The 7th session of the Human Rights Council opened its second week with an address by Timor Leste Minister of Justice Lucia Labato. She condemned Mideast violence on both sides, while recognizing Israel’s right to self-defense.
The council also debated the reports of the UN experts on migrants’ rights, toxic waste, sale of children, torture, arbitrary detention, mercenaries and disappearances.
In a jab at the U.S., Cuba insisted on the need to fight “private military and security companies which are increasingly being used to shore up regimes based on foreign occupation and imperial conquest.”
It called on a UN panel to study “the activities of terrorist groups which are operating in impunity on the territory of the US and who have resorted to recruiting mercenaries to carry out their missions of death against the Cuban People.”
Special rapporteur on arbitrary detention Leila Zerrougui expressed concerns over transfer of individuals in the war on terror. She said the working group on arbitrary detention will soon visit the United States.
Cuba criticized the U.S. “arbitrary [judiciary] regime” and mentioned in this respect “five political prisoners who have been kept unjustly in U.S. prisons because they tried to protect Cuban people from the terrorist actions organized by the anti Cuban mafia of Miami with the complaisance of the US government.”
Pakistan on behalf of the Islamic group, in an apparent reference to the U.S., expressed concerns on the link between detention conditions in some countries and the fight against terrorism.
To read the official UN summary of today’s debates, click here.
For the video webcast, click here.
