A/HRC/10/12 page 17 Turkmenistan; defenders working on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in Israel, Montenegro, the Republic of Korea, Serbia and Sri Lanka. Problems faced by defenders working on issues related to migrants were mentioned with regard to South Africa. 75. Regarding the institutional framework for human rights defenders, the weaknesses of the Ombudsman were highlighted in connection with Ukraine. 4. Interactive dialogue in the Working Group 76. According to the provisions of resolution 5/1, NGOs may only attend and observe the proceedings of the Working Group but cannot intervene during this phase of the review.14 Civil society representatives have the opportunity to make general comments before the adoption of the outcome by the plenary. At this stage, however, the report of the Working Group is already finalized, therefore interventions by NGOs, including by or on behalf of human rights defenders, has a rather limited impact. (a) Questions raised by delegations: references to human rights defenders 77. During the first two rounds of discussions, the Special Rapporteur observed that States showed a relatively strong interest in the situation of human rights defenders in the States under review. It is notable that certain States decided to pose questions with regard to human rights defenders across the board, to all or most of the States under review. 78. The Special Rapporteur regrets, however, that the questions and recommendations in connection with the situation of human rights defenders in some cases did not go beyond an expression of general concern about their situation, and the recommendations were rather vague. Although such interventions are welcome in that they draw the attention of other States and relevant stakeholders to the plight of human rights defenders in a given State, the Special Rapporteur is of the opinion that they need to be formulated in a more concrete manner in order to be implementable, and in order for them to be used as benchmarks against which real progress can be measured. 79. The situation of human rights defenders figures prominently in the review of the following States: Brazil, Guatemala, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. For example, during the UPR process on Guatemala, almost all the States that submitted questions to the troika in advance asked questions about human rights defenders. Furthermore, 10 States provided Guatemala with different recommendations on how better to protect human rights defenders. These recommendations were reflected in the Working Group report. 80. During the first two rounds of the review process in the course of the interactive dialogue, the following issues were highlighted with regard to the situation of human rights defenders. The general working environment of NGOs and their treatment was mentioned in connection with Peru and the Philippines. Better protection of human rights defenders was recommended for Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. 14 Ibid., para. 18 (c).

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