Thursday, April 07, 2011

GENEVA: Violent repression in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen must be addressed urgently by the United Nations Human Rights Council, a coalition of global advocacy groups said Wednesday.
“The situation is deteriorating fast as the Bahraini, Syrian and Yemeni authorities use violence to try to stem the wave of popular protests in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Julie de Rivero of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The 19-member coalition, which also includes Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists, said only quick action by the council could put an end to what they called widescale violations of rights by governments and security forces in all three countries.

“It is the responsibility of the Human Rights Council to remind all states that fierce repression of generally peaceful protests is contrary to the human rights obligations of these governments,” said statement from the coalition.
Rivero and Jeremie Smith of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said the main barrier to getting the rights body into session was the failure of the European Union and the United States to decide on their stance.

“If the Europeans and the Americans supported the move, we think there would be enough other council members going along to get a session called,” Smith told a news conference. At least 16 countries on the body would need to back the move.

“A large number of critics are under arrest in Bahrain, the climate of fear is extensive and there needs to be an international response,” Rivero told journalists. “And equally we haven’t seen a reaction by the Human Rights Council to the continued repression of protestors and critics in Yemen and also in Syria.”

HRW researcher Fahraz Sanei said opposition figures, protesters, medical staff, academics and students, or even sympathizers who had been interviewed on Al-Jazeera or CNN, faced arrest in swoops by security forces, travel bans and even sacking from their jobs with Bahraini companies.

“What I want to stress more than anything is that the situation in Bahrain is right now really critical and what we are seeing since March 15 is really an ongoing systematic crackdown and repression against any sort of opposition,” added Sanei, who said he returned from the Gulf kingdom two days ago.
The U.N.’s International Labor Organization also expressed alarm at “widespread discrimination” against leaders and members of the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions, including “dismissals of activists and other repressive measures.”

The ILO said director general Juan Somavia had written to Bahrain’s government urging “immediate and firm actions to ensure that workers and their unions in Bahrain do not face any further form of unfair, unjust and degrading treatment for having expressed their legitimate rights.”

Rights campaigners rejected claims that discontent was largely down to sectarian influence and insisted it reflected a genuine mass movement for democratic reform in Arab nations especially among younger people. – Reuters, AFP