On Syria: CIVICUS sincerely hopes that the mediated peace talks will finally get off the ground and lead to results. However, we are concerned that between the 1st and 11th of March, the Syria Ceasefire Monitor reported over sixty violations, including mortar attacks, airstrikes, barrel bomb attacks, sniper attacks and other attacks on the civilian population that continue to result in the deaths of children and adult civilians. CIVICUS calls on all parties to abide by its provisions and refrain from attacks on the civilian population. We also urge the COI to investigate these ceasefire violations within the scope of its mandate. CIVICUS also repeats our call to the Syrian authorities to immediately release all unlawfully detained civilians, civil society activists, journalists, human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience, to ensure the ‘tracking of missing victims of enforced disappearance and the independent ‘monitoring of places of detention’ as recommended by the COI in its current report.
On Egypt: CIVICUS is very concerned with the severe escalation of civic space restrictions through repressive laws and practices, including the newly adopted law on counter-terrorism. These laws target rights groups, human rights defenders, journalists, academics and peaceful protestors in an attempt to silence all voices of dissent. Human rights defenders face prosecution, imprisonment and threats of sexual assaults; travel bans are increasingly used as a measure to prevent prominent human rights defenders from leaving the country. Escalations in forced disappearances, long pre-trial detentions, torture cases and death in detention only add to the worrying picture.
On Bahrain: CIVICUS is extremely alarmed about the renewed arrest yesterday of Bahraini Human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja along with her 15 month old baby Abdul-Hadi. This only confirms other recent reports on arrests, travel bans, torture, even revocation of citizenship and deportation of human rights activists, human rights defenders, in total contrast to the government’s commitments made during their last UPR Review. CIVICUS calls on the Human Rights Council to urge the Egyptian and Bahrain governments to put an end to the reprisals against citizens who exercise their rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly.