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On October 29, 2019, MENA Rights Group’s director Inès Osman participated in a panel discussion, “Taking a Stand to Protect Human Rights Defenders”, organised by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) in New York.  The discussion, moderated by Chris Jochnik, President and CEO of Landesa, focused on the challenges faced by companies in ensuring […]

Excellencies, We, the undersigned, call on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to immediately and unconditionally release prominent human rights defender Dr Mohammed Al-Roken, arbitrarily detained since 2012 solely for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association, including through his work as a human rights lawyer. Dr Al-Roken is an Emirati lawyer, academic […]

On October 24, 2019, several human rights organisations urged state delegations to categorically reject the approach expected to be adopted in a draft resolution at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Third Committee on “terrorism and human rights”, led by Egypt and Mexico in a common letter.

Dear participants of the World Tolerance Summit, We, the undersigned, call on all participants and speakers at the World Tolerance Summit taking place in Dubai on November 13 and 14 to withdraw from the event, which promotes a misleading image of the United Arab Emirates as a model of tolerance and openness. This is the […]

October 16, 2019 Your Excellency, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan, The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently announced multiple projects promoting pluralism and tolerance both at home and abroad. 2019 has been declared the ‘Year of Tolerance’ and in 2020, Dubai will host the World Expo trade fair, under the theme ‘Connecting Minds, Creating […]

On October 12, 2019, which marks the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights (ACPRA), the undersigned organisations call on Saudi authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all detained ACPRA members.

On 2 October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain official documents in order to get married, but he did not make it out alive. He was brutally killed inside the consulate in what the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Dr Agnes Callamard, called a “premeditated extrajudicial […]

On September 19, 2019, during the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva, MENA Rights Group co-organised a side event highlighting the discriminatory practices of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and the application of the capital punishment in Saudi Arabia.

On September 20, 2019, in a joint oral statement delivered before the Human Rights Council for the adoption of the outcome of Qatar’s Universal Periodic Review, a group of 9 NGOs expressed concern over the lack of endorsement of a range of recommendations of UN Member States related to the situation of migrant workers, stateless […]

On August 23, 2019, 23 NGOs wrote to the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights (ASG), the President of the Human Rights Council (HRC), and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, to raise concerns over an alarming pattern of intimidation and reprisals faced by members of civil society during sessions of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Bodies. The letter calls on the ASG to raise this issue during his speech before the HRC on September 19, 2019, and urges the OHCHR to take measures to ensure that such acts of reprisals are not repeated

It was a striking choice for France to invite Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to attend the 24-26 August G7 summit in Biarritz, for which the chosen theme is “the fight against inequality”. The number of Egyptians under the poverty line has clearly risen according to official Egyptian 2018 statistics, while the World Bank estimates that […]

25 July 2019 H. E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, We write to you in your capacity as the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, the secretariat of the continental organisation responsible for driving the political agenda and development of the people of Africa. As Chairperson of the AU Commission we are assured of your mandate to […]