Human Rights Council
BACKGROUND RELEASE

18 August 2011

The Human Rights Council will hold a Special Session on "The situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic” on Monday, 22 August starting at 11:30 a.m. in Room XX of the Palais des Nations in Geneva. This will be the second Special Session the Council has held on Syria this year, the first taking place on 29 April 2011.

The request to hold the Special Session was sent by the delegation of the European Union and Poland and was received by the Council on 17 August 2011. The request is signed by the following members of the Council: Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Chile, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Hungary Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, the Maldives, Mexico, the Republic of Moldova, Norway, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland, the United States of America and Uruguay.

The request was also supported by the following Observer States: Albania, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, the former Yugoslave Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom.

The President of the Council will hold open-ended informative consultations on Thursday, 18 August 2011 at 4 p.m. in Room XX of the Palais des Nations to discuss the conduct and organization of the Special Session. In conformity with paragraph 10 of General Assembly resolution 60/251, which established the Human Rights Council, the support of one-third of the membership of the Council (16 members or more) is required for a Special Session to be convened.

This will be the 17th Special Session of the Council. Previous Special Sessions have been held on the human rights situations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in Lebanon, in Darfur, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Myanmar, in Sri Lanka, in Côte d’Ivoire, and in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, as well as on the world food crisis, the economic and financial crisis and support for the recovery process in Haiti. The last Special Session, held on 29 April 2011, was also on the situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic.

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For use of the information media; not an official record