REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Rhéal LeBlanc, Chief, Press and External Relations at the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing attended by spokespersons of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Organization for Migration, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and the World Trade Organization.

UN Secretary-General

Mr. LeBlanc said that the Secretary-General had been in Burkina Faso and had met with President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. In a subsequent meeting with the press, the Secretary-General underlined the remarkable progress that he had noted during his third trip to the country. He had also said that he was seriously concerned by the recent terrorist attacks and that the response to terrorism had to be global and had to respect human rights and international humanitarian law. He also said that the United Nations was ready to support Burkina Faso in its security sector reform.

He had also met with the Prime Minister and the President of the National Parliament, and had visited the UN-supported paediatric HIV support Unit of St. Camille Hospital, the only hospital of its kind in Ouagadougou. In his remarks to the press following the visit, he had expressed his gratitude to the Government for its commitment to the fight against AIDS in the country.

Geneva activities

Human Rights Council

Rolando Gomez for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the Human Rights Council was holding on 4 March its annual debate on the rights of persons with disabilities, which in 2016 focused on Article 11 of the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (on situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies). The panellists included the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Catalina Devandas Aguilar. The Council would then resume its clustered interactive dialogues, launched on 3 March, with the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst, who had also presented his report on his recent mission to Burundi. Mr. Forst had paid tribute to various defenders of human rights killed over the course of the past year, including the case of Paola Barraza killed in January in Honduras. At the time of his presentation, the news of the assassination of Berta Caceres had just arrived. Mr. Gomez reminded the press of the Council’s strong position on any acts of intimidation, threats, killings, violence against those who risked their lives to tell human rights stories.

On 4 March at 2 p.m. would start the dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on persons with disabilities, whose report addresses her thematic study on the rights of persons with disabilities to participate in decision-making. The Special Rapporteur would also present a report on a recent mission to Moldova, and would hear from the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism, Ms. Ikponwosa Ero. This would be Ms. Ero’s first report since her appointment in September 2015.

On 7 March would take place the annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child, addressing the initiative to empower children through information and communication technology and to enhance the protection including against sexual exploitation online and offline. Experts on foreign debt and on the right to food would also be presenting.

On International Women’s Day, 8 March, at 6 p.m., a side-event with 2014 Sakharov Prize winner Dennis Mukwege would take place in Room XX. Mr. Gomez said that Mr. Mukwege was recognized for his work to treat women who had been victims of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Conference on Disarmament and Committees

Mr. LeBlanc said that the Conference on Disarmament (CD) had completed its High Level Segment (HLS). The next public meeting of the CD would take place on 8 March at 10 a.m. The CD was currently under the Presidency of Norway (ending on 20 March). After Nigeria and Norway, the CD would be successively chaired by Pakistan, Peru, Poland and the Republic of Korea.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women would be closing today its 63rd session, during which it had reviewed reports from Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Mongolia, Czech Republic, Vanuatu, Tanzania and Haiti. Concluding observations concerning these countries would be issued (and available on the Committee website) at the end of the day or at the beginning of the week of 7 March.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would be closing today its 57th session, during which it had reviewed reports from Namibia, Canada and Kenya. Concluding observations concerning these countries would be issued (and available on the Committee website) at the end of the day or at the beginning of the week of 7 March.

The Human Rights Committee would open on 7 March its 116th session at the Palais Wilson (ground floor). During the four-week session, until 31 March, the Committee would review the reports of South Africa, Namibia, Sweden, New Zealand, Slovenia, Costa Rica and Rwanda (on how they were implementing the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).

The Committee on Enforced Disappearances would open on 7 March its tenth session, convened in Room VII of the Palais des Nations until 18 March, and during which it would review reports of three countries: Tunisia, Burkina Faso and Kazakhstan (on their implementation of the provisions of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance).

During the session, the Committee would commemorate, on 11 March, the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention with a panel discussion entitled “The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance: contemporary challenges”.

Press conferences and other announcements

Mr. LeBlanc announced a press conference of the World Health Organization (WHO) on
4 March at 11:30 a.m. in Room III, on the global response to microcephaly, neurological disorders and Zika virus, with Dr. Bruce Aylward, Executive Director, Outbreaks and Health Emergencies, WHO.

On 7 March at 11 a.m. in Press Room 1, the International Labour Organization (ILO) would be launching its new report “Women at Work: Trends 2016”, with speakers Shauna Olney, Chief of the ILO’s Gender, Equality and Diversity Branch, and Lawrence J. Johnson, Deputy Director, ILO Research Department.

Also on 7 March, at 1:30 p.m. in Press Room 1, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) would give concluding observations on Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Mongolia, Czech Republic, Vanuatu, and Tanzania, with two members of the Committee, Dalia Leinarte and Ismat Jahan.

Finally, on 7 March in Press Room 1 at 2:15 p.m., a press conference of the European Union on Information and communications technology and child sexual exploitation would take place, with a number of invited speakers, including Ambassador Peter Sørensen, Head of the European Union Delegation to the UN in Geneva, and Ambassador Ricardo González Arenas, Ambassador of Uruguay to the UN in Geneva.

Jessica Hermosa, for the World Trade Organization (WTO), announced that the Chair of agriculture negotiations had been consulting with members on how to move the talks forward, after the question of whether to continue using the Doha framework had been left undecided in December 2015. The Chair was calling for a meeting in the week of
7 March to report on what he had gathered and for members to consider what to do next. A separate meeting of the regular Committee on Agriculture would take place on
10 March at 10 a.m. The Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade would also meet on 10 March at 10 a.m., and was expecting to hear the 500^th concern in this area at the meeting. Finally, members would be meeting on the development of small economies and possible trade solutions to link them into the global assembly line for textiles. WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo would be meeting with Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Finance and speaking at a gender equality panel, in Geneva.

Nick Cumming-Bruce, President of the Association des Correspondants auprès des Nations unies (ACANU), announced the ACANU AGM on 7 March at 9 a.m. and called for as many ACANU members as possible to be present in order to elect a new committee.

Fiji

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that on 20 February, a massive cyclone - Tropical Cyclone Winston – had hit Fiji, with devastating impact. Since then, with the Government taking the lead, UN agencies and humanitarian partners had begun responding to the needs created by the cyclone in the Pacific island nation. Today, an appeal was being launched, asking the international community to support that response.

Mr. Laerke introduced Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Fiji, who briefed the press on some of the recent developments since the catastrophe. She said that this was the worst hurricane which had ever hit Fiji, and the country’s first flash appeal. The flash appeal, launched in conjunction with Government and UN agencies, was hoping to raise USD 38.6 million (81.85 million Fiji dollars). When the cyclone had hit, the National Disaster Management Office had already been opening evacuation centres and ensuring readiness. However, the damage was catastrophic, with about 40 per cent of the population (about 350,000 people) affected by the aftermath, some of whom had lost everything. On Koro Island, about 3,000 people had no homes, no access to safe drinking water, no safe access to medical services, and no access for women to reproductive health services. The most vulnerable were suffering the most. Many people had been forced to leave their homes and go to the city. Trees were down, crops had been destroyed and livestock killed. Immediate needs were: food, water and shelter. There was also a national plan for the rebuilding of infrastructure and ensuring telecommunications contacts.

The flash appeal’s aim was to deal with and respond to urgent humanitarian needs, which included ensuring that the water which was available was clean drinking water, and that health services were restored. Many people were in evacuation centres, which were actually schools, and it was an urgent priority for the Fijians to send their children back to school. While the schools were unavailable, children were currently sitting in tents and using temporary kits provided by UNICEF. The damage to agriculture was another strong concern, and there was a need for seedlings to plant. Communicable diseases were a huge risk, in the absence of clean drinking water, adequate sanitation facilities and difficult access to maternal health facilities.

Ambassador Khan then quoted the Prime Minister of Fiji, Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, as saying ”I have a great deal of hope that we will get back on our feet. We are a resilient people and we look to our friends in the international community to help us to get back on our feet”.

In response to a journalist’s question, Ambassador Khan said that a large amount of the appeal would be dedicated to food, water and shelter, as well as education and health, and particular protection and care to the most vulnerable segments of the population. The Government would keep on focusing on the longer-term priorities, like the rebuilding of homes and roads, while the appeal would cover immediate humanitarian assistance for the next 90 days.

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that IOM had sent out on 4 March a full plane-load of aid from its global administrative centre in the Philippines to ease the suffering of Fijians. Out of the USD 38.6 million appeal,
USD 4.1 million was dedicated to the IOM’s emergency shelter and displacement tracking response. The storm had left 40 dead, had destroyed an estimated 24,000 homes and had wiped out food crops in many spots along the islands.

Apple-FBI

Rupert Colville, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said that according to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in order to address a security-related issue related to encryption in one case, the San Bernardino killings, the authorities risked unlocking a Pandora’s Box that could have extremely damaging implications for the human rights of many millions of people, including their physical and financial security. This was not just about one case and one IT company in one country. It would have tremendous ramifications for the future of individuals’ security elsewhere. More details were available in the press release.

In response to a question, Mr. Colville said that there was a court case underway, which had to play itself out, but that the High Commissioner’s position was very clear. This was not about one case, but an issue with global ramifications. Encryption was an important technology as human rights defenders needed to have safe forms of communication, and it could be a life or death issue for someone in Syria. In this case, trying to obtain more information in this way on one horrendous crime, potentially opened the door to far more crimes being committed. The Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, had released an important paper on the issue of encryption in 2015.

Yemen

Mr. Colville said that civilian casualties continued to mount in Yemen. During the month of February, a total of 168 civilians had been killed and 193 injured, around two-thirds of them by Coalition airstrikes. In the country as a whole, 117 civilians were killed and another 129 wounded as a result of airstrikes, with the largest number of casualties (99) attributed to airstrikes hitting the capital, Sana’a. In November 2015, there had been a marked decrease in airstrike casualties, but since then they had risen again sharply, with the number killed almost doubling between January and February. The number of civilian casualties recorded in February had been the highest since September 2015.

In all, since 26 March 2015, OHCHR had documented a total of 3,081 civilians killed and 5,733 injured. Those figures referred solely to reported civilian casualties. In the worst single incident, on 27 February, at least 39 civilians, including nine children, had been killed, and another 33 injured, by an airstrike on the Khaleq market in a north-eastern district of Sana’a. Fighting and indiscriminate shelling by Members of the Popular Committees affiliated with the Houthis and allied army units loyal to former president Saleh had resulted in an additional 49 civilian casualties during February, mostly in Taizz, Ibb and Al Jawf. In Taizz City, indiscriminate shelling attributed to members of the Popular Committees affiliated with the Houthis and forces loyal to former President Saleh had killed, injured or endangered civilians on several occasions.

Civilian infrastructure had continued to be destroyed or damaged throughout February, with both parties targeting protected civilian sites. There had also been worrying allegations – which OHCHR was still working to verify - that Coalition forces had dropped cluster bombs on a mountainous area to the south of the Amran cement factory, where a military unit loyal to the Houthis appeared to have been the target.

Journalists continued to suffer, with another one killed on 16 February in Taizz Governorate by a sniper who had appeared to be shooting from an area under the control of members of the Popular Committees Affiliated with the Houthis. Two other journalists had been detained in February by men in military uniforms in vehicles belonging to the General Security controlled by the Houthis. More details were available in the briefing note, which would be distributed.

In response to a question, Mr. Colville said that OHCHR had talked about the siege of Taizz on numerous occasions and the High Commissioner had raised it in his opening statement to the Human Rights Council. It was unconscionable that food and supplies could not get through to civilians. Mr. LeBlanc added that on 3 March, the Security Council had had briefings mentioning humanitarian suffering in Yemen from Stephen O’Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, and Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the Special Envoy for Yemen. Mr. Laerke had sent to the press the text of Mr. O’Brien’s briefing.

Bettina Luescher, for the World Food Programme (WFP), said that the WFP had gone in to Taizz twice, most recently on 13 February, bringing rations to 18,000 people in the besieged city. WFP had been helping with food for more than 3 million people in all of Yemen, and would like to have more access.

In response to several questions, Mr. Colville said that there were photographs of the debris left after the attacks near Amran and earlier attacks, which could provide possible evidence of the use of cluster bombs, but that OHCHR were not weapons experts and could not trace the provenance of the weapons. The use of cluster bombs was a human rights issue, as those were very dangerous weapons, potentially affecting children long after the bombs had been dropped. The international community had addressed this issue in recent years with the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

In response to a question about the Yemen talks, Mr. LeBlanc said that the Special Envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, was continuously trying to bring the parties to the table. Mr. LeBlanc would try to obtain additional information for the press on that topic. Mr. Colville said that civilian casualties had been on the rise since December.

Honduras

Mr. Colville said that OHCHR condemned the assassination on 3 March of the well-known indigenous rights defender, Berta Cáceres, in Honduras. Ms. Cáceres had been the coordinator the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras and the winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, notably for the key role she had played in the struggle against a controversial dam project. According to local sources, several unknown assailants had broken into her brother's home in the city of La Esperanza, in the western province of Intibuca, and killed her. OHCHR welcomed the announcement that the police had already started an investigation. However, OHCHR was also disturbed by the fact Ms. Cáceres had been assassinated despite the fact that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had asked the Honduran authorities to provide her with special protection, given the numerous threats she had received. Ms. Cáceres had worked very closely with OHCHR in the region and its staff on the ground in Honduras.

In response to a question, Mr. Colville said that protecting the sole witness of the murder, Mexican activist Gustavo Castro Soto, would be extremely important. It was not the first time that activists on indigenous issues had been targeted in Honduras. The Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, who had worked closely with Ms. Cáceres, would issue a longer statement later in the day.

Europe – Refugee crisis

Melissa Fleming, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), briefed the press on a proposal from the High Commissioner Filippo Grandi presented ahead of a meeting of Heads of State and Government on 7 March in Brussels. The situation in Greece was quickly deteriorating with around 30,000 refugees in the country, about a third of whom were at the border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. On 3 March, over 2,500 people had arrived on the islands, and the day before, just over 2,000. Very few people were getting through the border with Macedonia. The response from Greek authorities and the military had been admirable, but thousands of people were still sleeping in the open and were left without the services, information and aid they needed. UNHCR had a big operation in Greece and was increasing it rapidly. Operations had been established along the Balkan route, but with less refugees getting through UNHCR would be shifting gears and adapting as the crisis unfolded. UNHCR still believed that if Europe were to come together with a lot of solidarity and political will, the situation could still be managed.

High Commissioner Grandi’s proposal included six key points:
1) Implement fully the so-called “hot spot” approach and relocation of asylum-seekers out of Greece and Italy and, at the same time, return individuals who don’t qualify for refugee protection, including under existing readmission agreements. UNHCR also recommended the extension of the eligibility threshold for the relocation programme, to include nationalities with a 65 per cent protection rate across the EU. The second-largest population arriving in Greece were Afghans who did not qualify under the current criteria (75 per cent on average getting refugee status in the EU).
2) Step up support to Greece to handle the humanitarian emergency: money, but also expertise, including for refugee status determination, relocation, and return or readmission. Under the relocation system, only 603 people had been relocated from Greece and Italy since the plan had been put into place. The EU had agreed to 160,000 relocation places, and of those, over 66,000 for Greece. There had only been about 2,000 pledges for places, around the same number that arrived in Greece very day.
3) Ensure compliance with all the EU laws and directives on asylum among Member States.
4) Make available more safe, legal ways for refugees to travel to Europe under managed so that refugees do not resort to smugglers and traffickers to find safety. On 30 March, a critical pledging conference would take place in Geneva, and UNHCR was hoping that many countries would step forward, agreeing to take in as many as 10 per cent of the refugees from Syria.
5) Safe-guard individuals at risk on migration routes, protecting children and women in particular.
6) Develop Europe-wide systems of responsibility for asylum-seekers, including the creation of registration centres in main countries of arrival (Greece, Italy), but also perhaps in every EU country. These would not be national centres but EU centres, where EU officials supported by UNHCR and IOM, would take the responsibility for all of Europe for registering people and distributing them under an agreed system.

In response to a question, Ms. Fleming said that before the crisis, everybody had known that Europe had issues with unity, but that no-one had foreseen how unable Europe would be to cope with a refugee crisis on its shores, and that there would be such unilateral action and real divisions. The creation of EU centres would help assuage the concerns of countries who were currently participating, and of those who were not. Right now, it was not fair that Greece and Italy had to take on all the new arrivals, and that Austria, Germany and Sweden had to take on that burden on behalf of the whole of Europe.

Ms. Fleming also indicated that it was early to tell whether the cessation of hostilities had helped reduce the number of people on the move and the volume of border crossings. She said that there were some 25,000 who were on the other side of the border with Jordan in Syria, and quite a number on the border with Turkey, who were not yet coming across. All of the borders were being tightly managed. UNHCR would be watching the trends closely.

In response to another question, Ms. Fleming said that we had not yet seen where the pledges from the London conference would be distributed, and when. She added that the smuggling business had become a billion dollar business and that the plan put forward by the High Commissioner could help curb that. Moreover, she said that a survey of Syrian and Iraqi refugees showed that conflict and violence were the main reasons why they were coming to Europe, and that they had the right to be treated humanely.

Burundi

Ms. Fleming said that the tension in Burundi was very high and was driving large numbers of people to flee the country - those numbers had passed the 250,000 mark. There was a real state of fear of human rights violations, driving people from their homes. More details were available in the press release.

IPU

Mrs. Jemini Pandya, from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), announced two upcoming events in Lusaka, Zambia: the Annual Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians and the 134^th IPU assembly. She then introduced Kareen Jabre, Director of Programmes, who presented key findings of the IPU’s annual report on women in parliament, tracking progress and setbacks of women in politics as an indicator for democratic development and inclusive political processes.

In 2015, there were 58 elections for parliaments held around the world, with an increase of 0.5 per cent to reach 22.6 per cent of women in parliament globally. It was a very slow increase and at that pace, the 2030 target for equality, set in the 2030 Agenda and in the SDGs, would not be reached. Progress had been seen in terms of women speakers in parliament (18 per cent worldwide). In terms of regions, Latin America had made the most progress and had reached almost 27.2 per cent of women in parliament, thanks to the implementation of quotas with sanctions. In Africa, there has been some increase in women participation, mainly in Ethiopia and Tanzania, linked to quotas as well as other incentives. Higher visibility for women leaders had been striking in Europe, with two countries (Poland and Denmark) where in recent elections the two main contestants were women from both main political parties. However with this came a trend towards negative portrayal in women in politics. In Arab countries, the IPU noticed a series of firsts, for example a woman deputy speaker in Oman, and women voting for the first time ever at a local level in Saudi Arabia. In Egypt, the new parliament included 15 per cent of women, compared to barely 1.5 per cent in the previous one.

In response to a journalist’s question, Ms. Jabre said that Rwanda was still leading the field with 65 per cent of women in parliament, and that she believed that a parity policy would lead the way to change not only for parliaments and political institutions but also in other fields.

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog040316