REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration and the World Health Organization.

Secretary-General

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had left Geneva yesterday and was currently in Afghanistan were he was co-chairing the International Conference on Afghanistan, together with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. This was the first international conference on Afghanistan to be held in the country, and it was being organized by the Afghan Government for the Afghan people.

In his opening statement, the Secretary-General appealed to the Afghan people to come together to achieve peace through reconciliation and to build a future based on economic development and mutual cooperation, with full respect for their nation’s sovereignty. He delivered a message to the Afghan people to unite in the national interest, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

The Secretary-General would also meet with President Karzai and other senior officials attending the Conference and would participate in a joint press conference with President Karzai, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Human Rights Committee

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Human Rights Committee was concluding today its consideration of the report of Cameroon, which would be the last country report the Committee considered at the current session.

The Committee would issue its concluding observations on the four country reports it had considered (Estonia, Israel, Colombia and Cameroon) by the end of its session, on Friday, 30 July. Before concluding its session the Committee would hold private meetings to adopt its concluding observations and to consider communications it has received by individuals. The Committee would also hold public meetings to discuss a draft general comment on article 19 of the Covenant, concerning freedom of opinion and expression.

World Conference of Speakers of Parliament

Luisa Ballin of the Inter-Parliamentary Union said that the Conference’s general debate was continuing today. In addition, two panel discussions would take place today, one this morning called “Countdown to 2015: Keeping our collective promise on the Millennium Development Goals” in Room XVI and another one this afternoon at 3 p.m. on strengthening trust between parliament and the people, also in Room XVI.

At 1p.m. this afternoon the film “Countdown to Zero”, a documentary about the escalating nuclear arms race would be screened in Room XIX, said Ms. Ballin.

Situation in Kyrgyzstan

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay had issued a statement on the situation in Kyrgyzstan.

OHCHR had information that security forces in southern Kyrgyzstan had been responsible for repeated human rights violations over the past few weeks – including, in particular, arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment – and feared these actions might threaten the fragile peace and re-establishment of the rule of law, six weeks after the violence that shook the country, said Mr. Colville.

Large numbers of people – most of them young men, and virtually all of them Uzbek – had been arbitrarily detained in ways that not only demonstrated flagrant ethnic bias, but also broke many of the fundamental tenets of both Kyrgyz and international law. Mr. Colvill said that OHCHR staff in Kyrgyzstan had received information suggesting that local authorities were routinely turning a blind eye to illegal arrests, torture and ill-treatment of detainees leading to forced confessions.

Victims’ lawyers, families and human rights defenders were also being threatened and intimidated to an alarming degree, said Mr. Colville. All of these acts were clearly illegal under the Kyrgyz penal code as well as under international law.

OHCHR also had information that suggested that more than 1,000 people had been detained in Osh and Jalalabad since the June violence, said Mr. Colville.

The OHCHR team in Kyrgyzstan had received reports of detainees being tortured or ill-treated immediately upon being taken into detention, either by police, military or local militia forces, said Mr. Colville. OHCHR had reports of sustained, or repeated, beatings, as well as other forms of torture. They had also heard accounts of detainees who have been urged to confess to “crimes” they otherwise claimed not to have committed, or to implicate and name others, and/or to pay sometimes large sums of money to procure their release.

Mr. Colville said that in some cases family members of Uzbeks sought by security forces had also been detained. In an increasing climate of fear, many victims and their families were believed not to be reporting illegal acts by the authorities, and lawyers and human rights defenders who had tried to seek justice had been directly threatened, and in some cases detained themselves.

OHCHR is urging the Kyrgyz authorities to ensure equal access to health services. Doctors had been reported to be refusing to issue medical certificates for people who had been subjected to torture or ill-treatment, as well as death certificates for some people who had died during the June violence, thereby making it impossible for family members to claim compensation or inheritance. Mr. Colville said that they had also received reports that men in military dress had been increasingly seen in public health institutions, including hospitals, hampering victims’ access to medical care.

OHCHR believed that accountability for past crimes and redoubled efforts at fighting impunity, while respecting the rights of all people and ethnic groups in Kyrgyzstan, were necessary to ensure protection and respect for the rule of law, said Mr. Colville.

Answering to a journalist’s question on whether OHCHR was in contact with the Government and what its response had been, Rupert Colville said that they had very frequent contacts with the Government, at the local and national level. The Government said that in Osh it had received very few complaints of torture and ill-treatment, but OCHCR believed that that was precisely because the victims and their families were afraid of reprisals. The authorities also said that they could not take action without a complaint. There was also some recognition on their part that there had been actions by various State authorities which should not have had taken place.

Answering a question on whether people were trying to flee again, Adrian Edwards of the United Nations Refugee Agency said that they had not gotten any reports of people trying to cross again the border to Uzbekistan but they were watching the situation very closely.

Mr. Colville added that OHCHR had information suggesting that around 3,000 persons a week were leaving Kyrgyzstan by plane to Russia.

Viet Nam/Former Cambodian Refugees

Adrian Edwards of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR applauded the efforts of Viet Nam to end statelessness for 2,357 former Cambodian refugees, a legacy of the Pol Pot regime. Many of them had lived in Viet Nam since 1975. All spoke Vietnamese and had integrated fully.

As the culmination of five years of UNHCR's work with the Government of Viet Nam, in a citizenship ceremony at the Department of Justice in Ho Chi Minh City last Friday, 287 former refugees living in what had used to be two UNHCR refugee camps on the outskirts of the city had received their citizenship certificates, said Mr. Edwards.

They now acquired all rights of citizenship, said Mr. Edwards. In Viet Nam, this meant an all-important family registration book that governed all citizens' interactions with the government, as well as a government ID card. With these two documents, the new citizens could buy houses, attend university, get health and pension insurance and do other simple things they had not been able to do before – such as owning a motorbike.

By the end of the year, UNHCR expected the remaining 2,070 would also have their citizenship. Viet Nam had taken important strides in ending and preventing statelessness. Last year it had enacted a law to plug gaps that had caused thousands of Vietnamese women who had married and divorced foreign men to become stateless. This situation had now largely been rectified, and most of the women – and their children – were getting their citizenship, said Mr. Edwards.

For people all over the world who have citizenship, it was often difficult to understand what it meant to exist in a state of statelessness, effectively having no rights, said Mr. Edwards. Combatting statelessness was one of UNHCR's top priorities. They estimated that there were 12 million people in the world right now who were stateless.

Viet Nam in this instance had been a leader, not only in Asia but in the world, in ending and preventing statelessness, said Mr. Edwards. They very much hoped it would serve as an example to other countries that these issues could successfully be tackled and solved.

High Commissioner for Refugees to visit DRC, Uganda

Adrian Edwards of the United Nations Refugee Agency said that High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, was visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda this week to draw attention to the plight of Congo's displaced people and the need to ensure humanitarian access to them.

Mr. Guterres would be travelling to Equateur province in western DRC on Wednesday, and North Kivu in the country's east on Friday. He would be joined for part of the trip by the World Food Programme's Executive Director Josette Sheeran. They would both be travelling to Kampala at the weekend for the African Union summit opening scheduled for 25 July, said Mr. Edwards.

Fighting between militia groups and the Congolese armed forces, as well as violence against civilians, had displaced some 1.85 million people internally and created 450,000 refugees – most of whom were hosted in neighbouring countries, said Mr. Edwards. Last year alone, had seen over a million people displaced in the eastern DRC, and close to 210,000 displaced from Equateur province – both internally, and externally as refugees.

Mr. Edwards said that with the insecurity that had blocked humanitarian access in several areas, so far this year UNHCR had recorded 116 attacks against humanitarian workers.

Haiti Preps-up for Hurricane Season

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM and its partners were stepping up their efforts across Haiti in preparation for the upcoming tropical storms and hurricanes seasons, which this year posed a particular danger to the 1.5 million displaced people living in tents and shelters.

UNICEF to sign Agreement with Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement

Jeremy Hartley of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF’s Representative in Sudan Nils Kastberg would be in Geneva today and tomorrow to participate in the signing of an agreement between representatives of the United Nations and the Sudanese opposition movement “Justice and Equality Movement”. This agreement would be signed tomorrow and at the Geneva-based independent mediation organization Center for Humanitarian Dialogue. Mr. Kastberg would be available for interviews on both days.

Nigeria Migration Profile

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM was releasing today a report on the migration profile for Nigeria. The report found that the country remained attractive to migrants from the sub-region, mainly from the neighbouring Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Migrants were coming to Nigeria in search for employment, said Mr. Chauzy. The Nigerian economy had grown between 5.5 and 6.4 per cent each year from 2004 to 2007, with the oil sector being the primary engine of growth and a magnet for high-skilled migrant workers.

The report however also showed that an increasing numbers of skilled Nigerians emigrated abroad, in search of employment, mostly to Sudan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Cameroon and Ghana, said Mr. Chauzy. Estimates based on a 2000 census indicated that more that 1 million Nigerian nationals lived abroad.

Remittances to Nigeria had also dramatically increased from US$ 2.3 billion in 2004 to US$ 17.9 billion in 2007, representing 6.7 per cent of the gross domestic product, said Mr. Chauzy. The United States accounted for the largest portion of official remittances, followed by the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Spain and France.

Mr. Chauzy said the report also noted a marked increase in the number of Nigerians emigrating for educational purposes, the majority of these studied at universities in the United States. Consequently, the overall number of tertiary educated persons was declining. The report also included several recommendations on how to address these and other issues most effectively.

World Investment Report 2010

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that the press kit for the World Investment Report 2010 would be available later today in Press Room I and online. The report itself would be launched in Press Room III Thursday, 22 July at 11:30 a.m. This would be the main event for the launch of the report. Present at the press conference would be Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD Secretary-Genera and James Zhan, Director of the UNCTAD Division on Investment and Enterprise. The thematic analysis included in this year’s report was on investment in a low-carbon economy.

H1N1

Gregory Hartl of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the Emergency Committee would not meet this week. WHO was closely monitoring the situation in the Southern Hemisphere, watching how the virus behaved and if it had indeed adopted seasonal behaviour patterns. But it was still too early to tell. WHO was looking at this issue on a day-to-day basis.

Answering to a journalist’s question on when the Committee would meet, Mr. Hartl said that this depended upon the virus. If it behaved like a normal seasonal influenza virus did then that would mean that the Committee would meet sooner than later.

H5N1

Answering a question on whether the World Health Organization had received any reports concerning recent research in Southeast Asia on a possible mutation of H5N1, Gregory Hartl said that Influenza viruses mutated all the time and all Influenza viruses did mutate. One needed to look not just at the mutations themselves but also at the way the virus behaved clinically and epidemiologically. And this had not changed.