REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Rhéal LeBlanc, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section, chaired the briefing attended by spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Iraq

Rupert Colville, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said that, as the death toll after the last suicide bomb in Baghdad continued to climb to well above 150, High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein deplored the terrible loss of innocent lives. The High Commissioner warned that, in addition to doing more to protect civilians from ISIL attacks, it was essential that the Iraqi authorities step in to halt uncontrolled militias from continuing to take revenge on civilians fleeing towns recaptured from ISIL.

The High Commissioner utterly condemned the latest horrendous ISIL atrocity, targeting innocent civilians celebrating Ramadan in the heart of Baghdad. Along with other recent abominations associated with ISIL in Dhaka, Istanbul and Orlando, the sheer unrestrained viciousness of these people defied belief, said Mr. Zeid. He also warned that “acts of revenge and hasty, injudicious policy decisions in reaction to such attacks are simply helping ISIL carry out its strategy to divide societies and promote hatred.”

In his statement, the High Commissioner stressed that ISIL needed to be defeated, and defeated soon, he said. In that process, we had to be extra careful not to react to their provocations in the way they predicted we would react and wanted us to react. However, a variety of responses all over the world were enabling ISIL to tap into resentments about heavy-handed or unlawful actions to recruit more followers, create more fanatics and suicide bombers.”

After the loss of Ramadi and Fallujah, with Mosul likely to be the next big battleground, Mr. Zeid feared that there would be more such atrocities by ISIL, as they sought to make Iraq implode once more. He urged the Iraqi authorities to take immediate action to locate and free more than 600 men and boys reportedly abducted by a militia group involved in the recapture of Fallujah from ISIL in June.

On 1 June, according to various witnesses interviewed in Iraq, approximately 8,000 civilians, including some 1,500 men and boys over the age of 14, had left their village in Saqlawiyah, near Fallujah. Nearly all belonged to the Albo Akash clan of the al Mahamda Tribe. In the distance they had seen what appeared to be a line of Government forces, who hailed them with loudspeakers, saying the villagers had nothing to fear from them. However, once they had reached the line, witnesses said that hidden behind the Iraqi flags they had seen the flags of a militia called Kata'ib Hezbollah.

The militia fighters had immediately separated the men and teenage boys from the women and children, who had been transferred to Government-run camps for displaced people near Amiryat al Fallujah. The males had been initially taken to warehouses and then moved on successive occasions over the subsequent four days to a number of other sites between Saqaliwah and Fallujah. Mistreatment had begun almost immediately. Men had been crammed into small rooms or halls, sometimes more than 60 to a room. They had been denied water and food, with little or no ventilation. When they had asked for water or food or air, they had been abused by militia members, told that their treatment was ‘revenge for Camp Speicher,’ and beaten with shovels, sticks, and pipes.

A number of witnesses attested that some who had asked for water or complained about the air had been dragged outside and shot, strangled, or severely beaten. In addition, witnesses stated that at least four men had been beheaded. Others had been handcuffed and beaten to death, and the bodies of at least two men had been set on fire.
On 5 June, they had been separated into two groups – one consisting of 605 men and boys, and the other of around 900. The smaller group had been taken to join the women and children in the Government clearance centre in Ameriyat al Fallujah.
The fate of the larger group was unknown, which was intensely worrying, particularly given the references made to revenge for the Camp Speicher massacre.

The High Commissioner further noted that “this appears to be the worst – but far from the first – such incident involving unofficial militias fighting alongside Government forces against ISIL”, and urged the Government to take serious action to prevent further occurrences, including bringing those responsible to account. He stressed that such crimes were not only abhorrent, but also wholly counterproductive, as they gave ISIL a propaganda victory, and push people into their arms. They increased the likelihood of a renewed cycle of full-throttle sectarian violence. The Prime Minister of Iraq had set up an investigation committee into the disappearances. The authorities had to take strong and immediate action to locate the missing men or ascertain precisely what had happened to them, said Mr. Zeid in his statement.

Asked whether what the militia Kata'ib Hezbollah was doing was in a way condoned by the Government, Mr. Colville said that that claim could not be made. Such actions had been condemned by the Government and top religious leaders in the past. Clearly, the Government was not fully in control. The Government ought to impress on various militias that those actions were counterproductive and bred resentment.

Mr. Colville, responding to another question, clarified that the Iraq OHCHR office was publishing reports on a monthly basis, which were available online. The Office of the High Commissioner had been trying to ascertain the facts and cross-check information on this particular incident, which had taken several weeks. The verified accounts were very disturbing, and the investigations were continuing.

Mr. Colville confirmed that Kata'ib Hezbollah was a Shia militia.

On another question, Mr. Colville confirmed that the High Commissioner would be visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more information on which would be provided in due course.

Saudi Arabia

Mr. Colville stated that the High Commissioner utterly deplored the previous day’s disgraceful bomb attack next to the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina in Saudi Arabia. That was one of the holiest sites in Islam, and for such an attack to take place there, during Ramadan, could be considered a direct attack on Muslims all across the world. The significance of that attack could not simply be measured in terms of the four policemen reported to have been killed, and the physical damage. It was an attack on the religion itself.

There had reportedly been at least two other bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia the previous day, in Qatif in the far east of the country, and in Jeddah, and the Office of the High Commissioner extended its condolences to all those killed and injured in all the terrorist attacks, taking place virtually on a daily basis somewhere in the world.

Responding to a question, Mr. Colville stated that the Office was continuing to talk to Saudi Arabia over developments in Yemen, and was sticking to its position.

Myanmar

Mr. Colville said that the Office was alarmed by two major acts of mob violence directed against Myanmar’s Muslim community in the space of just eight days. On 1 July, a mob had burned down a mosque in Hpakant Township in Kachin State and a week earlier, on 23 June, another mob had attacked and partially destroyed a mosque and other properties in a village called Thaye Thamain, in Bago Region.

The Office of the High Commissioner was particularly concerned by initial reports that the police had been present at the mosque in Hpakant but failed to take action to prevent it being destroyed, and that the authorities in Bago had not carried out any criminal investigation into the incident there.

The Government was called upon to investigate both incidents, as well as the responses by local authorities, in a prompt and thorough manner. Those acts of mob violence could fuel a further cycle of hostility in the country, and the High Commissioner urged immediate steps be taken to prevent further incidents of religious intolerance.

Kenya

Mr. Colville said that the Office of the High Commissioner condemned the killing of Kenyan human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josphat Mwenda, and their taxi driver Joseph Muiruri, on 23 June, in a context of persistent allegations of extrajudicial killings by police forces.

The three men had disappeared after Mr. Kimani and Mr. Mwenda had attended court in Mavoko, some 30 km east of Nairobi, in a case involving an officer from the Administration Police. Mr. Mwenda had been shot and injured by the police officer in April 2015, and then charged with fictitious crimes. Willie Kimani, who had been working with a non-governmental organization, International Justice Mission, had been assisting Mr Mwenda with his case. Mr Mwenda had reportedly been receiving intimidation and threats in the run up to the hearing.

The two men and their driver had been allegedly briefly detained inside a container in a police compound before being executed. On 30 June, their bodies, reportedly showing signs of torture, had been found in a river to the north-east of Nairobi.
Kenya’s Attorney General stated that no effort would be spared to identify those responsible for the killings, and the Inspector General of Police announced that a thorough investigation would be conducted. Three police officers had been arrested so far. One welcome development was the pledge by the Attorney General that the Prevention of Torture bill would be presented in Parliament within 28 days.

Mr. Colville emphasized that it is imperative to throw full light on what had happened and to establish all responsibilities related to those atrocious murders. The Office of the High Commissioner also called upon the Kenyan authorities to strengthen efforts towards accountability and take urgent measures to prevent extrajudicial executions and police brutality and other serious violations. According to some non-governmental sources, as many as 53 people may have been summarily executed by police forces between January and April 2016. The Kenya National Human Rights Commission also documented 25 cases of extrajudicial killings and 81 cases of “enforced disappearances” by police and other security agencies in the context of the counter terrorism operations between 2013 and 2015.

Hungary

Mr. Colville said that the Office of the High Commissioner was concerned at the entry into force today of a law enabling the Hungarian police to escort irregular migrants found within eight kilometres of the border with Serbia to transit zones at the border.

The worry was that the wording of the law left too much room for interpretation and might result in law enforcement agencies not respecting the human rights of migrants and breaching international law, by forcibly expelling them without any form of legal procedure. With hundreds of people already waiting in the strip of land between the Serbian passport control and the Hungarian barbed wire fence, the OHCHR also feared that the measure would only worsen the existing desperate and inhuman conditions at the border.

Addressing new police officers at a ceremony in Budapest, the Deputy National Police Commissioner János Balogh had said, the previous day, that the new law “provides police with a new opportunity to take action” and said that the Hungarian police had similar goals as the country’s football team at Euro 2016, namely “to keep the enemy as far away as possible from our own goal.”

Mr. Colville noted that those disturbing comments had been made in the wake of a number of reports of pushbacks of migrants by Hungarian police. In the night of 30 May-1 June, a Syrian man had drowned in the Tisza river, after having been allegedly forced back towards Serbia by police using pepper spray against a group of eight migrants who had just crossed by boat. The police were reported to have also thrown rocks at the group as they had tried to swim back to the Serbian river bank.

Mr. Colville informed that some 2,800 persons had been criminally prosecuted to date under the September 2015 law.

Syria

Leo Dobbs, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), informed that the mid-year report on the Syria refugee responses, the 2016 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, had been released today. It showed that poverty was rising in host countries - Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt, and providing access to basic services remained a critical challenge. Due to the generosity of donors, important work had been done in 2016, allowing for cash assistance to be delivered to more than 102,000 households, and food to over two million individuals. The needs were, nonetheless, only 30-percent funded; more funding and swifter distribution would be needed.

Mr. Dobbs stated that the impoverishment of both refugee and host populations would continue without funding, which was a disturbing development. When impoverished, people were becoming more susceptible to negative coping mechanisms, while host communities were also suffering.

On another question, Mr. Dobbs said that he would check and revert regarding the exact percentages of refugee populations living in poverty in each of the host countries.
Mr. Dobbs would also look into the details on how much of the contributions had come from corporate sources.

Global Information Technology 2016 Report

Oliver Cann, for the World Economic Forum (WEF), informed that on 6 July, the WEF would be launching its benchmarking Global Information Technology 2016 Report. It was a first major economic report published by the WEF in 2016, and it measured the progress made by countries towards deploying information and communication technologies towards not only economic growth, but also societal development.

Experts from the World Economic Forum were available for interviews.

The embargo was in place and would be lifted on 6 July at 10 a.m, at the launch of the Report.
Geneva Events and Press Conference

Mr. LeBlanc informed that the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate would hold a press conference in Press Room III at noon today. The conference would address current global terrorism threat and counter-terrorism efforts of the United Nations, as well as the role of the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee and its Executive Directorate. The speaker would be Jean-Paul Laborde, Assistant Secretary General and Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) had opened its 64^th session the previous day. Today, it was considering the report of the Philippines. During the session, the Committee would examine reports of Myanmar, France, Albania, Turkey, Uruguay, Mali, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Human Rights Committee was holding a public session this morning, in which it was discussing the draft General Comment 6, on the right to life.

The Conference on Disarmament would hold the last part of its 2016 session from 1 August until 16 September.

Mr. LeBlanc also informed that a Habitat III Expert Group Meeting on safer cities in the New Urban Agenda was taking place in Geneva on 6 July. A second conference, Reviewing the State of Safety in World Cities: Safer Cities +20, was also scheduled to take place on 7 and 8 July at the Palais des Nations.

Tarik Jašareviæ, for the World Health Organization (WHO), announced that Dr. Bruce Aylward, Executive Director ad interim of the Outbreaks and Health Emergencies Cluster, would brief the press in Press Room III on 7 July at 11:30 a.m, to speak of the yellow fever outbreak in several African countries, and the WHO response.

The Second Global Conference on Health and Climate would take place in Paris on 7 and 8 July, informed Mr. Jašareviæ. The title was “Building Healthier Societies through implementation of the Paris Agreement”. The Conference would bring together more than 300 participants, including Ministers, health practitioners, climate change experts and others. The Conference would showcase how the public health community would support the implementation of the Paris agreement, in order to build healthier and more sustainable societies. The expected outcome was an action agenda, which should be ready on 8 July. A press conference would be held in Paris on the starting day of the conference - 7 July.

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog050716