OIC rights team may visit Palestine

The Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) concluded a two-day working group meeting Sunday at the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in preparation for its third session to be held in Saudi Arabia in February. The group meeting was chaired by Siti Ruhaini Dzuhayatin of Indonesia.
The first working group’s session focused on the situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories, particularly with regard to settlements and political prisoners from a human rights perspective.
The commission members discussed raising these issues at the international level and explored ways of supporting and cooperating with the Palestinian human rights institutions and NGOs. The members also considered visiting Palestine and decided to initiate action to that end.
The second working group addressed the priority areas identified by the IPHRC, which included women’s rights, right to education and right to development.
The third group deliberated on the issue of incitement and intolerance leading to hatred and violence on religious grounds from the human rights perspective. It was decided that a representative of the commission will participate in the upcoming panel of eminent persons’ meeting organized by the OIC in Istanbul, Turkey on Jan. 7-8 to examine the legal options for addressing religious intolerance against Muslims.
At the end of the meeting, Dzuhayatin told journalists that the meeting was productive and exceeded the commission's expectations. In order to identify concrete areas of cooperation with member states, they decided to send an introductory note and a letter requesting that the member states assign a focal point to communicate with IPHRC and put them in contact with civil society organizations. “This will be our first direct contact with the member states,” she explained.
It was decided that as a first step, the IPHRC would request member states to provide information on legislative and policy framework in these areas in the interest of objective analysis and identification of best practices. Dzuhayatin added that once they are in contact with the civil society organizations in the member states they can communicate with them directly as well.
The 18-member IPHRC, which is the first body of independent human rights expert in the history of OIC, had its statute adopted by the 38th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers in Astana, Kazakhstan in June 2011. It held its first session in Jakarta in February 2012 and finalized its rules of procedure in its second session in Istanbul in August 2012, which were later endorsed by the 39th CFM in Djibouti in November 2012.