Next week, on the 13 March 2017, the UN Human Rights Council is holding a side event on the topic The Post-COI Follow-Up Process. The event, which is co-organised by EEPA, will take place at the Palais des Nations, Room XXVII at 10:00 to 11:30 and will reflect on the human rights situation Eritrea and the accountability process since the publication of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea (COI) report in July 2016. Click here for the full-sized flyer.
The COI report of 2016 provided testimonies of ongoing human rights violations since 1991 in Eritrea and came to the conclusion that these systematic violations amount to crimes against humanity.
The event aims at ensuring that the situation of human rights in Eritrea remains active in the yearly agenda items of the HRC. Up until now, the Eritrean government has not been hold accountable for the human rights violations it committed. The event wants to ensure that lobbying activities continue and a renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur is achieved. The event also calls on the international community to give effect to the set of recommendations adopted in the June 2016 report of the COI. This especially concerns recommendations calling for robust accountability measures aimed at halting the perpetration of crimes against humanity in Eritrea.
Key speakers of the event are Mirjam van Reisen, Professor of International Relations, Innovation and Care at Tilburg University and Professor of Computing for Society in Leiden, as well as Director of EEPA, and Teldah Mawarire, Policy and Research Officer at CIVICUS. Two former victims of detention without trial will also share their insight.
The event will be moderated by Daniel Mekonnen, Founding Member of the Eritrean Law Society (ELS) & Member of the Council of the International Criminal Bar (ICB).
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