Meeting

The National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR)’s Committee on Civil and Political Rights held its 20th regular meeting under the chairpersonship of Mrs. Jameela Salman and membership of Mr. Khaled Abdul-Aziz Al-Sha’er Dr. Badr Mohamed Adel.
The Committee discussed the request referred to it by the esteemed Council of Representatives to show NIHR’s opinions on the Draft Law on DNA, which was found by the Committee in some of its aspects to affect human rights and freedoms and personal lives of individuals, especially the right to privacy.  It called for a wait on the proposal in question as well as further study and research of it, taking into account the concluding observations of the Committee on Human Rights during its discussion of the 3rd periodic report of Kuwait, namely with respect to the Kuwait DNA Law, in order to ensure its compatibility with international instruments and conventions to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals.
It is worth mentioning that NIHR’s Committee on Civil and Political Rights is one of NIHR’s  3 permanent specific Committees, whose work is focused on developing proposals and recommendations in everything that aims at enhancement and protection of civil and political human rights, reviewing legal guarantees to practicing such rights, following-up the implementation of relevant international conventions and treaties, examining convenience of legislative and regulatory stipulations and articles of regional and international treaties on human rights issues, studying applicable legislations and codes in Bahrain on civil and political rights, recommending appropriate amendments thereof, giving opinion on the extent of their compliance with international human rights standards and providing necessary proposals thereon, recommending issuance of new legislations on human rights and contributing to the corresponding draft reports that will be presented by the Kingdom of Bahrain on a periodic basis in this regard.