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On September 26, 2017, Alkarama requested the urgent action of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst, regarding the cases of two prominent Saudi human rights defenders who have been arrested in retaliation for their peaceful activism.

On September 21, 2017, the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) formally adopted its third round of recommendations to Bahrain in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a process aimed at assessing the human rights record of each UN Member State every four years.

Update: On October 26, 2017, the law entered into force following its publication in the Official Gazette.

On September 15, 2017, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued an Opinion on the case of a Lebanese citizen, Ahmed Mekkaoui, in which the UN experts qualified his detention as arbitrary and called for his immediate release.

On September 22, 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted seven cases of enforced disappearances in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

These seven cases are only the tip of a much larger iceberg in a country where the practice of enforced disappearances is widespread and systematic, and the rate of missing people remains one of the highest worldwide.

Two brothers and their cousin forcibly disappeared in Samarra

On September 21, 2017, during the 36th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), the outcome of Morocco’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) was adopted. Ahead of the UPR, Alkarama submitted a shadow report in September 2016, outlining its main concerns and recommendations regarding the human rights situation in the country.

Ahead of Jordan’s fifth periodic review on October 19 and 20, 2017, Alkarama submitted its shadow report to the UN Human Rights Committee (HR Committee) on September 18, evaluating the situation of civil and political rights in the country.

After nearly two years in an Israeli prison without charge or trial, 26-year-old Palestinian circus performer Mohammed Abu Sakha was released on August 31, 2017.

On September 15, 2017, Alkarama submitted two cases of disappearances in Syria to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID). Both Jamil Samin and Lama Basha were forcibly disappeared by pro-government forces between 2013 and 2014.

Syrian-American businessman Jamil Samin disappeared since 2013

On September 20, 2017, Andrew Gilmour, the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, presented to the Human Rights Council the annual report of the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) on the subject of reprisals against persons who cooperated with the UN.