13 February 1998


John Mills, media officer for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that Mrs. Mary Robinson would be making an official visit to Paris on Monday, 16 February. Her programme included a meeting with the French official in charge of the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, meetings with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, with the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly and meetings with the Prime Minister, M. Lionel Jospin, and the President of the Republic, H.E. M. Jacques Chirac.

Mr. Mills said that in the evening, the High Commissioner would attend an event at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization where she would be honoured by the magazine La Vie as European of the Year. An interview with the High Commissioner appeared in the current edition of that magazine which was out today.

Next week, there would be a meeting of the Working Group on the human rights of migrants. The Working Group was established by the Commission on Human Rights and was made up of five inter-governmental experts nominated by Governments. They would be adopting a report to go to the Commission. The meeting would be held in Room XII and it was a public meeting.

Mr. Mills said that available shortly in the press room would be a press release from the UN Human Rights Office in Abkhazia, Georgia, regarding the concern of parents in the Gali district about the language of instruction in schools. This was a sensitive issue and the press release had the details of Office's views on the issue. The Abkhazia Office was a joint operation by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Asked if Mrs. Robinson would discuss Algeria with French officials, Mr. Mills said that he imagined that she would discuss a range of human rights issues, and he could well imagine that Algeria would come up.

In response to a request for more details on the Working Group on migrants, Mr. Mills said that it was a meeting of five experts appointed by their Governments, one from each of the regions. The issue of human rights of migrants had been a concern for some time. There was a Convention on human rights of migrants which had not entered into force because it had not been ratified by enough countries.

This was the second half of the Working Group's annual schedule of meetings and its work was to gather information from non-governmental organizations and from Governments on measures being taken to protect the human rights of migrants. The experts would be discussing the replies they had received from a number of Governments. Mr. Mills said the meeting would end next Friday and if correspondents were interested, and the Chairman of the Working Group was willing, a briefing could be arranged.

A correspondent noted that Cuba was releasing political prisoners and that there seemed to be a "window of opportunity" provided by the visit of the Pope. She asked if the High Commissioner or the Special Rapporteur on Cuba, Mr. Carl Groth of Sweden, would take steps to get the Cuban authorities to invite the Special Rapporteur to visit. Mr. Mills said that this was a good point which he would raise with Mr. Groth and the High Commissioner and get back to the correspondent at the next briefing.

In response to a question on whether there was any progress in setting up an office of the High Commissioner in Pristina, Mr. Mills said that this was an issue which the former Special Rapporteur, Ms. Elizabeth Rehn, had pushed very hard. It was something that the Office had been trying to do and he would check to see if any progress had been made on it since there was no Special Rapporteur at the moment. This might have caused a pause in these efforts. He promised to get more information on this subject at the following briefing.