Geneva, 18 March 2016 – The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) in co-operation with CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation and FIDH hosted a side event at the 31st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on 16 March 2016, focusing on Syria and Iraq, entitled “The Human Rights Council Role in Protecting Human Rights Defenders.”
The meeting was introduced by Khalid Ibrahim, GCHR Co–Director, who stressed the need to protect human rights defenders by making use of the full gamut of UN mechanisms available. He introduced the speakers who focused on the situations in Syria and Iraq.
Anwar Al-Bunni, a prominent Syrian human rights defender and lawyer, talked about the imminent risk facing defenders in Syria and about the lives lost in trying to provide accurate information from the ground for the international community. Sadly, he said, the international community had failed in its task of providing protection to those who are risking their lives every day to provide the necessary information.
Melanie Gingell, lawyer and member of the GCHR Advisory Board, spoke about a recent mission to Iraqi Kurdistan, which focused on women human rights defenders. She spoke about the specific challenges faced by women defenders based on the special focus of their work and how it is often directed at highly sensitive issues that engage notions of family, honour and gender relations. She noted “the impressive work that has been accomplished in Iraqi Kurdistan in relation to women’s participation and legislation on discrimination against women.” But she also mentioned the lack of support for independent human rights work and said that those who did engage in this work faced serious threats to their personal security.
Nicholas Agostini, Representative to the United Nations for FIDH, defended the record of the Human Rights Council, setting out the resolutions and declarations that had been made in support of women human rights defenders. He said that there had been good work completed on Syria but much more needed to be done for Iraq.
The meeting generated a good round of questions from the states parties in attendance. In conclusion, GCHR took this opportunity to call for the release of Syrian human rights defenders Razan Zaitouneh, Wael Hamada, Samira Al-Khalil and Nazem Hamadi, who have been forcibly disappeared since December 2013 because of their fearless work in defending human rights, as well as prominent human rights lawyer, Khalil Ma’touq, who was arrested along with his friend and assistant, Mohammed Thatha, on 2 October 2012.
