UN urged to appoint rapporteur in Qatar

Manama : The Manama Centre for Human Rights (MCHR) has called on the international community and the United Nations agencies to appoint a special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Qatar, in light of the grave human rights violations committed by the Qatari regime against citizens and residents.

The MCHR stressed that in light of the lack of independence of the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) in Qatar and its direct and legal affiliation to the Qatari political organisation, the international human rights mechanisms must assume their moral duties by directly investigating the violations of the rights of thousands of Al-Ghofran tribesmen and expatriate workers, in addition to cases of arbitrary withdrawal of the citizenship of tribe leaders and their families, including women and children.

The centre also warned that the continuity of the Qatari regime’s rights violations would constitute a dangerous precedent in international law regarding the policy of impunity. The Manama Centre for Human Rights also called on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to hold a special session on the serious human rights violations of the Qatari regime and the need to appoint a special rapporteur on the situation of human rights there.

It also called on the UNHRC to set up an independent fact-finding commission to carry out an independent investigation into the human rights violations in Qatar ahead of referring the perpetrators to a fair trial.