A/HRC/45/16
7.
Reprisals against subjects of the opinions of the Working Group
29.
The Working Group notes with grave concern that it continues to receive information,
including in the context of its follow-up procedure, on reprisals suffered by individuals who
have been the subject of an urgent appeal or opinion or whose cases have given effect to a
recommendation of the Working Group.
30.
Between 1 January and 21 December 2019, the Working Group received allegations
of reprisals against:
• Ahmed Aliouat (opinion No. 58/2018, Morocco)
• Mounir Ben Abdellah (opinion No. 78/2019, Morocco)
• Ebrahim Abdelmonem Metwally Hegazy (opinion No. 41/2019, Egypt)
• Hajer Mansoor Hassan (opinion No. 51/2018, Bahrain) and Medina Ali (letter of
allegation 3/2019, Bahrain)
• Aziz El Ouahidi, Elkantawi Elbeur, Mohammed Dadda and Abdelmoula El Hafidi
(opinion No. 67/2019)
• Issa al-Nukheifi, Abdulaziz Youssef Mohamed al-Shubaili and Issa Hamid al-Hamid
(opinion No. 71/2019, Saudi Arabia)
31.
In its resolutions 12/2 and 24/24, the Human Rights Council called upon Governments
to prevent and refrain from all acts of intimidation or reprisal against those who sought to
cooperate or had cooperated with the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms in
the field of human rights, or who had provided testimony or information to them. The
Working Group encourages Member States to take all measures possible to guard against
reprisals.
8.
Urgent appeals
32.
During the period from 1 January to 31 December 2019, the Working Group sent 61
urgent appeals to 31 Governments and, in one case, to other actors, and 80 allegation letters
and other letters to 43 Governments and, in one case, to other actors, concerning at least 377
identified individuals.
33.
The list of countries concerned by urgent appeals is as follows: Australia (1), Burkina
Faso (1), Chile (1), China (4), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1), Ecuador (2), Egypt (7),
Equatorial Guinea (1), France (1), India (1), Iran (Islamic Republic of) (8), Iraq (1), Ireland
(1), Israel (4), Kuwait (1), Lebanon (1), Mozambique (1), Myanmar (2), Pakistan (1),
Philippines (1), Russian Federation (1), Saudi Arabia (4), Singapore (1), Sri Lanka (1), Sudan
(2), Thailand (1), Turkey (3), United Arab Emirates (2), Viet Nam (2), Yemen (1) and
Zimbabwe (1); 1 urgent appeal concerned other actors. 4
34.
In conformity with paragraphs 22 to 24 of its methods of work, the Working Group,
without prejudging whether a detention was arbitrary, drew the attention of each of the
Governments concerned to the specific case as reported and appealed to them, often jointly
with other special procedure mandate holders, to take the measures necessary to ensure that
the detained persons’ rights to life, liberty and physical and psychological integrity were
respected.
35.
When an appeal made reference to the critical state of health of certain persons or to
particular circumstances, such as the failure to execute a court order for release or to give
effect to a previous opinion of the Working Group seeking the release of the person, the
Working Group requested that all measures necessary for the immediate release of the
detained person be taken. In accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 5/2, the
Working Group integrated into its methods of work the prescriptions of the Code of Conduct
for Special Procedures Mandate Holders of the Human Rights Council relating to urgent
appeals and applies them.
4
22
The full text of urgent appeals will be available at www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/
CommunicationsreportsSP.aspx.
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