UN Committee Against Torture to review Burkina Faso, Cyprus, Latvia, Niger, Portugal, and Uzbekistan

GENEVA (8 November 2019) — The UN Committee Against Torture will meet in Geneva from 11 November to 6 December 2019 to review the situation for human rights in Burkina Faso, Cyprus, Latvia, Niger, Portugal, and Uzbekistan.

The above are among the 169 States parties to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and so are required to undergo regular reviews on how they are implementing the Convention as well as the Committee’s previous recommendations. The Committee will hold dialogues with delegations from the respective governments and be briefed by NGOs, national human rights institutions and independent monitoring frameworks.

The public sessions will be held in the First Floor Conference Room of Palais Wilson in Geneva. The full schedule of meetings is available online here.

The sessions will be webcast live at http://webtv.un.org/live, and the recommended hashtag for the meeting is #CAT68.

More information about the session, including reports submitted by the States, is available on the session Webpage. Information is also available regarding media accreditation.

The Committee is scheduled to publish its findings on the respective States, known as concluding observations, here on 6 December. The Committee will hold a press conference to present the findings on the same day at 12:30pm in Press Room 1, Palais des Nations.

ENDS

Background

The Committee Against Torture monitors States parties’ adherence to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which to date has 169 State parties. The Committee is made up of 10 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, who serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of States parties. The Committee’s concluding observations are an independent assessment of States’ compliance with their human rights obligations under the treaty.

For media inquiries, please contact the UN Human Rights Office Media Section at +41 (0) 22 928 9855 / media@ohchr.org or Kiera Schuller at +41 (0) 22 917 9826 / kschuller@ohchr.org.

Learn more with our animation about the Treaty Body system and about the Committee Against Torture!

Follow the UN human rights office on social media! We are on Twitter @UNHumanRights, Facebook @unitednationshumanrights and Instagram @unitednationshumanrights