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Item: Item 2, General Debate on the oral update of the High Commissioner of Human Rights
Date: 10 September 2019
Organization: Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
Speaker: Felix Agbor Nkongho
Oral Statement to the 42nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council from Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), NGO in special consultative status
Mr. President,
Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada thanks the High Commissioner for her oral update identifying so many human rights crises. Victims of these abuses are denied remedies at home and look to the Council for protection.
We call further attention to grave violations by Council members responsible for perpetrating or failing to prevent and remedy violations.
In Cameroon, 500,000 persons are victims of enforced displacement. There are numerous reports of arbitrary and incommunicado detention without access to lawyers. Some report being tortured.[1] More than 200 villages have been burnt with about 50,000 refugees.
The Philippines is the subject of the High Commissioner’s forthcoming report examining 27,000 extra-judicial killings over a three-year period, including forty-six jurists murdered.[2] In China, many thousands of people are arbitrarily detained—including lawyers, defenders, critics, and religious minorities. Half of the population of Saudi Arabia—the females—are denied fundamental rights. Their advocates are denied liberty.
We ask that each Council member:
- Respect and cooperate with the High Commissioner;
- Clearly denounce these violations and identify measures for effective prevention and remediation; and
- Introduce measures to ensure that every Council member fully complies with Resolution 60/251 by cooperating with Council mandates and upholding the highest human rights standards.
Thank you.
[1] Yonah Diamond, David Grossman, Pearl Eliadis and Antoine Beauchemin, Cameroon’s Unfolding Catastrophe: Evidence of Human Rights Violations and Crimes Against Humanity in the Anglophone Regions of Cameroon, Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa and Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, 3 June 2019, pp. 48- 49, https://www.raoulwallenbergcentre.org/2019/6/4release-of-landmark-report-on-unfolding-catastrophe-in-cameroon; LRWC, Human Rights catastrophe in Cameroon, Written statement, A/HRC/42/NGO/1, 21 August 2019, http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=A/HRC/42/NGO/1&Lang=E.
[2] Philippines: Extrajudicial killing of jurists as part of a pattern of widespread and systematic violations of human rights. Joint written statement by LRWC, L4L, ALRC, IADL, dated 15 August 2019, https://www.lrwc.org/philippines-extrajudicial-killing-of-jurists-written-statement-to-the-hrc/
