A/HRC/30/30
15.
OHCHR also continued to provide general and specialized training for civil society
organizations. Three sessions were organized in 2015, focusing on basic human rights,
freedom of expression, and civil and political rights.
16.
On numerous occasions, OHCHR worked closely with civil society organizations to
address specific situations, for instance in the aftermath of protests. It raised a number of
cases involving human rights defenders, community activists and journalists with national
and local authorities. OHCHR opened or followed up on approximately 90 cases on issues
ranging from arbitrary detention, harassment and threats against human rights defenders
and violations of fundamental freedoms, as well as forced evictions and high-profile land
cases. In some land cases, OHCHR facilitated community meetings and the preparation of
documents to be filed with provincial courts. In many cases, OHCHR followed up with the
relevant authorities, visited human rights defenders in police stations and prisons, helped
them to find a lawyer and monitored their trials with the aim of ensuring that justice would
be served.
17.
Following the resumption of work by a fully constituted National Assembly in
August 2014, several laws with significant human rights implications were introduced or
re-introduced before the Parliament, in relation to which OHCHR had sought to promote an
inclusive participatory consultative process in conformity with the right to take part in the
conduct of public affairs.4 In late February 2015, the National Assembly received drafts of a
law on the election of members of the National Assembly and of another on the National
Election Committee, the contents of which had been agreed upon between the two parties.
Within two weeks, the draft laws were publicly released, a half-day consultation was held,
and the texts were adopted. The speed and closed nature of the adoption process gave little
time for any meaningful analysis or debate with civil society organizations, political parties
not represented in the National Assembly, academics and other independent voices.
18.
After the period under review, several other draft laws with important implications
for human rights were reportedly in various stages of preparation following a similar
pattern of opacity. A draft law on associations and non-governmental organizations, the
development of which had been put on hold since 2011, resurfaced in April 2015, when the
Prime Minister declared that the Government would resume work on it. The latest draft was
not shared by the Government, prompting civil society organizations to launch a “Stop and
Consult” campaign. The draft was approved by the Council of Ministers, submitted to the
National Assembly in June, and publicly released only three weeks before the National
Assembly proceeded to adopt it on 13 July, after just a half-day public consultation, on 8
July.
19.
The draft trade union law, developed by the Ministry of Labour and Vocational
Training, was the subject of several rounds of consultations with trade unions, employers
and the International Labour Organization through to 2011. In 2014, discussions on the
draft law were resumed: a tripartite discussion was held in May; in October, the
Government declared that it intended to adopt the law. At the time of finalization of the
present report, the Government still had not shared the latest draft, which was reportedly
nearly ready for submission to the Council of Ministers, prompting labour rights activists to
join the latest protests against both the law on associations and non-governmental
organizations and the trade union law. No official information is available on the status of
the draft law on cybercrimes, which was reportedly revived in 2014 amid concerns that the
draft could restrict the right to freedom of expression on the Internet.
4
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 25.
5
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