Czechia’s human rights record to be reviewed by Universal Periodic Review

Czech

GENEVA (2 November 2017) – Czechia’s human rights record will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the third time on Monday, 6 November 2017 in a meeting that will be webcast live.

Czechia is one of the 14 States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session taking place from 6 to 17 November.  Czechia’s first and second UPR reviews took place in April 2008 and October 2012, respectively.

The documents on which the reviews are based are: 1) national report - information provided by the State under review; 2) information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; 3) information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations and civil society groups.

Among the issues raised in the above-mentioned documents are: a national human rights institution in accordance with the Paris Principles; combatting the discrimination against Roma, migrants, as well as persons with disabilities in employment, housing, health, education and decision-making; preventing and addressing racially motivated violence, hate speech and hate crimes; tackling gender stereotypes and reducing the gender pay gap; halting the institutionalisation of children with disabilities and improving their access to inclusive education; ending the segregation of Roma children from mainstream education; using the detention of migrants as a last resort only; compensating victims of forced sterilization; ending the use of surgical castration of sex offenders; and removing the forced sterilization requirement for legal gender recognition of transgender persons.

The three reports serving as the basis for the review of Czechia on 6 November can be found here.

Location: Room 20, Palais des Nations, Geneva
Time and date: 9.00 – 12.30, Monday, 6 November (Geneva time, GMT +1 hour)

The UPR is a unique process which involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States.  Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN member States have been reviewed twice within the first and second UPR cycles.  During the third UPR cycle, States are again expected to spell out steps they have taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews which they committed to follow-up on, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country.

The delegation of Czechia will be headed by Ms. Martina Štěpánková, Deputy Minister for Human Rights.

The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of Czechia are: Nigeria, Indonesia and Brazil.

The webcast of the session will be at http://webtv.un.org

The list of speakers and all available statements to be delivered during the review of Czechia will be posted on the UPR Extranet at the following link.

The UPR Working Group is scheduled to adopt the recommendations made to Czechia at 15.00 on 10 November.  The State under review may wish to express its positions on recommendations posed to it during their review.  The recommendations will be shared with the media on this day in advance.   

ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact Rolando Gómez at +41 (0) 22 917 9711 /  rgomez@ohchr.org , Sarah Lubbersen at +41 (0) 22 917 9689 / slubbersen@ohchr.org, Cédric Sapey at +41 (0) 22 917 9751 / csapey@ohchr.org or in Czechia Michal Broža + 420 724 020 611 / broza@un.org

To learn more about the Universal Periodic Review, visit: www.ohchr.org/hrc/upr

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