Human Rights Zeid Ra

Turkey has issued a strongly worded response to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein after he penned a report calling on Ankara to immediately lift the state of emergency, accusing him of relegating "the U.N. body under his administration into a position of collaborating with terrorist organizations."

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein voiced deep concern on May 1 at mass arrests, sackings and the renewal of the state of emergency in Turkey, saying terror should not be tackled at the expense of human rights.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said in a statement on March 10 that Turkey had "contested the veracity of the very serious allegations." 

North Korea protested on Dec. 13 against a U.N. report on alleged abductions of foreign nationals by Pyongyang and the many Korean families forcibly separated across the divided peninsula since the 1950s war. 

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces in Iraq have abducted tens of thousands of men, women and children from areas around Mosul and are using them as "human shields" in the city as Iraqi government troops advance, the U.N. human rights office said on Oct. 28. 

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein expressed March 24 serious concerns about the recent agreement between the European Union and Turkey, pointing to what he termed "a contradiction at the heart of the agreement," as well as raising concerns regarding arbitrary detention of refugees and migrants. 

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November promising stability for Turkey. So far there is not even a semblance of that stability, as tensions rise domestically and Turkey's foreign relations are beset with serious problems.

The United Nations' top human rights official called on Turkish authorities on Feb. 1 to investigate the shooting of a committee of civilians on Jan. 20 in the Cizre district of southeastern ??rnak province. 

The United Nations on June 22 opened a new office in Seoul to monitor North Korea's human rights record, after accusing the isolated regime of abuses "without parallel in the contemporary world" in a report published last year.

Social Democratic Party (PSD) Senator Titus Corlatean on Friday, at the invitation of the Chairmanship in office of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, will participate in the high level conference organised in Brussels on the topic "Tolerance trumps hate," informs a press release remitted to AGERPRES on Thursday.

Photo credit: (c) ALEX TUDOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE