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NIHR Participates in the Conference of Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions in Cairo

The National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR), represented by its Chairman Eng. Ali Ahmed Al-Derazi, has participated in the Conference of the Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ANNHRI), which was held in Cairo, capital of Egypt, under the theme "National Human Rights Institutions Established in Accordance with the Paris Principles: Roles and Challenges, Visions and Aspiration" with Arab, regional and international participation.

Al-Derazi presented, through a worksheet, an executive summary on the best practices and challenges facing national human rights institutions in the Arab Peninsula region, with the aim of discussing best practices, lessons learned and the most important challenges facing those national institutions to identify priorities and needs and strengthen the role of international and regional networks and organisations to support them.

Al-Derazi explained that the remarkable qualitative shift towards human rights issues and fundamental freedoms witnessed by the Arab Peninsula region came within the will and supreme guidance of Their Majesties and Highness, the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, to develop legislation and laws in favour of promoting and protecting these rights, and ratification or accession to the basic international human rights conventions, in addition to the establishment of independent and effective national human rights institutions that have broad powers and mandates in the field of promoting and protecting those rights.

At the end of his speech, Al-Derazi stated that it is possible to definitively confirm the vital and influential role that national human rights institutions play in developing the human rights system within their regions, which has qualified them to transform from those challenges and obstacles they face into creating real opportunities towards further progress in promoting and protecting human rights in their national systems.

The conference witnessed Ambassador Moushira Khattab, President of the National Council for Human Rights in the sisterly Arab Republic of Egypt, receiving the presidency of the ANNHRI General Assembly by Mr. Ahmed Bouhabini, Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission in Mauritania, former president of the General Assembly.

The conference, which lasted for two consecutive days, was attended by heads and representatives of national human rights institutions in the Arab countries, international and regional organisations, representatives of the UND, the Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in order to give a strong impetus in the field of cooperation and coordination between all institutions and bodies operating in the field of human rights in the Arab world, especially in light of the special importance that the Arab countries attach to those rights.