Special Rapporteur Margaret Satterthwaite expressed grave concern over interference in the investigation, including threats against Judge Tarek Bitar, who has been leading the process since February 2021. 

“Judges should never be threatened or subjected to criminal or disciplinary action simply for doing their job,” she said. 

Justice delayed 

More than 200 people died as a result of the blast, which ripped through Beirut’s port, causing extensive damage to the city, and unleashing dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere.  

Another 7,000 were injured, while some 300,000 people were displaced. 

Ms. Satterthwaite, whose mandate upholds the independence of judges and lawyers, condemned undue delays that have prevented justice for those affected by the disaster. 

“I am deeply disturbed by reports that former State officials and others who have been implicated in the case have disingenuously resorted to recusal proceedings and other challenging actions directed at the investigating judges appointed to examine the case,” she said.

“This has led to the replacement of an investigating judge in February 2021, as well as several suspensions of the investigation in recent months,” she added. 

Obstacles and threats 

The rights expert pointed to reports that since the explosion was referred to the Lebanese Judicial Council for investigation, authorities have rejected requests to lift parliamentary immunity and allow security officials to be questioned.  

She said the Lebanese Government has also failed to execute arrest warrants against former ministers.  Meanwhile, Judge Bitar has faced increasing obstacles and threats, and no one has been tried to date.  

On 23 January, the judge announced that investigations would resume following a 13-month pause, according to media reports. 

Two days later, he was charged with several offences, including ‘usurpation of power’, and subjected to a travel ban. 

Efforts to discredit 

“A number of motions have been filed with the intention of removing Judge Bitar from the case, and there is an ongoing campaign on television and social media to discredit him,” said Ms. Satterthwaite, noting that the judge has reportedly received credible death threats and is currently under military protection. 

“Judge Bitar must have the security he needs to carry out his work,” she said. “I urge Lebanese authorities to ensure that these threats are investigated, and that the judge, his colleagues and his family are adequately protected.” 

Ms. Satterthwaite said victims and their families have been seeking justice for well over two years.   

Uphold judicial independence 

She urged the authorities to take immediate action to protect the independence and integrity of the investigation and ensure that those responsible for the explosion can be held accountable. 

“Those affected by the blast have a fundamental right to the protection of the law and to effective remedies,” the UN expert said. “That can only happen if the independence of the judiciary is upheld.” 

About UN Special Rapporteurs 

Special Rapporteurs and other independent experts are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to monitor and report on specific country situations or thematic issues. 

They are not UN staff and do not receive payment for their work.

In statements on Wednesday, Secretary-General António Guterres was joined by deputy chief Amina Mohammed, in describing the latest escalation of the de facto authorities’ suppression of women, as a violation of their inalienable fundamental human rights.

“It also violates Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights law, and infringes on the principle of non-discrimination, which is a core tenet underpinning the United Nations Charter”, said Mr. Guterres, in statement issued by his Spokesperson.

Rights violations mount

Since overthrowing the democratically elected Government of Afghanistan in August 2021, Taliban leaders have steadily eroded the rights of women and girls in public life, introducing a ban on secondary schooling, higher education, working for non-governmental organisations, and their rights to freedom of movement.

Bans are already in force preventing them in effect from working, studying, and travelling without male chaperones.

‘Essential’ to life-saving operations

The UN chief said that female staff members were “essential” for all UN operations, which are directed by the Assistance Mission in the country, UNAMA, and which include the delivery of life-saving assistance.

“The enforcement of this decision will harm the Afghan people, millions of whom are in need of this assistance”, the statement said. “The Secretary-General calls on the Taliban to immediately revoke the decision and reverse all measures that restrict women’s and girls’ rights to work, education and freedom of movement.”

Speaking to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York on Wednesday ahead of a sustainable development report briefing, the Deputy Secretary-General reminded that she had met many of the women now facing a ban and the loss of their livelihoods, in a visit to Afghanistan at the beginning of the year.

‘Taking all measures’ to support women staff

“We reiterate that both Afghan women and men are essential to all aspects of our work”, she said, adding that the UN “was taking all possible measures right now to support our national female staff at this difficult time.”

She said UN national female staff will continue to receive their salaries, but until further clarification is received, all national staff – both men and women – are being told not to report to the office.

She said she had been involved in a meeting with the Foreign Affairs minister of the de facto authorities earlier Wednesday morning, and pledged that UN leadership would “continue to engage” with Taliban representatives, “as well as neighbouring countries” to resolve the latest human rights infringements.

Most vulnerable worst hit

The President of the General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi, also strongly condemned the move, calling it a “blatant violation” of women and girls’ human rights.

“The consequences of this decision would harm the Afghan people, in particular the most vulnerable segments of the population”, he said, noting that Afghanistan needs to get on the path towards sustainable development, “and for that, it should mobilize the country’s full potential.”

‘Utterly despicable’

The UN human rights chief Volker Türk, described the latest erosion of rights for women in Afghanistan as an “utterly despicable” move.

“This is a systematic, relentless assault on the people of Afghanistan as a whole by the Taliban”, he said, who he said seemed to be “working to incapacitate, intimidate and harass half of the population.”

He called on the leadership to rethink all of the restrictive policies introduced to curb women’s rights, “for the sake of the future of the country.”

UN Women vows to stay and deliver

The head of UN Women, Sima Bahous, said her agency “was determined to continue in every way possible to deliver vital services and support, so no woman or girl will be left out or left behind.”

Almost a quarter of households in Afghanistan are female-headed, she pointed out in a statement responding to the Taliban decree, adding that what the people need, is “more aid, not less.”

“I saw and heard this firsthand from Afghan women on my recent visit there”, she continued. “At this dark hour, we must not forget them. The removal of skilled women aid workers, decreases women and girls access to critical life-saving services, and it increases their risks when they have to seek assistance from men instead.”

“We extend our heartfelt support and solidarity to the hundreds of thousands affected by Freddy, the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded in the southern hemisphere,” the UN-appointed human rights experts said in a statement.

“The cyclone has had a devastating toll on people across 14 districts – nearly half the country – causing loss of lives, destruction of homes, livelihoods and infrastructure,” they said.

“Cyclone Freddy submerged and washed away hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops, leaving more than half a million people displaced and sheltered in camps across flood-affected areas,” the Special Rapporteurs added.

Hundreds still missing

Difficult weather conditions continue to hinder search and rescue operations in areas only accessible via air, while other regions remain impossible to reach because of flooding and landslides.

Hundreds remain missing and authorities anticipate that numbers will likely increase. The cyclone has further compromised communities already struggling with the spread of cholera, in addition to straining an already precarious health sector.

“The disaster has left an estimated 1.1 million people in dire need of urgent humanitarian support with the most immediate needs being shelter, food, clean water, sanitation and hygiene, health, and safety,” the experts said.

They added that protecting the most vulnerable internally displaced persons in sites and ensuring timely and adequate access to food and healthcare was paramount, “including by the provision of sexual and reproductive health care and protection services for women and girls, unaccompanied and separated children, LGBTI persons, people with disabilities and older persons, without discrimination”.

Resilience in the face of the disaster

The Human Rights Council-mandated experts commended the Government and the people of Malawi for their strength and resilience in the face of disaster.

“We hope that affected communities can contribute their traditional knowledge and valuable perspectives in the design of programmatic responses, disaster risk reduction strategies and durable solutions,” the human right experts said. “The rights and dignity of affected populations must be respected in the recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction in the aftermath.

Supporting the people

The experts called for an expansion in humanitarian aid, in addition to a boost in the number of development partners, businesses, and financial institutions prepared to partner with the Government of Malawi to mitigate the impact on affected communities.

“Malawi needs to develop durable solutions to avert, minimise and address disaster displacement through climate adaptation measures, preparedness and disaster risk reduction,” they said. 

“Despite contributing little to the problem, Malawi is facing the impacts of climate change. We call on big emitter States, who are disproportionately responsible for the climate crisis, to make drastic cuts to their emissions, and scale up finance for adaptation and loss and damage,” they said.  

Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva. These independent experts are mandated to monitor and report on specific thematic issues or country situations. They are not UN staff and do not receive any compensation for their work.

“Our colleagues on the ground at the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) received word of an order by the de facto authorities that bans female national staff members of the UN from working,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, told reporters at UN Headquarters during the regular daily briefing.

“We are still looking into how this development would affect our operations in the country,” he said. “We expect to have more meetings with the de facto authorities tomorrow in Kabul, on which we are trying to seek some clarity.”

Following Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban in August 2021, the UN remained committed to stay and deliver, while calling for unified support for the country’s people.

Despite relatively constructive initial engagements with Taliban authorities, decisions over the last year by the fundamentalist leadership have included bans on women accessing higher education, working for NGOs, and accessing many public spaces.

Ban ‘unacceptable’: Guterres

Answering questions from reporters, Mr. Dujarric said an official communication coming from the Taliban leadership, had indicated that the order would apply to the whole country.

“We hope we will hear strong voices from the Security Council,” he said, noting that the UN mission operates under its mandate.

For the Secretary-General, any such ban would be unacceptable and “frankly inconceivable”, Mr. Dujarric said.

Female staff ‘essential’

The reported decision focussed on UN staff, is just the latest in a disturbing trend of edicts, undermining the ability of aid organizations to reach those most in need, he added.

“It goes without saying, but unfortunately, it does need saying, that female staff are essential for the United Nations to deliver life-saving assistance,” he said.

“Such orders, as we saw today, violate the fundamental rights of women and infringe upon the principle of non-discrimination,” he said. “Female staff members are essential to ensure the continuation of the UN operations on the ground in Afghanistan.”

‘Pursing all avenues’

Out of a population of about 40 million people in Afghanistan, the UN is trying to reach 23 million men, women, and children with humanitarian aid, he said.

“We will continue to pursue all avenues to ensure that we can reach the most vulnerable people, especially women and girls”.

‘Most repressive’ place to be a woman

In March, Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva, UN Special Representative and head of the UNAMA Assistance Mission, told the Security Council that Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the “most repressive country in the world [for] women’s rights”.

“At a moment when [the country] needs all of its human capital to recover from decades of war, half of its potential doctors, scientists, journalists, and politicians are shut away in their homes, their dreams crushed, and their talents confiscated,” she said in a briefing to the Council.

“Tunisia must immediately stop hate speech and violence against migrants from south of the Sahara,” the independent UN-appointed experts said in a statement issued under the Committee’s early warning and urgent action procedure.

The mechanism aims at considering situations that may escalate into conflicts with a view to taking preventive actions to avoid full-scale violations of human rights under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

End racist violence

As such, the Committee called upon Tunisia to combat all forms of racial discrimination and racist violence against Black Africans, especially those who are sub-Saharan migrants or Tunisian citizens.

Urging Tunisia’s highest authorities to publicly condemn and distance themselves from racist hate speech by politicians and public and private figures, they also asked them to refrain from making remarks contributing to racial hatred and racial discrimination against migrants from sub-Saharan African countries and to proactively condemn anyone who did so.

In terms of reported rights violations, the Committee requested that Tunisia immediately halt the arrests and collective detention of migrants, release those who are arbitrarily detained, especially women and children, and allow those who choose to apply for asylum to do so.

The experts asked Tunisia to investigate cases of migrants being arbitrarily removed from their jobs or homes and to take other measures to prevent and combat all forms of racial discrimination.

Racist rhetoric

The experts said they were alarmed by remarks made by Tunisia’s Head of State in late February, alleging that “hordes of illegal migrants” arriving from African countries south of the Sahara were part of “a criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape of Tunisia” and were the source “of violence, unacceptable crimes, and practices”.

Such remarks violate the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, they said.

Forced evictions

Following the violence-triggering racist remarks, hundreds of migrants from countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal, decided to return to their home countries, the experts said.

They said many other sub-Saharan migrants and refugees were forcibly evicted from their homes or lost jobs,  and were subsequently forced to seek protection and help from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

Arbitrary actions

The experts’ statement included a snapshot of other recent human rights violations. They pointed out that the number of arbitrary detentions of sub-Saharan migrants significantly increased since the beginning of February, while some men, women, and children have been detained for more than 18 months.

The Committee voiced alarm over reports that a “campaign” called “Strengthening the security fabric and reducing the phenomenon of illegal stay in Tunisia”, is leading law enforcement officials to make arbitrary arrests of migrants, including women, children, and students, without procedural guarantees.

Online hate speech

The experts voiced deep concern over reports of an increase of racial or xenophobic hate speech on social networks and some other media, including by private personalities and political party members, especially following remarks made by the Tunisian president.

This wave of hate speech and stigmatization has led to acts of violence against these migrants, including physical attacks and evictions.

About the Committee

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination monitors States parties’ adherence to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which, to date, has 182 States parties.

The Committee is made up of 18 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, serving in their personal capacity. They are not UN staff and are not paid for their work.

The appeal comes in the latest report by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances, which visited the country in November. 

The report examines five “waves of disappearance” in Iraq, including enforced disappearance. It covers the period starting with the Ba’ath era from 1968-2003 – characterized by the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussein – through to the anti-Government protests from 2018 to 2020. 

More work ahead 

The UN Committee is comprised of 10 international rights experts who monitor global implementation of the Convention against enforced disappearances.   

While acknowledging the serious challenges the authorities face in addressing the situation in Iraq, the experts were deeply concerned that enforced disappearance has been widespread over different periods, and that impunity and revictimization prevail. 

“The visit constitutes a new step in the Committee’s interaction with Iraq, one of the first countries to ratify the Convention,” they said, adding, “but lots remain to be done.” 

Ongoing patterns of disappearance 

The Committee met with senior officials, victims, and civil society representatives in Iraq.   

Members heard numerous testimonies from victims, including a mother whose son disappeared after being stopped at a checkpoint while going to visit a cousin.  Her story was indicative of an ongoing pattern in Iraq, according to the Committee. 

Children ‘given’ away   

Another common pattern concerns the alleged enforced disappearance of children, particularly from the Yazidi minority community, born after their mothers were sexually abused in camps operated by the extremist group ISIL or Da’esh. 

The Committee learned that, in some cases, mothers were compelled to leave their children in orphanages after returning to Iraq, intending to take them home as soon as possible.  

However, when they went to reclaim them, the mothers were told that their children had been “given” to another family, allegedly with direct involvement of some State agents. 

A ‘massive’ problem 

Hundreds of families are also still searching for relatives they suspect are in camps in Türkiye, Syria, or Iran, “where contact with the outside world is impossible”, the Committee said. 

The report noted that following decades of conflict and political violence, disappearances – including enforced disappearances – have been identified as “a problem of massive proportions in Iraq.”   

Official estimates indicate that since 1968, between 250,000 and 1,000,000 people have been disappeared, though it is impossible to provide more precise figures. 

Five ‘waves’ 

During the Ba’ath era in the Federal Iraq and Kurdistan region, up to 290,000 people, including some 100,000 Kurds, were forcibly disappeared as part of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan, the report said. 

The second “wave” of disappearances covers the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation, to the pre-ISIL period.  During this time, the United States military and allies captured at least 200,000 Iraqis.  Of this number, 96,000 were held at some point in prisons administered by the US or the United Kingdom.  

“It is alleged that detainees were arrested without a warrant for their involvement in insurgency operations, while others were ‘civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time’”, the Committee said. 

Giles Clarke/ Getty Images Reportage

A Yazidi Kurd from Sinjar who was abducted by the ISIL terrorist group, pictured in Mamilyan Camp for internally displaced persons in Akre, Iraq.

ISIL atrocities 

The report documented how ISIL’s proclamation of an Islamic caliphate, including a large swathe of Iraq, saw new rounds of abductions and mass killings of Iraqi soldiers or security forces from 2014 to 2017. 

The situation deteriorated further when Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) conducted military operations to retake major cities from the extremists, during which pro-Government forces disappeared thousands of Sunni Arabs, mainly men and boys.  

More enforced disappearances occurred during the wave of demonstrations in Iraq from 2018 to 2020, when thousands took to the street to protest against corruption.  

Legislation and investigation 

The UN Committee urged the Iraqi Government to immediately include enforced disappearances as a separate offence in national legislation as currently it cannot be prosecuted. 

Members also called for establishing a comprehensive search and investigation strategy for all cases of disappearances, and they encouraged the authorities to strengthen and enlarge the scope of national forensic investigations.  

“Iraq must also immediately establish an independent task force to cross-check systematically the registers of all places of deprivation of liberty with the names of all detainees,” the Committee said.  “The task force must ensure that all detainees are registered and that their relatives are duly informed of their whereabouts.” 

Address secret detention allegations 

Iraq should also clarify persistent allegations of secret detention, which the State has denied. In this regard, the authorities should establish an independent commission that would carry out a fact-finding mission to verify whether secret places of detention exist.  

The Iraqi authorities were also urged to take legislative and judicial measures to address the needs and rights of victims. 

About the UN Committee 

The Committee on Enforced Disappearances was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The independent experts are not UN staff, and do not receive a salary for their work. 

While in Iraq, the delegation also observed developments surrounding two exhumations and visited a provisional centre of DNA identification in the northern city of Sinjar, home to the Yazidi community, among other activities.