42nd Session of the Human Rights Council
Side event on human rights violations of Bedoon minority in Kuwait, UAE and other minorities in Libya
Geneva – Representatives of international human rights organizations and human rights experts recommended United Nations human rights bodies to pay attention to the statelessness of Bedoon minority and take actions to find solutions and to end their suffering.
During a side-event organized by the Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties on the sidelines of the 42nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Dr. Khaled Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Mr. Issa Abdul Majid Mansour, spokesperson of the Agency of the Cities Union North-South and Ms Gulnoz Saydaminova, Vice-President of the Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties made various presentations moderated by Dr. Nidal Salim, Director of the Global Institute of Water, Environment and Health.
The side event started with a presentation of Ms Gulnoz Saydaminova, Vice-President of the Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties that made an overview of international human rights standards to nationality and the issue of statelessness. Also, Vice-President noted that the Geneva Council joined a statement together with 125 international organizations condemning the deprivation of nearly 2 million Bangladeshi Muslims in the Indian state of Assam and calling for effective actions by the UN human rights mechanisms to end the suffering of these minority. This statement will also be presented at a meeting of state representatives in the high-level segment on statelessness organized by UNHCR next month in Geneva as part of a campaign aimed at entirely eradicating statelessness by 2024. Lastly, Ms Saydaminova presented report “Bidoons in the United Arab Emirates: deprived of life and death” newly published by Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties.
The Bidoon in the UAE suffer from deprivation of all rights to education, treatment, employment, marriage and property, as well as being subjected to violations of the most basic human rights guaranteed.
The Bidoons belong to races and nationalities that are inseparable from the nationalities of the Emirati people. However, the UAE government refuses to recognize them as citizens, depriving them of their human and national rights in the country.
The Bidoons are subjected to massive abuses of their most basic rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants on Civil, Political, Economic and Social Rights.
The speakers emphasized the issue of statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly the systematic persecution of the Bidoon minority in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and of other ethnic minorities in Libya. The symposium included interventions by a number of speakers on the effects of the Bidoons files and their human rights violations, especially in the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
In this regard, the Executive Director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, Khalid Ibrahim, reviews the situation of the “Bidoons” in Kuwait, depriving them of their basic rights and the refusal of the authorities to recognize them and their equality with citizens.
Ibrahim calls for the need for the intervention of the UN human rights mechanisms to secure the release of the 15 detained “Bedoons” activists arrested for organizing popular events demanding the rights of the Bidoon and their recognition in Kuwait.
The spokesperson of the United Cities Agency for North-South Cooperation, Mr Issa Abdul Majeed Mansour, also discussed the impact of the internal conflict in Libya on minorities and how interventions by regional countries such as Egypt and the UAE contributed to the Libyan file and to increase this suffering.
