SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON TORTURE TO VISIT MONGOLIA

12 May 2005

The Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, will visit Mongolia from 4 to 10 June 2005, at the invitation of the Government.

In order to gather first-hand information, the Special Rapporteur will meet with Government officials, representatives of the National Human Rights Commission, non-governmental organizations and international organizations, as well as visit detention facilities. He has also expressed his interest to support national initiatives to combat torture and ill-treatment.

The Special Rapporteur will submit a comprehensive written report on the visit to the sixty-second session of the Commission in 2006.

Mr. Nowak was appointed Special Rapporteur on 1 December 2004. As Special Rapporteur, he is independent from any government and serves in his individual capacity. The Commission first decided to appoint a special rapporteur to examine questions relevant to torture in 1985. The mandate covers all countries, irrespective of whether or not a State has ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Mr. Nowak has previously served as a member of the Working Group on enforced and involuntary disappearances; as the United Nations expert on missing persons in the former Yugoslavia; as the United Nations expert on legal questions on enforced disappearances, and as a judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is a Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna and the Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights.

For further information on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, please visit the website: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/torture/rapporteur/index.htm

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For use of information media; not an official record