Sine Qua Non, together with 7 civil society organisations, presented a mid-term report that followed up the implementation of a set of recommendations that were made to the Spanish state within the 3rd cycle of the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations. The aim of this report is to analyse the progress that has been made since the recommendations were made, two and a half years after the review, and to present proposals to accelerate the implementation of the state’s commitments to guarantee human rights.
The report focuses on the recommendations aimed at the protection of civil and political rights and, specifically, analyses the state of compliance with those that affect the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. Of the nineteen recommendations that affect these rights, the state has seven in the process of implementation and twelve that it has not implemented and there are no plans to do so. There is none that, according to Sine Qua Non and the co-signing organisations Amnistia i Llibertat, Associació Catalana de Professionals, Centre Internacional Escarré per les Minories Ètniques i Nacionals (CIEMEN), Fundació Josep lrla, Grup de Periodistes Ramon Barnils, Language Rights and Plataforma per la Llengua, has been fully implemented.
The report concludes that the Spanish state does not sufficiently protect civil and political rights and, by limiting citizens’ rights to freedom of public participation, limits democracy. In this regard, it requests the state to work to implement these recommendations in the two and a half years remaining before the new cycle of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, and to do so in collaboration with civil society organizations.
Know more
What´s the UPR?
https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/upr-main
What are the Cycles of the UPR?
https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/cycles-upr
January 2023