Democratic Republic of Congo Human Rights Report to be launched Friday, 1 October

HC/10/45
29 September 2010

GENEVA – The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will publish the report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 1993 and 2003 at 15:00 CET on 1 October 2010. At that time, a page including the French and English versions of the report and of a press release and press statement, eight thematic backgrounders and any comments by concerned states received by then will go live at www.ohchr.org.

There will be no formal press conference, but a number of OHCHR staff will be available for TV and radio interviews in English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.

Media wishing to arrange interviews on the day should call one of the following numbers:
+41 22 917 9383
+41 22 917 9310
+41 79 444 7578

For broadcasters: an interview with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, will be disseminated through Eurovision/EBU and UNifeed shortly after 09:00 a.m., and will subsequently also be posted at: ftp://Communications:ftp_comms@ftp.unicc.org. A non-broadcast quality version will also be posted on www.ohchr.org.

The mapping exercise and its resulting report are unprecedented in scope, covering ten years and the entire territory of the DRC. The report describes a total of more than 600 incidents in the DRC between 1993 and 2003 in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed, injured and victimized in other ways, including large numbers of women and children. Over 1,280 witnesses were interviewed to corroborate or invalidate alleged violations, including previously undocumented incidents, and more than 1,500 documents were collected and analyzed during the two years it took to research and produce the report.

The overarching objective of the DRC Mapping Exercise is “to formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the Government of the DRC in identifying appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations, in terms of truth, justice, reparation and reform.”
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For use of the information media; not an official record