Khiam Center appreciates the invitation to activate the Lebanese diplomacy

Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture appreciates your invitation to activate the Lebanese diplomacy and to lead the Ministry of Foreign Affairs play an efficient role in defending Lebanon and all its relevant causes all over the world.
We do emphasize on the importance of committing to the International laws regarding human rights issues.
We do believe that this commitment reveals the bright side of each community, in the time when Lebanon is supposed to present its report on the human rights situations before the Committee of the UPR
(universal Periodic Review) in Geneva on the ninth session by the end of 2010.
The Human Rights Council and the UPR Council are in charge of reviewing 192 UN member states through reports on human rights situations and records of fulfilling obligations and commitments in the field of human rights.
The UPR process aims to improve the human rights situations, and it urges the governments to abide by their commitments and duties, in addition to cooperating with NGO stakeholders.
So that, Lebanon and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs must not lose such an opportunity to carry on a workshop on the preparation for writing the National Report and presenting it on the prompt date. That’s why we suggest your Excellency take the lead in managing a wide open dialogue involving the Lebanese civil community through the nongovernmental organizations.
Lebanon is condemned for not fulfilling its obligations towards the International Laws-especially as Lebanon signed one you ago the Optional Protocol for the United Nations Agreement, and on 22, December, 2009, Lebanon didn’t prepare the National Preventive Mechanism to visit and monitor the Lebanese prisons and detention centers.
Lebanon has ratified the United Nations Convention since 2000, but it didn’t present its report before the UN Committee till now.
Lebanon also signed the International Convention of the Civil, Social, Economic, and political rights in 1976, however, it hasn’t present any report since the past 10 years.
Lebanon didn’t sign the International Convention of refugees and the convention of Protection of persons from Enforced Disappearance, in addition to ignoring the convention of eliminating all forms of discrimination against women.
The Lebanese government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have great responsibility to fulfill its duties towards human rights, and they are in charge of presenting all the late reports, in addition to the new ones. Such specialty makes Lebanon a pioneer in the field of human rights.
We call for activating the role of Lebanese missions abroad, particularly in Geneva and New York because these missions help in carrying on the Lebanese causes in front of the Human Right Council, starting from the cause of the missing persons, bodies of the martyrs, cluster bombs, and a serious follow up to the massacres of July War 2006.