On 17 September 2020, ADHRB has delivered an oral intervention at the United Nation Human Rights Council session 45 during on interactive debate with The Special Rapporteur on the use of mercenaries.
Madam Vice-President
We share the concerns raised by the Working Group’s report on the use of private military and security services to violate human rights whether it’s on the area of migration or the exercise of the people to their right of self-determination.
We have monitored and documented several governments in the GCC region using Western private security companies to militarize their borders and use their services to suppress the indigenous and immigration population. It is very concerning to see how local and international laws have been ignored by these companies when it comes to their operations both at the borders or inside the countries.
For example, the United Arab Emirates has used several private military and security firms to set up and establish a permanent and temporary military in Yemen. These UAE’s supervised private firms engaged in mass human rights violations against the people of Yemen including extrajudicial killings both inside the country and at the border.
In Bahrain, the government recruits security personals from Pakistan, Jordan, Yemen, and other countries to suppress the demand of the indigenous people to their rights of self-determination. For years the Bahraini government used these mercenaries to engage in systematic grave human rights violations against its citizens.
We would like to ask the experts the following questions about UAE and Bahrain. Will you be requesting a visit to these countries? What actions do you advise this council should take on the use of mercenaries in the UAE and Bahrain?
Thank you
