The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and partners held four successful and well-attended side events during the 39th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), which took place at the Palais des Nations, in Geneva in September. There were two side events on Saudi Arabia, one on Yemen and one on Bahrain, in which the Special Rapporteur on the freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, participated.

YEMEN: GCHR and partners including Mwatana for Human Rights organised a side event at the UN HRC on Accountability and the need to end impunity for human rights violations in Yemen on 10 September 2018. The event was co-sponsored by CIVICUS, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), FIDH, International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Reporters without Borders (RSF), PEN International, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights. The event on Yemen was the first one at the UNHRC and the room was packed. The meeting discussed the range of human rights violations during the humanitarian crisis and called for the renewal of the Group of Eminent Experts (GEE) on Yemen, which was established for a one-year term in September 2017, when the HRC passed resolution number 36/31 to investigate human rights violations of the past several years. The GEE was subsequently renewed at the end of the HRC’s 39^th session.

Moderator Antoine Madelin, FIDH’s International Advocacy Director, talked about recent violations, including the Houthis’ arrest of human rights defender Kamal Al-Shawish, a researcher for Mwatana, in Hodeidah on 14 August 2018. (Fortunately, on 23 September, he was freed.) He also talked about the arms trade and the fact that the United States, United Kingdom, and France are providing the Saudi-led Coalition with weapons that continue to kill civilians in Yemen.

Radhya Al-Mutawakel, Co-founder and Chairperson of Mwatana and a new member of GCHR’s Advisory Board, said the GEE issued a “very strong and important report regarding human rights violations by all parties to the conflict in Yemen.” However, she said, “Until now parties to the conflict in Yemen still don’t care enough and our role is to make them care.” She added that “accountability is not only a way to protect civilians now and in the future but, it is also a very important way toward peace. Impunity is one of the disasters that keeps any war always fresh.”

Al-Mutawakel noted that 12 journalists continue to be detained by the Houthis since 2015 and other journalists have been forcibly disappeared or sentenced to death. President Hadi’s government and the Saudi-led and Emirati-led coalition and different forces and armed groups loyal to them have also detained numerous journalists, including a director of Aden TV, Sabri Abdulbari, who has been forcibly disappeared since June 2018. A number of journalists also received threats and faced hate campaigns. Aljazeera’s office was closed in Taiz at the beginning of 2018 and “Akhbar Al-Yom” newspaper was burned in Aden. She also noted that Yemen is mostly closed to international journalists who can’t get near Sana’a.

Al-Mutawakel also noted the difficulties human rights defenders, including those from Mwatana face. Mwatana’s team is made up of 70 people, mostly field researchers and lawyers working in the field in 20 governorates across Yemen. Aside from Al-Shawish, other members of Mwatana’s team have been detained by all parties to the conflict, including in Taiz, Aden and Al-Baidha. Al-Mutawakel noted that it took four months to reach the UN HRC because she left in June and could not return to Yemen due to the dangers. She said, “On our way out of Yemen we faced two detention experiences that was combined with huge hate campaigns through social media with a lot of lies and incitement. So, going back will only mean that we won’t be able to go out again.”

Miriam Puttick, Head of MENA Programmes for Ceasefire, noted that the GEE report confirms what NGOs “have been saying for years, which is that all parties to the conflict are engaging in widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including acts that likely amount to war crimes.” She further stated that “International scrutiny of the situation in Yemen is absolutely essential and the report plays a major role in strengthening the voices calling for accountability and an end to the violations taking place.” She noted the proliferation of armed parties to the conflict, all of whom “seem to be operating with complete contempt for international law.” Puttick concluded by noting that international monitors including the GEE can’t visit all the governorates, which is “why it’s important that civil society organisations like Mwatana are given the space needed to carry out the work that they do. They are by far producing the most comprehensive, detailed and rigorous monitoring information that surpasses almost anything else that is available.”

Vito Todeschini, ICJ Associate Legal Adviser, condemned the international community for its failure to adequately address the conflict in Yemen, including when the UN Security Council failed to refer war crimes to the International Criminal Court. GCHR Executive Director Khalid Ibrahim said, “Seven million Yemeni civilians, women, children and men continue to be exposed to unlimited pain and suffering. Cholera and risk of famine in addition to the lack of public freedoms are the norms across Yemen.” He said that civic space almost doesn’t exist and all sides of the conflict must respect the work of human rights defenders and release all illegally detained citizens.

A good measure of the collective impact of NGOs is that following the closing meeting of the 39th session, the UN HRC issued resolution 21, which renewed the mandate of the GEE to investigate violations of all parties in Yemen. GCHR was among 55 NGOs who called in a joint letter for the mandate of the group to be renewed and strengthened through the enhancement of its reporting structure and strengthening language on accountability, as a matter of priority.

GCHR also signed a petition calling to end Saudi Arabia and UAE’s Smearing of Kamel Jendoubi, a Tunisian human rights defender who is a member of the GEE on Yemen. See: http://www.npwj.org/node/15643

BAHRAIN: A side event on the Repression of Freedoms in Bahrain was organised jointly with ADHRB on 12 September 2018. Susan Wilding from CIVICUS, who moderated the event, cited the importance of getting activists from different countries to attend the HRC, in order to drag the Council’s attention to the human rights situation. Yet Khalid Ibrahim, GCHR Executive Director, pointed out that not a single Bahraini activist was in attendance for the HRC’s 39^th session. Participants noted that Bahrain should be denied a seat on the UN HRC.

Special Rapporteur Voule stated that over the past two years, five press releases and 16 communications had been issued to Bahrain by the UN Special Procedures to which Bahrain had provided 14 detailed answers. He noted, however, that despite this act of co-operation, the incidence of human rights violations in Bahrain had increased. Voule concluded his remarks by stating that in light of the upcoming November parliamentary election, he called on Bahraini authorities to respect the people’s rights of political participation and to repeal the amendment to the electoral law.

Kristy Brimelow, the Chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee, noted that Bahrain has refused visits from UN Special Procedures and independent NGOs, as well as imposing travel bans on Bahraini HRDs. Bahrain had responded to criticism by releasing a report in September 2018, which placed emphasis on the Ombudsman’s office and the National Human Rights Institution but Brimelow questioned the independence of these institutions from the government.

Ibrahim also mentioned the hunger strike carried out in front of the Bahraini embassy in London by Ali Mushaima, the son of Hassan Mushaima, who is imprisoned in Bahrain. He indicated that the upcoming parliamentary elections on 24 November were not going to be free or fair. He presented GCHR’s report on Bahrain to the participants: Violations persist in Bahrain as human rights defenders and journalists remain behind bars, under threat, or in exile. For more details, see also ADHRB’s report on the event.

SAUDI ARABIA: GCHR organised two side events on Saudi Arabia including “Challenging Gender-based Discrimination: WHRDs are Alone and Facing Serious Threats for Claiming Their Rights & Demanding Equality in Saudi Arabia”, on 14 September. Participants discussed the recent crackdown in Saudi Arabia, and the need to enact and consolidate the international mechanisms and concerned bodies to ensure protection and support for women human rights defenders in the MENA region, especially in Saudi Arabia. Dr. Hala Al-Dosari, a GCHR Advisory Board member and an award winning WHRD, commented: “We are currently witnessing massive waves of arrests… the detention of women activists was the worst, as it portrays exceptional cruelty and vindictiveness. The state orchestrated a wide-scale trial by media immediately following their arrests, and accused them of treason – the worst charge anyone can be implicated with.” Al-Dosari highlighted that, “The International response, though of invaluable significance, has been weak and inconsistent, and the rewards of the state continue in terms of continuous arms sales or lack of solidarity with the countries who spoke against the arrests or with the activists themselves.”

GCHR also organised a side event on “Saudi Arabia’s 3^rd Cycle UPR: A refusal to reform” with ADHRB and other partners on 11 September. In advance of the Kingdom’s UPR in 2018, GCHR, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), ADHRB and the Observatory for Human Rights released in March 2018 a UPR submission on the situation of human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia. To download the report please click here.