Journalists convene ahead of Jordan’s 4th UPR human rights review

AMMAN — The Centre for Defending Freedoms of Journalists (CDFJ) on Monday held a meeting to discuss ways of promoting and evaluating Jordan’s role in the upcoming Fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) 2024.

“We need to have a real evaluation of the Kingdom’s role in the UPR and to examine the 2018 UPR meeting in Geneva and analyse what still needs to be done,” President of the CDFJ Nidal Mansour told the gathering.

In addition, Mansour said that the aim of the meeting is also to encourage local journalists to “cover human rights topics ahead of the UPR meeting” that will be held in January in Geneva, Switzerland.

“The idea is to form a team of specialised journalists to discuss future steps before we take part in the UPR meeting,” Mansour said.

Mansour added that his organisation plans to “look for funding so we can send a team of journalists to actively take part in the January meetings”.

The UPR, along with the Human Rights Council, was established by UN Resolution 60/251 in 2006. Under this mechanism, the human rights records of all UN member states will be reviewed once every four to five years, using the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other instruments as a foundation. The review also considers all voluntary pledges and commitments made by the state. 

Director of the Prime Ministry’s Human Rights Department Khalil Abdallat said in recent preparatory meetings with the government and civil society representatives that the Kingdom is keen on preserving the human rights of its citizens.

The Jordanian government, under the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah, is keen “to work on improving the state of human rights and guaranteeing more freedoms for its citizens”, Abdallat said on several occasions.