Dr. Salah welcomed the members of the Committee and conveyed the greetings of the Prime Minister, HRH Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa marking the start of the committee’s works, and valuing the great national efforts done by the members through their locations, to establish the true image of the reality of human rights in Bahrain.
The minister discussed with the Committee’s members the greater task of the Supreme Committee at the current stage, which is to follow the recommendations the state pledged to apply during the last meeting at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. He directed to develop a work plan for the committee that included distributing the recommendations among concerned authorities in the country in order to keep communications with them and coordinate to schedule their implementation.
The minister stressed his confidence with the cooperation of various official bodies related to the council’s recommendations, and ensured to correct any error and avoid the repetition of such irregularities in future through the modernization of national legislation and enact new laws in harmonization with the international treaties and conventions known in the field of human rights.
During the meeting, 157 recommendations, which were approved by Kingdom of Bahrain to implement, were reviewed, including 143 recommendations that were overall approved by Bahrain, and 13 recommendations that were partly approved. The rest of the recommendations faced reservations to be implemented because of having discrepancy with the provisions of Islamic law, or with the constitution or of interfering with the sovereignty of the State as of having a political nature.
The minister stressed his confidence with the response of all various relevant parties in the State with the Council’s recommendations as an implementation of the directives of His Majesty the King and HRH the Prime Minister and HRH the Crown Prince regarding the necessity of cooperation between all State institutions and the Supreme Committee in the next stage in order to accomplish the ministry’s work plan.
Dr. Salah highlighted that His Majesty the King gave directions concerning such issue during his meeting with Bahrain’s official delegation in Geneva Meeting.