COVID-19 human rights efforts discussed

TDT | Manama

The National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) has highlighted its efforts to educate citizens and residents during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

These efforts have included issuing statements, posting tweets and making visits to isolation and quarantine centres to assess the measures taken by the concerned authorities to provide medical services to patients and contacted individuals.

The NIHR has also distributed questionnaires to learn about the opinions of the quarantined and isolated people, as well as that of the medical and service staff present there.

These highlights were made during a virtual meeting between NIHR president Maria Khoury and Asia Pacific Forum (APF) director Kieren Fitzpatrick, expert consultant Chris Sidoti, and Capacity Development manager Pip Dargan, as part of their cooperation.

Khoury also provided a summary of the Kingdom’s efforts to combat the pandemic taking into account human rights, mainly the royal pardon of 901 people, and the activation of alternative punishment sanctions that benefited about 1,800 people.

The efforts also included establishing several quarantine and isolation centres, granting the necessary permits to set up special centres for temporary isolation and quarantine centres, and allocating schools and temporary buildings to housing workers to prevent overcrowding in their current accommodations.

Khoury stressed that the NIHR is working to ensure there is no overcrowding in the workers’ accommodations. Fitzpatrick indicated the forum’s readiness to provide all support and assistance to the NIHR in implementing its goals and carrying out its functions.

Khoury praised the outstanding efforts made by APF to support national institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which requires international cooperation and solidarity to combat it.

The meeting also discussed the challenges facing national human rights institutions across the world in dealing with the precautionary measures applied by different countries to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, how they can carry out their duties, and cooperation with APF.