly on the week that the review of the state Party was to be conducted,

the government fell.

But nevertheless,

the delegation wanted to be present and was

present in the room and answer very satisfactory.

All our questions

we did concentrate on several issues. I would just highlight three of them,

the first

concerning the need to reinforce the anti corruption measures.

There is a particular large corruption case

abroad,

but involving Iceland companies. The fish rod

affair and it seems that the affair is taking very long in courts.

One of the main reasons is because it requires international co operation

that is taking quite a long time

to be provided to the state party. But we ask them

to be able to

and the proceedings as

quickly as possible in order

for the public to see the results of the criminal investigation.

The second area is the

freedom of expression of journalists because

in

the sequence of these famous case corruption case

that I alluded to,

several

journalists were prosecuted in court

and we wanted to be sure that criminal investigations

is not used to hamper the activity of journalists

and to a

freedom

of press,

but has indeed some genuine

grounds to be conducted. And finally

we address also the problems relating to traffic in

human beings because we had reports that migrant workers,

particularly those in

specific years like construction, tourism, domestic service

vulnerable to traffic

and for labour exploitation, and that women and Children

are vulnerable to traffic for sexual exploitation

and some of these are probably the three main areas

that I would pick up for. Iceland

now moving to Pakistan,

Pakistan presented the second periodic report. The last review had been in

2017. So seven years ago

we covered quite a lot of issues in this country. First,

the full incorporation of the covenant in the domestic legal order,

which has not happened yet.

Second, to effectively enforce anti

corruption legislation,

strengthen the mechanisms and procedures for combating corruption,

namely in the judiciary, military and relating to public officials,

and to guarantee equality between men and women

and to combat patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes.

Increasing

full

participation of women in political, economic and public life,

notably in decision making positions,

and also

to prevent combat eradicator forms of gender based violence,

which seems to have some prevalence in the country.

Violence against women particularly,

and prevent also harmful

practises against women and girls and to enforce the anti

honour killing laws that are still prevalent in the country.

We also address

the issue reinforces appearance as well as torture and extrajudicial

and summary executions

allegedly perpetrated by the military, intelligence agencies and the police,

including Asia territorially so outside the country itself

against human rights defenders, journalists, students, political activists,

members of ethnic and religious minorities,

public officials and political opponents.

We also address the question of slavery, servitude and trafficking persons

and

the use of control lists and measures to arbitrarily

restrict the freedom of movement of dissenting persons,

journalists, activists, members of ethnic minorities and human rights defenders

leading to the confiscation of their passports,

detention and monitoring of their movement.

We also were concerned about overly broad power

to authorities to access and retain personal data

and to share it with foreign governments

without judicial authorization, sufficient oversight,

reports of the increase of surveillance measures and mechanisms in the state

to intercept calls and text messages of citizens,

and even the installation of a mass surveillance system,

which is supposed to in co operation with telecom munition companies to

supposed to intercept data and telecom records of up to

4 million users without any regulatory oversight or judicial authorization.

There is also an increase of discrimination, hate speech, hate crimes,

mob violence,

harassment and intimidation against religious minorities, in particular,

Christian Hammadi,

Hindus, Shia and Sikhs,

and the youths Indiscriminate blasphemy laws.

Blanket bans on assemblies are frequently imposed.

There is a legal and policy framework

and procedures governing the activities of national

and international non governmental organisations

and only restricting the exercise of the right to freedom of association,

introducing cumbersome and costly annual registration procedures,

restrictive regulations on foreign

funding

and providing authorities with extensive monitoring powers.

There is also a persistent practise of

ducking girls who belong to religious minorities

and forcing them to marry regardless of their age and the prevailing law

and convert to Islam under the threat of violence, which results in rape,

trafficking

and other forms of sexual and gender based violence against these girls,

and to promote the participation representation of women and persons

belonging to minorities in the public and political life.

We highlighted three

urgent priorities for the state party to consider

the first one

relating to the Antiterrorism Act,

which allows the police to search and arrest individuals without a warrant,

permits confessions made in police custody as evidence in court,

and imposes short investigation periods and trial deadlines

and even applies to Children.

Then the second area of urgent concern is the full independence,

impartiality and safety of judges and prosecutors,

in particular

by using the constitutional legislative framework

on the independence of the judiciary,

and we have heard

that the constitutional amendment has been just approved,

which raises in our view, significant concerns for the independence,

both of the judiciary and the public prosecution.

And finally,

the third area of urgent concern for us

is the arbitrary restrictions in law and practise on freedom of expression,

online and offline.

The broad and alarmingly frequent use of Internet shutdowns,

blocking of websites and online resources and banned on social media platforms,

sometimes signing very young

Internet users.

I now move to France,

France. We also had quite a number of issues to deal with the first one

relating to the implementation of the committee's views,

because the

official position of the government is that our views are just

advisory opinions not to. They are

not to be seen as mandatory we consider otherwise,

and none of our views have been so far implemented by the State Party.

We're also concerned about the frequent racial profiling

in the context of identity checks by law enforcement officials,

the

use of administrative police measures on the basis

of secret information to deprive persons suspected of involvement

in terrorist activities of their rights under the covenant,

including the rights to freedom of movement and association

and the right to privacy,

persistence of prison overcrowding and the poor material

conditions in many places of deprivation of liberty,

particularly in the overseas territories, including

administrative detention centres.

the need to strengthen efforts to ensure

access to adequate housing in dignified conditions

and to put an end to the heel treatment faced by asylum seekers and irregular

migrants in border areas in particular on the Franco British border and in Mayotte,

providing for alternative measures to administrative detention.

Reports that foreign nationals, including unaccompanied Children, are

regularly forcibly returned

in an expeditious manner to the French Italian border

without having legal access to appropriate asylum procedure,

including information on their rights

and the right to challenge the measures imposed on them.

A significant concern on the independence of the judiciary

and the public prosecution, particularly the public prosecution,

which still is under the direct supervision of the Minister of Justice Gardai.

So

the fact that

surveillance of activities have significantly increased permitting

under the new law on surveillance

on surveillance,

which in our view don't respect sufficiently

the principles of legality, proportionality and necessity,

namely for the use of drones equipped with cameras

by law enforcement agencies

and on the basis of the decision by the

prefect with a very broad scope of application,

including at demonstrations,

the new the need to review legislation,

recusing

the weighing of conspicuous religious symbols,

reviewing its necessity and proportionality,

and refraining from extending the scope of restrictions,

including to amateur

and professional sports.

Due to the discriminatory effect in practise

and the impact of these measures on members of religious minorities,

in particular Muslim

women and girls.

The acts of August 2021

consolidate in respect for the principle of the Republic,

the so called Separatism Act

which reportedly has been used to dissolve civil society organisations,

including those promoting freedom of belief and non discrimination.

The Law on Separatism introduces a so called Republican commitment contract

as a condition for receiving public funding

under which associations can have public funding withdrawn for

failing to comply with a legally vague

definition of republican commitment,

and that judicial

appeals can only be lodged after funding has been withdrawn

and allegations that the exercise of the

right to peaceful assembly has been hampered

by the increased number of arbitrary controls and the rest have demonstrated,

including in areas close to where demonstrations are held

and by the increased number of demonstrations banned by the authorities

on the basis of an alleged threat to public order,

including recent demonstrations in support of the Palestinian people,

allegations of excessive use of force

during law enforcement operations at demonstrations

both in mainland France and in the overseas territories,

and also that in the context of demonstrations,

incidents have been reported for instance, in New Caledonia since May 2024

against the draught Constitutional Law

on the mythification of the electoral body,

some which are

turned violent,

and the law agencies have reportedly used excessive use of force

as a result of which a number of people,

including 10 indigenous

cacks and two

gendarmes, have lost their lives

and hundreds of others have been insured.

And

concerns about the lack of effective political participation

and consultation measures for the indigenous

can

people

with a view to

obtaining their free prior and informed consent to the

adoption of laws or other measures affecting their rights.

The three urgent priority recommendations for the state

party is to revise the legal framework,

doctrines and operational procedures governing the use

of force by law enforcement officials,

including the use of firearms and in intermediate weapons.

This proportionately affect members of certain minority groups, in

particular people of African descent

and of Arab origin, indigenous peoples and migrants

and the second area of concern.

Since the Hamas attacks in October 2023

a number of political,

trade union and association leaders have

been prosecuted for apologising for terrorism,

an offence under article 421

to 5 of the Criminal code,

which prohibits directly provoking acts of terrorism

or public apologising for such acts,

even

when such an apology is merely recall the

context in which the attacks were committed.

And there has been a significant increase in the number of abuse defamation

proceedings known as slaps,

aimed at intimidating,

silencing and financially exhausting human

rights defenders and trade unionists.

And finally,

notwithstanding the revisions made to the National Law Enforcement Scheme

in 2021

concerning the framework for the use of intimidate happens and permissible meals,

the committee expressed its serious concern about their use in practise,

often outside the regulatory and legal framework,

regularly causing serious injuries,

including during recent demonstrations against pension reforms in 2023.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Santos. Pais.

Now we will have Mr Gomez to talk about Ecuador, Greece and Turkey.

Thank you very much. And good afternoon,

everybody.

Thank you for your presence here in the room and online and especially thank you

very much for your interest in the task of our committee and in human rights.

I'm going to talk. First of all, about the results of our

examination or review on the state of Turk,

the first big issue.

The first concern is related to the independence of the judiciary.

Because after the

2016 coup d'etat attempt,

4664 judges and prosecutors were dismissed.

It means that 30% more or less of the judiciary.

The Council of Judges and Prosecutors,

which is the governing body of the judiciary,

is composed by 13 members. None of them are appointed by the judiciary itself.

And after the

coup

d'etat,

more than

10,000 new judges and prosecutors have been appointed. It

is not clear that these new appointments

have been done following criteria of merit and capacity.

Therefore,

our recommendations at this point were

that new appointments of judges and prosecutors

follow international standard as established by different United Nations texts

and that the victims of these massive

dismissals have access to effective remedies,

including judicial review.

The second big issue in Turkey was

in Turkey. Excuse me was the anti terrorism measures.

There is a problem with the definition of terrorism because it is too broad

and it allows its use against opposition members

and human rights defenders,

journalists, teachers, etc.

The systematic denial of the terrorism of the judicial

guarantees in terrorism related cases is also a big problem

and also the lack of execution or implementation of very

important binding rulings of the European Court of Human Rights

and therefore, our recommendations on this issue of Anti-terrorism

is to provide persons charged with terrorism related offences

with appropriate legal and procedural safeguards,

and second,

clarifying and narrowing

the legal definition of terrorism.

According to the principle of certainty stated in our Covenant

And the third big issue in Turkey was the freedom of association

because

according to our sources,

1500 associations have been closed

in the last few years, including trade unions,

human rights organisations, lawyers,

associations and educational institutions.

We are worried also that these closures were carried out under vague criteria

in or under a state of emergency decrease laws without judicial oversight.

All this has had a chilling effect that deterred individuals from serving,

and executive boards

of these associations are becoming its members.

Therefore, our recommendation here

is to bring legislation and practise in full compliance with our covenant.

The second country I'm going to refer to is Ecuador.

Generally speaking,

we have found that the legal framework in Ecuador is adapted to the requirement

of human rights and to the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.

But in practise, these laws are not implemented. So there is a big back,

a big gap

between the legal framework and the practise. The reality of human rights.

The first big issue here in Ecuador was the state of emergency because

they have been.

The country has been through six years of state of emergency

with information of violations of human rights such as arbitrary detentions,

torture, especially during 2024

on uh and and this state of emergency of

emergency are justified on the basis of internal unrest

that has been considered non constitutional.

There is also a lack of implementation of

the judgments of the Constitutional Court on this issue

and we are worried also because only in from

January to May 2024 35,000 detentions were done.

Of course, most of the people were after freedom,

but nevertheless we think that it is a very high

number of detentions.

So our recommendation is to restrict the recurrence to state of emergency

and that the measures taken under the state of emergency must be proportionate.

The second big issue in Ecuador is the violence against women,

the concerns and that the frequency of femicide and violence against women

and the low rate of conventions, convictions for these criminal offences

and the lack of protection

services for these women.

We are also worried about the under reporting,

particularly particularly among Afro descendants and girls of rural areas,

and we are also concerned about the insufficiency of the

allowances foreseen in the law but insufficient for orphans.

Therefore, we have recommended the State party

to intensify its efforts to eradicate violence against women

to ensure that all cases of violence against women

are duly investigated and that victims have effective

remedies and they have access to full reparation

to train public officials, including judges,

prosecutors, lawyers and law enforcement officers,

on how to deal with cases of violence against women

and to guarantee the payment of allowances to girls and boys.

Victims of this kind of violence

enough to cover their needs irrespective of the number of the number of siblings

and the third big issue in Ecuador is related to

the person deprived of the liberty and the detention conditions.

Our concerns are the overcrowding in prisons

and the high rate of preventive prisoners,

the difficult conditions within the penitentiary

system which promote acts of violence

and the worsening of these conditions.

Since the militarization of the penitentiary system in 2024

uh, we are aware that 600 violent deaths have occurred between

2018 and

2023 including two directors of penitentiary centres.

Consequently, the state party should reduce overcrowding in prisons,

should reduce the rate of preventive prisoners,

and should guarantee that all persons deprived of this

of their liberty can have access to health services,

food, water and rehabilitation services.

The state party should also prevent excessive use of force against prisoners,

investigate all cases of death inside the prisons

and take all necessary

measures to ensure that the army follows

all human rights during their activity within

the

the penitentiary services.

Finally,

the state party should adopt judicial and disciplinary measures against members

of the staff in prisons responsible for acts of corruption.

The third country

I am going to refer to is Greece our concern. The third one of our concerns is the use

of force by police against peaceful protesters and journalists,

including the use of tear gas, chemical irritants,

water cannons and stun grenades, causing serious injuries

and also the lack of investigation of these facts by the Ombudsman office.

Therefore,

the state party on this issue should ensure that

allegations of excessive use of force are duly investigated

and

the state party should also take measures to prevent and

eliminate the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials.

The second big issue in Greece was the treatment of aliens including migrants,

refugees and asylum seekers.

Our concerns are the multiple

reports of pushbacks at Greece, seas and land borders

in violation of the principle of non refoulement,

the excessive use of force, ill treatment,

incommunicado detention and lack of procedural guarantees.

In the context of these pushback operations,

the detention of migrants in detention centres

without any real prospect of return,

and the lack of investigation of PUSHBACKS

and therefore Greece should

first cease the procedure of collective expulsion of alliance.

Second,

ensure that the principle of non refoulement is respected in law and in practise.

Third,

ensure that excessive use of force is not applied to migrants and asylum seekers

and finally affirm the independence of

the monitoring mechanisms already existing.

And finally, the third issue is on human rights defenders because we are concerned

of an increasingly hostile environment towards human rights defenders,

especially in the field of the protection of the migrants'

human rights.

The state party should therefore

enhance the efforts to combat all kinds of violence against human rights defenders

and ensure that all human rights

violations against them are promptly investigated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Gomez. And now we can open the floor for questions.

We have one, in the room. Yes, and as a FP.

Thank you very much for

the insightful questions challenging ones. Let's see if I can answer them

first on views.

Hm.

I will not reveal the countries that have similar approaches. France

But we consider that the fact that all of these countries have

from their own free will ratify the optional protocol to the government

implies

that the fact that individuals under their jurisdiction present complaints

to the Human Rights Committee

means that the decision of the Human Rights Committee should be abided

by those states

because otherwise there will be no effective remedies

for the persons the authors of these communications.

So the state party refers to the fact that they

are.

They have their willingness

to discuss to come to the committee to present their submissions

to the complaints. But in the end, when the decision is issued,

the state budget does not follow

it.

So the question is,

what's the purpose of having this type of mechanism for individuals?

Complaints if in the end, nothing happens

for the second question that you used

use of force by law enforcement officials. But the fact is that there has been

considerable redrafting

and unifying of the use of firearms by

gendarmerie, police and others.

But the

practise has shown

that the use of firearms and intermediate weapons have

given cause to severe consequences for mainly demonstrators and others

with a lot of people being blind, people having lost their arms

and the people have been severely injured.

And

the

our concern is that the use of firearms should

be subjected to the principle of legitimate defence.

They

should be used only as a last resort and not for the control of manifestations.

And one of the things that we have not seen

across the many significant

3 to 4 years in France,

where there were severe public demonstrations against several

government policies, is that we have not seen on the part of the police any type of de

escalation

type of approach to controlling manifestations,

but the

the position of confrontation with manifestations,

with the consequences that most or many of these manifests

have been prosecuted

for terrorist purposes

and violation of public order when sometimes

they were just expressing

their

right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.

So that's the reason why we thought that this consent should be raised

before the state party and I would just like to highlight

that The purpose of these recommendations is to allow the state party to

reflect and to see whether there are

possibilities for improving the way

they fulfil their obligations under the covenant.

Thank you.

Yes, Anne, please.

Unfortunately, not

so. There were other cases of use of firearms, for instance, for conducting

drivers in cars. They have several persons that were killed

because they refused to stop at

police controls. And the only answer that the police had was to shut the people down.

I mean,

in other country, we consider that using a firearm would be the last resort,

and in some cases there was not even any kind of danger for the police officer.

So that's why we consider that the use of firearms is a very serious

matter. It should be looked into upon

into it. Each time a police officer uses a firearm.

As in many other countries,

there is an immediate investigation on the use of the firearms.

It is investigation if necessary.

The police offer is subject to disciplinary and criminal proceedings.

But in France we don't see that we see a kind of impunity of law enforcement officials

when using their firearms, as if there is any presumption

that they have used their firearms according to the regulations.

And in our view, that's not the case.

We can take some question from, um, from zoom from online.

If you have a question, please raise your hands.

I indeed have a written question.

Um, about Ecuador.

As the committee has mentioned in the report,

the existing government has declared a state of

emergency quite frequently on local and national level,

and that has sparked debates about

the governmental outreach and balance between security and civil liberties.

does the committee agree with that?

And then could you please explain the consequences of these states of emergency?

Thank you for

the question. Yet we don't agree about the

this excessive use of the state of emergency.

And in fact, this has been one of the main

concerns of the committee

because there is always a risk of violation of human rights

when the state of emergency is declared.

Therefore,

one of our recommendations is to restrict the use of this state of emergency,

especially taking into account

that their own Constitutional court

has shown that way.

The Constitutional Court has told the government

to be very restrictive in the use of state of emergency because if you say

you said, we have seen

that they have been living six years in state of emergency. So,

in such a situation, of course, the violations of human rights can be

more important and the investigation of them becomes more difficult.

And therefore, yes, we recommend the

Ecuador, the State Party

to be very restrictive in the application of states

of emergency and be very vigilant in the in the

implementation of them

and especially to respect the principle

of proportionality when limiting human rights.

Thank you, Mr Gomez.

And I can see

EF

Isabel, you have the floor.

Uh,

good afternoon. Uh, I am Isabel

Saco.

I work for the Spanish news Agency.

I would like to ask on the, um, situation of corruption, uh,

of the judiciary system in Ecuador that you described in your in the report

And

how? Um I I read, uh, many, uh, worrying, uh,

details on, uh

uh on on the report on this issue. So I would like to to ask you What do you think is

or if you think that the the measures

described by the by the government by the delegation

which came here to Geneva,

uh, are in the good, uh,

uh, path

to to begin to solve this this situation,

situation to tackle the corruption in in the judiciary.

Please. Thank you.

Thank you for the question. Yes.

Corruption of the judiciary is one of the most serious situations in

foreign country because it endangers the rule of law. I mean,

if the power is in charge of the fight against corruption is itself corrupted, then

I mean,

we are in a very delicate situation and

that's precisely what is happening in Ecuador.

Uh, so what would be the the the the solution to this problem?

I think the solution is simply to

to

apply the law

because the judiciary in in in Ecuador is in a very delicate situation.

On one hand, there are

there is information according to which there is

a certain degree of corruption in the judiciary.

But there is information according to which

also,

judges are being killed by the organised crime.

So you can imagine how the the judiciary is fragile in Ecuador.

So I think that the only solution is to reinforce the judiciary

and, uh, and fight against the corruption of the

the judiciary from the inside of the judiciary with the

the judges themselves. Because the majority of the judges

are not corrupted, I'm sure.

And they will undertake these tasks and they will

fulfil their obligations in this sense if they feel

that they have the support of the other powers of the state.

So I hope the committee hopes that maybe

this recommendation and what the committee has done

with this review may may, uh, do to to the,

uh to the judges in Ecuador to the conclusion that they

also have the support of our committee to undertake this task.

Thank you, Mr Carlos.

There is a question on

Pakistan.

In late October, there are two transgender women were stabbed to death in their home

in northwest Pakistan, and then

three men were arrested and confessed to the killing.

And it seems there is a rising

attack against transgender individual reported in the country

in recent years. So what's the committee's recommendation on the issue?

Thank you.

I think that one of the main problems of

Pakistan is the pervasive influence of religion on many

aspects, not only of public policy but of civil

engagement of people with one another.

There are several cases of discrimination against

I told about religious minorities and others,

but also on people who might be seen as different from others like, for instance,

LGBTI people and trans transit persons.

Our position is clear.

The principle of non discrimination

implies that everyone is equal before the law and should enjoy

the same rights and have the same obligations as anyone.

The fact that a person has a different

sexual orientation or identity, it's a question of their own

privacy

and should not be infringed upon by others.

In this case,

the fact that it is a murder

and the fact that it is a murder with an aggravated circumstances on the fact of the

sexual identity of the person makes even a grievous case.

What we would expect is that the state party prosecutes and punishes severely

this type of conducts by people, whatever their motivations are,

because this is indeed a violation of the rule of law

and the

possibility for people to engage in the public space

in a fair manner. And in this particular instance,

the fact that the people were murdered in their own homes, it's even more grievous

because there is an invasion

of their privacy in their home, and so it would be even more severely punished

that would be my answer to the question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Santos

Pais. Um,

there is a question on turkey.

Um, the draught amendments to Turkey's anti

espionage law is now pending a vote in the country's, um, um,

Parliament's General Assembly.

What would happen? According to the committee?

Uh, if the draught amendments

are, um, approved and adopted,

how does it affect the work of human rights defenders,

journalists and other civil society?

Thank you for the question.

Yes, I think it can affect the right of human rights defenders and journalists,

etcetera.

So I think the the, uh

what has to be done is to be very vigilant. We know that

there have been some very important change recently

in the whole legislation of Turkey Turkey.

Excuse me,

and I think,

yes, it can be affected by this.

The human rights of all these different

kind of of of human rights defenders, journalists, teachers can be affected. And so

I mean, the only thing is to be vigilant and to try to use first the internal,

uh, mechanism that that exist because, of course,

in Turkey there are judges in the Constitutional court,

and of course,

these all these instruments have to be used by the people affected by these

by their new dispositions. Yes.

Do we have more questions? Um, E. Either in the room or online.

It seems everyone is quite happy with the presentations.

So, uh, there are no more questions. So, Madam Chair, would you like to conclude?

Uh,

no.

OK,

Ok,

thank you for this, um, opportunity to show how the committee works.

We are, um,

completely happy to provide you all the information we have. And

our commitment for human rights, uh,

is at

the most high level here with this country.

So you already have the cops online,

and you will be,

in in this, uh, more, uh,

security position to know our work and how we are concerned about this country.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. All of you. And the press conference now comes to an end.

Thank you for your participation.

OHCHR Press conference: Human Rights Committee (CCPR) - 07 November 2024