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On April 5, 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee (HR Committee) published its Concluding Observations after reviewing Lebanon’s implementation of the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – ratified by Lebanon in 1972 – during an interactive dialogue in March 2018.

In November 2018, Jordan’s human rights record will be reviewed before the UN Human Rights Council during the country’s third Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR process sets out “to prompt, support, and expand the promotion and protection of human rights on the ground” by assessing the human rights situation in each of the UN Member States every four and a half years.

(L-R) Mohamad Tabanja, Ahmad Haj-Bakri, Ahmad Zanbelkji

On February 16, 2018, Alkarama and Human Rights Guardians submitted four more cases of individuals who disappeared following their arrests at checkpoints in Syria to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID).

Between December 2017 and February 2018, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted seven more cases of disappearances in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

Hamid Al Zoubai, Ahmad Al Dulaimi, cousins Duraid and Sattar Al Janabi, and brothers Falih, Salih and Meshtaq Al Janabi all disappeared in 2014 in different regions of the country.

On February 20 and March 7, 2018, Alkarama and the Libyan Organization for Truth and Justice submitted two cases to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) of Libyan citizens who have been missing since their abductions in May 2017 and January 2018.

“Over the course of 2017, the Arab region has once again been the scene of the most serious human rights violations. While there are still no credible peace processes underway in the countries with open armed conflicts such as Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, most other countries in the region are, to varying degrees, witnessing rising tensions with their neighbours. Coupled with foreign military intervention, this situation has wreaked havoc on the safeguard of the most fundamental human rights across the region.”

On March 24, 2018, while travelling by train to visit family in Asyut, Fatma Mohamed Diyaaeldien Mousa Mohamed was abducted along with her husband, Abdullah Mohamed Modar Mousa Mohamed, her brother, Omar Mohamed Diyaaeldien Mousa Mohamed, and her one-year-old daughter, Alyah Abdullah Mohamed Modar Mousa Mohamed. The family remains disappeared to date, with their relatives having received no information on their whereabouts.

In January and February 2018, well-known Saudi activists Issa Al Nukheifi and Abdullah Al Attawi were sentenced to six and seven years’ imprisonment, respectively, following highly unfair trials as a result of their peaceful activism.

Throughout February and March 2018, Iraqi human rights defenders Faisal Al Tamimi and Iyad Al Roumy have been subjected to threats and attacks in retaliation for speaking out against the practice of enforced disappearances in the country and for calling on Iraq to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).

On March 16, 2018, as part of a larger Statelessness Committee of NGOs and academic partners, the Alkarama Foundation participated in a side event organised in the context of the 37th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva to discuss the current situation of statelessness, restrictive nationality laws and the revocation of citizenship in the Gulf.