NAIROBI – UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai has released his mandate’s first ever year-end report, which reviews the events of 2014 – from Ukraine to Egypt to the United States to Kenya – from the perspective of assembly and association rights. The report, which serves as both a first draft of history for the events of 2014 and yearbook of his mandate’s activities, is being released initially in digital format. Printed copies are expected to be available later this year. “It is still too early to tell just how 2014 will be remembered from… Continue reading →
GENEVA – A group of United Nations independent human rights experts, including Maina Kiai, has urged the government of Bahrain to drop charges against three women human rights activists exercising their rights to free expression and free association. “Deprivation of liberty on the sole ground of having exercised the right to free expression may be considered arbitrary,” the experts warned. Ms. Maryam Al-Khawaja, the co-director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, was sentenced on 1 December, in absentia, for allegedly assaulting airport… Continue reading →
GENEVA – International support is now needed to investigate the enforced disappearance of a leading Laotian human rights defender, a group of United Nations independent experts, including Maina Kiai, said today. Human rights activist Sombath Somphone has been disappeared since December 2012. “It is high time for the authorities of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) to voluntarily request international assistance with the aim of shedding light on Mr. Somphone’s fate and whereabouts, two years after his disappearance,” the experts… Continue reading →
GENEVA – A group of independent experts* of the largest fact-finding and monitoring mechanism of the United Nations human rights system today called upon UN Member States and all stakeholders to increase their efforts to address the challenge of racism and racial discrimination. On the occasion of the official launch of the International Decade for People of African Descent on 10 December, also the International Human Rights Day, the UN experts welcomed the takeoff of the International Decade as a significant political commitment in the fight… Continue reading →
Issue No. 9 of the Assembly and Association Briefing, the newsletter of Maina Kiai, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. In this issue: • Special Rapporteur: Surmounting civil society restrictions “the great challenge of our time” • A step forward for LGBT rights in Botswana, with a step backward looming in Kyrgyzstan • Your rights on one page: UNSR releases fact sheets on assembly and association rights • Experts: “Legitimate concerns” over outcome of Michael Brown and Eric Garner… Continue reading →
