UN HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF TO VISIT NEPAL AND INDIA

17 March 2009


GENEVA (OHCHR) -- The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is to visit Nepal and India this week – her first official visit to Asia since taking up the post of High Commissioner in September. She will arrive in Nepal on Wednesday 18 March and will spend five days in the country, before continuing to India on Sunday 22 March, and returning to Geneva two days later.

While in Nepal, the High Commissioner will see first-hand one of her organization’s largest country operations, and assess the overall human rights situation in the country following a tumultuous period of its history that has encompassed a civil war and the transformation of the political system from monarchy to republic.

She is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, President Ram Baran Yadav, and representatives of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and human rights defenders, as well as other UN organizations working in the country.

During her two-day visit to India, the High Commissioner will hold discussions on a range of subjects of mutual interest at the local and international levels with the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of Home Affairs as well as with other senior Government officials and members of the judiciary. She will also give a key-note lecture, hosted by India’s National Human Rights Commission.

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For use of the information media; not an official record