New UN body - Human Rights Council - established in Geneva

The first session opened with the inauguration ceremony of the Council, was attended by such speakers as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Mexican Ambassador to UN and President of the Human Rights Council Luis Alfonso de Alba, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour. In his statement, Kofi Annan drew the attention of the Human Rights Council members to the necessity to adopt the Convention on protection from violent disappearances and urged them to bring light to all those people who live in the obscure shadow of fear.

The inauguration ceremony over, the members, friends and guests of the Council took the floor. As founder of the civil initiative We Remember Iryna Krasouskaya, who is present at the session of the Human Rights Council, remarked, the majority of the speakers admitted the sharp need of the Convention on protection from violent disappearances. Among those who unpheld the decision are Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, Argentinean Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana, presiding Prime Minister of Chili Paulina Veloso, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Boris Tarasiuk, Croatian Foreign Minister and Minister of European Integration Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic and Foreign Minister of Andorra Juli Minoves. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy urged the Council members to vote for the immediate adoption of the Convention.

The first week of the session of the UN Human Rights Council is dedicated to high rank events. As press service CIWR.ORG reports, the issue of the Convention on protection from violent disappearances is to be discussed at the second week of the session.
Source: www.charter97.org