During the second week of the council, on the 6th of March, we organised a joint side event with the HRHF on the “Criminalisation of Human Rights Defenders in the Russian Federation “. This followed on the heels of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Margaret Sekaggya’s report to the council and gave ample illustration to her previous report to the UNGA on the theme of “criminalisation”. It was also meant to prepare for the upcoming Universal Periodic Review on Russia in April. Read the full report here.
This was followed by another CIVICUS event on March 13th 2013 titled “Eurasia: The silencing of Human Rights Defenders in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan” which was also in preparation for the UPR Reviews of these three countries next month. The event had received considerable attention already. At the last minute one of our speakers from Uzbekistan was not allowed to leave the country and the other, well known exiled Uzbek activist Mutabar Tadzhibaeva, who had caused media attention after speaking out at the previous Human Rights Film Festival and afterwards trying to visit the Uzbek Ambassador’s residence of Gulnara Karimov (daughter of Uzbek President). She found herself facing an official complaint from the Uzbek authorities and she was sought after by the Geneva Police. Fortunately, we could settle the dispute in time. The report of the side event can be found here.
The last event we organised, which was co-sponsored by many organisations, was even more spectacular. “Bahrain two years after the uprising: progress or regress” caught the attention of the government of Bahrain’s attention. Since the panel seated Bahraini human rights activists, high level officials from the UN Human Rights Committee and the OHCHR, Bahrain, currently the spokesperson for the Arab Group, had mounted a considerable attack against the Office of the High Commissioner for participating as a panellist at this event. The US Mission called to warn us about this attempt and promised support. We did not want to cause problems for the HC and replaced the speaker with the director of FIDH. The event report can be found here.
CIVICUS was also active in plenaries and delivered the following statements on:
• Item 2: ID Annual Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 28 February 2013,
• Item 2: ID International Women’s Day, 8 March 2013
• Item 3: GD An enabling environment for civil society
• Item 4: GD Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention
• Item 6: Adoption of UPR report on Republic of Korea
• Item 6: Adoption of UPR report on Sri Lanka
• Item 6: GD protection for reprisals
• Item 7: Statement on Israeli settlements in Palestinian occupied territories