Gov’t officials meet civil society representatives over racial discrimination report

AMMAN — Government officials on Wednesday met with civil society representatives to discuss the national report on racial discrimination that will be submitted during a UN session later this month.

The meeting, which was organised by the office of the government coordinator for human rights Basel Tarawneh, in collaboration with Al Hayat Centre — Rased, involved representatives from the civil society, activists and members of the Jordan’s delegation that will present the report during the meeting of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 23.

“The government had already prepared its report last year and we decided to hold a meeting between the civil society and government official representing the delegation to Geneva to hear their remarks,” Tarawneh told the gathering.

“We realised that the civil society did not prepare any shadow reports to present during the UN session, so we decided to hold this meeting, get their remarks about the report and any other issues that they would like to pinpoint so we can present it on their behalf when we head to Switzerland,” Tarawneh told The Jordan Times.

Several NGO representatives criticised the organisers and government representatives “for holding the meeting with them a bit too late”.

Both head of the Freedom’s Committee at the Professional Unions lawyer Walid Udwan and lawyer Samir Jarah stressed that “the civil society should have met with the government a long time ago because the report was prepared last year and the government had plenty of time to invite us to discuss it”.

Jordan Jurist Association Secretary General Noor Imam agreed, adding that “the meeting gave us an incentive to follow up on future reports by Jordan in various international conventions and to really work on preparing shadow reports ahead of time.”

Imam, a lawyer and activist, said that “it was also important for the government to know that it should invite the civil society ahead of time to give us time to present our points and respond to their reports.”

Several civil society group members stated that they had “no clear knowledge about the time of the meeting or the fact that they had time to prepare a shadow report”.

“It was surely a lesson learnt for us to prepare for such activities ahead of time,” Imam added.

The civil society representatives made several remarks related to women Christian’s rights, the right to hold activities without being banned by the authorities and rights of Palestinians who carry the Jordanian nationality.

At the end of the meeting, Tarawneh stressed that “all comments made by the civil society and any future comments that will be delivered to [his] office before heading to Geneva will be taken into consideration and presented in the utmost transparent matter during the discussion of Jordan’s report at the session”.

The CERD is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its state parties.

All state parties are obliged to submit regular reports to the committee on how rights are being implemented nationally. States must report one year after acceding to the convention and then every two years. The committee examines each report and addresses its concerns and recommendations to the state party in the form of “concluding observations”.