The 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council begins

The 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council is under way in Geneva, Switzerland. As a member of the council, the Maldives participated in the session.

The Foreign Ministry said that the Maldivian delegation is led by Acting Minister of Gender and Human Rights, Minister of Environment Mariyam Shakeela and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dhunya Maumoon.

The council opened its 22nd session with a call to strengthen the international justice system.

“The promise of respecting all human rights for all people is still a dream for too many,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said at the opening ceremony of the session. “Hundreds of thousands of people have died in genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the Palestinian territories are still occupied; massive violations have occurred in Iraq and Sri Lanka; and war crimes continue to be committed in numerous internal conflicts, including those continuing in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Sudan and Syria.”

Foreign Ministry has said that tomorrow, the Maldivian delegation will meet with Pillay; and Shakeela will deliver a statement at the council.

The ministry also said that the campaign for Maldives to be elected as a member of the council from 2014 to 2016 will be launched tomorrow by Dhunya Maumoon.

The election will be held at the UN General Assembly in New York in October and November 2013.

The 20th anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action was also marked today. The declaration was passed in 1993 in Vienna, Austria.