Dr. Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) met in Geneva with President of the Human Rights Council (HRC) Joachim Rucker.
During the meeting , Al Marri presented a comprehensive introduction about the NHRC, its local, regional and international roles.
Both sides discussed ways to activate recommendations of the international conference on the challenges to security and human rights in the Arab region which was organized by the committee in Doha last November in which Al Marri gave a brief about the international conference on the challenges to security and human rights, role of NHRC’s partners in organizing the conference in addition to the steps taken by the NHRC to implement the recommendations of the conference. They discussed ways to examine recommendations of the conference as part of the reports of special rapporteurs and working groups including the reports of the special rapporteur on the question of torture, the special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, the special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, and the working group on arbitrary detention, the Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances and The Working Group on the use of mercenaries.
With regard to recommendations of the conference, Al Marri said that the committee communicated with relevant bodies including the general secretariat of Arab interior ministers council and the permanent Arab commission for human rights within the Arab League, citing that the Arab interior ministers council reaffirmed that the recommendations shall be reviewed at their next meeting in mid-March. Al Marri added we also asked the permanent Arab commission for human rights to organize a session to discuss inclusion of recommendations in reports submitted by the Arab States, there are also many correspondences we made with the GCC countries, the OIC and the Arab Parliament.
Al Marri invited HRC president to visit the NHRC to meet Qatari officials and civil society organizations in the State. HRC president said that the council was well acquainted with recommendations, stressing on the importance of giving priority to the recommendations in HRC work.