Human Rights Council holds a Special Session on The situation of human rights in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

23 February 2011

The Human Rights Council will hold a Special Session on "The situation of human rights in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” on Friday, 25 February, starting at 10 a.m. in Room XX of the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The holding of the Special Session comes at the request of Hungary, on behalf of the European Union, and is supported by the following 21 Member States of the Council: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, France, Hungary, Japan, Jordan, Maldives, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Republic of Moldova, Senegal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay. The support of one-third of the membership of the Council (16 members or more) is required for a Special Session to be convened.

Additional signatures were also received from the following: Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Iceland, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Palestine, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and Zambia.

This will be the 15th Special Session of the Council. Previous Special Sessions have been held on the human rights situations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in Lebanon, in Darfur, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Myanmar, and in Sri Lanka, as well as on the world food crisis, the economic and financial crisis and support for the recovery process in Haiti. The last Special Session was on the situation of human rights in Cote d’Ivoire after the elections, and it was held on 23 December 2010.

It should be noted that this is the first time a Council member will be the subject of a Special Session.

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For use of the information media; not an official record