Al Ghofran clan representatives today presented an official letter to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN OHCHR.
GENEVA, (Pakistan Point News - 17th Sep, 2018) Al Ghofran clan representatives today presented an official letter to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN OHCHR.
In the letter, handed by the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, EOHR, Al Ghofran tribe called on Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to hold the Qatari regime accountable the human rights violations directed against members of Al Ghofran.
In September 2017, the EOHR announced its total solidarity with the case of Al Ghofran clan, whose members were subjected to some of the "worst forms of human rights violations for over 20 years."
According to the EOHR, Qatari authorities have, since 1995, pursued a policy of collective punishment against the tribe of Ghofran that entailed the revoking of the nationality of more than 6,000 of its tribesmen, many of who were expelled from the country after their property and personal funds were confiscated.
"It is noteworthy that the tribe of Al Ghofran belongs to the tribe of Bani Mura, which make up about 40 percent of the people of Qatar making them indigenous to this country," the EOHR explained, adding that it has decided to adopt their cause for several reasons, including the international community’s and human rights organisations’ overlooking of this tragic issue and EOHR's belief in the universality of human rights principles and the need to establish and maintain them in the Arab region.
Al Ghofran representatives noted that from 1996 to 2004, and up until the time of writing the letter, the clan were "savagely subjected to the worst crimes of racial discrimination, forced displacement, denial of return to their homeland, imprisonment and acts of torture that led to psychological damage and death within the Qatari intelligence prisons."
The clansmen said that Qatari authorities, "ranging from the Emir of Qatar, the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the President of the National Committee for Human Rights, senior security officials and dignitaries," are fully aware of the discrimination against members of Al Ghofran clan, and that these senior officials "are deeply involved" in these criminal acts.
"Qatar officials are working to hide [their] crimes from the eyes of international justice and human rights organisations," and deliberately intimidate individuals trying - from within Qatar - to raise complaints to international bodies and human rights organisations, the letter continued.
Al Ghofran representatives called on the High Commissioner to intervene and to help alleviate the harsh conditions that the clan members endure.
The EOHR also called upon Bachelet to open an extensive investigation into Qatari human rights violations, and to assist the organisation's efforts to restore the rights of the clan of Al Ghofran as indigenous inhabitants who have been robbed of their nationalities and forcefully displaced en masse for political reasons, in violation of all international human rights instruments.
