A/HRC/44/50/Add.4
Introduction
1.
The present document is submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom
of peaceful assembly and of association, pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 32/32.
The document provides observations on the communications addressed by the Special
Rapporteur to States and other actors, and on the replies received.
2.
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur provides observations on
communications sent to States and other actors between 26 April 2019 and 15 April 2020.
This report further contains observations on responses to the aforementioned
communications received from States and other actors until 31 May 2020.
3.
The report contains responses received from States before 31 May 2020. A number of
replies received before 31 May 2020 could not be included because translation of these
documents was not available at the time of finalising the report. In October 2019, the United
Nations was forced to take extraordinary measures to curtail expenditures in order to address
the liquidity crisis faced by the Organisation.
4.
In order to avoid duplicating information, the addendum limits itself to reporting on
those communications which have not been covered by the extensive addendum
“Observations on communications transmitted to Governments and replies received”
submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to the Human
Rights Council during its 43th session on 18 February 2020. Instead, a list of these
communications will be provided in the annex. The Special Rapporteur thanks all of those
States and other actors who provided replies to communications sent which are not explicitly
reported on in this addendum.
5.
The Special Rapporteur is grateful to all States, which have transmitted substantive
responses to his communications. He trusts that States who have not provided substantive
responses to his communications will do so shortly.
6.
Communications sent and responses received during the reporting period are
accessible electronically through the hyperlink below. The Special Rapporteur is aware of
responses received after the reporting deadline that could not be reflected in the present report
and takes this opportunity to highlight the importance of receiving timely replies.
7.
Each communication is referenced as an urgent appeal (UA), joint urgent appeal
(JUA), allegation letter (AL), joint allegation letter (JAL), other letter (OL) or joint other
letter (JOL), followed by the date the communication was issued, the case number and the
date of the State reply, if any. The communications included in this report and the replies
received from the concerned States, respectively, can be consulted in the Communication
report and search webpage.
8.
The Special Rapporteur is grateful to all States and other actors that have transmitted
responses to communications sent. He considers interaction through his communications as
an important part of cooperation with States and encourages States (and others) to benefit
from this opportunity to have a constructive dialogue through the use of this tool. In this
context, the Special Rapporteur recalls paragraph 2 of the Human Rights Council resolution
32/32 that calls upon States “to continue to cooperate fully with and assist him in the
performance of his mandate [and] to respond promptly to his urgent appeals and other
communications…” Therefore, he urges all States which have not yet replied to his
communications to do so without further delay.
Summary
9.
Between 26 April 2019 and 15 April 2020, the Special Rapporteur sent 168
communications, either individually or jointly with other mandate holders of the Human
Rights Council, to 81 States and 6 other actors, of which 30 were urgent appeals, 86 were
allegation letters and 51 were other letters.
10.
Examined by region, the figures show that 20 were addressed to countries in the Africa
region (12 per cent), 55 to countries in the Americas region (32 per cent), 50 in the Asia-
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