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UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee adopts report made by Azerbaijani Parliament Officeâ€™s department chief

25 January 2011 09:34 (UTC +04:00)

Representatives of different countries, international and non-governmental organizations participated in the hearing. The committee decided to submit the report to Human Rights Councilâ€™s 16th session to be held in March, 2011.

Huseynov told APA that he comprehensively researched the problem of missing people in his report focusing on prevention of missing people during the military conflicts, restoration of contacts between the relatives separated by the conflicts, activity of international and national mechanisms to learn fate of missing people, protection of rights of the missing people and their relatives, investigation of criminal cases related to missing people, search, finding and return of bodies of the people killed in the war. Huseynov focused attention on the humanitarian aspects of this important problem and comprehensively covered the leading experience of the world countries in the solution of this problem.

The rapporteur specially underlined the fact of more than 4600 missing Azerbaijanis during the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
Huseynov said the report covered a number of recommendations to the states. It was first noted that the states must obey the norms of the international humanitarian law and human rights. They must take urgent measures to prevent missing of people during the armed conflicts. According to the report getting information about the fate and whereabouts of the relative missing as a result of the armed conflict is one of the important human rights. The states must take all urgent measures to clarify the fate of the persons missing in their territories and inform the relevant state, families of those persons about it. All serious irregularities concerning the missing persons must be investigated and offenders must be punished. The report underlines that the bodies of those killed in the war must be sought, gathered and handed over to their families as soon as possible. According to the rapporteur, the civilians missing in the armed conflicts must get the status of war victims, the status of their family members must be regarded equally to the status of the families of the missing servicemen.

Huseynov underlines the necessity of using modern scientific methods to identify the dead. The states are recommended to raise awareness on the problem of the missing persons. Mass media must draw the attention of the state and public to the abovementioned problem and the problems of the families of the missing persons. The report advises to appoint a special rapporteur of the UN on the missing persons.

Latif Huseynov was elected to the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council in 2008. He is one of the 18 experts of the Committee. He has been nominated again for another three-year term.