NIHR participates in APF Meeting in Geneva
The National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR), represented by Ms. Maria Khouri, Chairperson of the NIHR, and Counsellor-at-Law Mr. Yasser Shahin, NIHR’s Assistant Secretary-General, participated in the Asia-Pacific Forum (APF) meeting held on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) held at the UN Palace in Geneva.
The meeting was chaired by Mrs. Sima Samar, Chairman of the National Human Rights Institution of Afghanistan, where everybody stood a minute of silence to mourn the death of human rights activist Asma J. Jahangir that has recently served as a special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The meeting was then resumed with the renewal of the membership of the National Human Rights Institution of India in the GANHRI’s Committee on Finance and the recommendation of the National Human Rights Committee of Philippine to be a member of the Working Group on Business and Human Rights of the GANHRI. The APF executive plan for 2017 and 2018 was also adopted.
The meeting was attended by Prof. Beate Rudolf, Chairperson of the GANHRI and Chairman of the German Institute for Human Rights, who summarized the recent meeting of the GANHRI, addressing the important role of the national institutions in supporting and promoting human rights, as well as the preparations this year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Paris Principles organizing the function of the national institutions, and the establishment of the GANHRI, pointing out that the next GANHRI meeting will be held in Morocco next October.
The NIHR also participated in a seminar organized by the Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions chaired by the Algeria’s National Human Rights Committee on the situation of human rights in occupied Palestine, especially the residents of East Jerusalem, where Dr. Varsen Shaheen, Independent Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) Commissioner-General of Palestine, gave a historical brief on this subject since the occupation of the Holy City by the Israeli forces in 1967, and discussed the numerous human rights violations suffered by the Palestinian people on a daily basis.
