FIDH formally addresses the Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations on 20 March 2002
Today, FIDH expressed to the U.N. Commission for Human Rights, opening its 58th session at Geneva, its profound concerns implicated by the antiterrorist struggle begun after 11 September 2001. FIDH called upon the 53 member states " not to sacrifice human rights on the alter of the antiterrorist struggle. "
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was requested by FIDH to take its concerns into consideration on 22 January 2001, as was the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on 13 March 2002 with regard to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a joint request deblocking an urgent injunction made to the United States. FIDH also urged the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to act against discriminatory laws adopted by the United States, Great Britain and Germany.
For Sidiki Kaba, President of FIDH, " the Commission has an obligation to announce loudly and clearly that all is not permitted ! The recent developments observed in a number of states enormously exceed the requirements of the struggle against terrorism and portend a terrible regression. The necessity for respect for the universal laws protecting human rights must be guarded tirelessly. In the end, respect for human dignity distinguishes an organised international community from a collection of fanatics. "
According to the Charter of the United Nations (Art. 1-3, 55, 56 and 68), the first responsibility of the Commission for Human Rights is to foster " universal and effective respect of human rights and of fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of race, sex, language, or religion." The actual composition of the Commission, whose members include a number of states known to commit daily violations of human rights, outlines the absurd difficulty of the task. FIDH counts, nevertheless, on the mobilisation of states, from the North as well as the South, who proclaim their adherence to universal norms. FIDH calls them to take the initiative at the heart of the Commission and to thus seize the opportunity which is handed to them today by the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The Commission must in particular ask that the Security Council associate, formally and in a permanent manner, the High Commissioner for Human Rights with the mechanism for the instigation of Resolution 1373. It must order an urgent report on the compatibility of antiterrorist measures and practices with the international obligations of states. This report must be immediately presented to the Committee Against Terrorism of the Security Council of the United Nations and put in action by the General Assembly. The Commission for Human Rights must formally mobilise all of its thematic and geographic organs on the subject and show its formal adhesion to the appeal made by the states on 10 December 2001.
These recommendations will be discussed at a meeting organised jointly by FIDH, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists, and Cairo Institute for Human Rights and held in the Palace of Nations (Room XXIII) in Geneva between 1pm and 3pm.