UN team on missing persons arrives

ISLAMABAD: While in Pakistan, the working group will gather information pertaining to missing persons’ cases. It will meet government officials and families of missing persons and also visit all four provinces of the country.

The working group will present its findings to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). The group will be in Pakistan from September 10 to 20 on the invitation of the government.

During the mission, the UN experts will gather information on cases of enforced disappearances pending before the working group. They will also study the measures adopted by the state to prevent and eradicate enforced disappearances, including issues related to truth, justice and reparation for the victims of enforced disappearances.

The working group will visit various parts of the country and meet state officials, both at the federal and provincial levels, as well as with representatives of civil society organisations, relatives of disappeared persons and representatives of relevant UN agencies.

The working group will be represented by Olivier de Frouville, the Chair-Rapporteur, and by Osman El-Hajjé, member. Independent experts will be accompanied by members of the Secretariat of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The group will hold a pressconference at the end of the visit, on 20 September 2012, at 15.00 hours at the Marriott Hotel, in Islamabad. A final report on the mission will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in 2013.

The working group is comprised of five independent experts from all regions of the world. The Chair-Rapporteur is Olivier de Frouville (France) and the other members are Ariel Dulitzky (Argentina), Jasminka Dzumhur (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Osman El-Hajjé (Lebanon), and Jeremy Sarkin (South Africa).

The group was established by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1980 to assist families in determining the fate and whereabouts of disappeared relatives. It endeavours to establish a channel of communication between the families and the governments concerned, to ensure that individual cases are investigated, with the objective of clarifying the whereabouts of persons who, having disappeared, are placed outside the protection of the law.

In view of the working group’s humanitarian mandate, clarification occurs when the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person are clearly established. The group continues to address cases of disappearances until they are resolved. It also provides assistance in the implementation by states of the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Courtesy: The News

Category: Media Monitoring