Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) meets with visiting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 15, 2017. Egyptian president and visiting United Nations chief vowed here Wednesday to continue cooperation and solve regional problems. Xinhua/SIPA USA/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.Closing its 36th session on September 29, 2017, the Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted a resolution strongly condemning acts of intimidation and reprisals against those who cooperate with the United Nations. Among the 19 states that abstained from the resolution were Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
This resolution followed the presentation of a report to the HRC on September 20, in which UN Secretary-General (UNSG) António Guterres cited 29 countries where individuals have been subjected to reprisals for reporting human rights violations to UN mechanisms. No less than a third of these countries are in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Over the past year, human rights defenders in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates faced reprisals for daring to speak up at the UN level against their government’s abuses. They suffered from various forms of reprisals, ranging from asset freezes and travel bans to arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearance, and in some cases, torture.
