Rights Group Urges Uganda To Renew OHCHR Mandate

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th February, 2023) Uganda should reverse its decision to end the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Africa's largest stand-alone rights office, a watchdog said Wednesday.

The government of the eastern African country informed the UN human rights agency in early February that it would not renew its mandate, due to expire this month, citing an atmosphere of peace in Uganda and the strength of its national human rights institutions.

"Instead of removing another critical voice from the human rights ecosystem, Ugandan authorities should create an enabling environment for rights advocates to work," Human Rights Watch researcher Oryem Nyeko said.

The mission was established in the capital of Kampala in 2006 to improve the human rights situation in Uganda's conflict-hit northern and northeastern provinces. It was extended to cover the entire country in 2009 and prolonged in February 2020 to include training of national human rights officials.

In its February 3 letter to the OHCHR, the Ugandan government assured the UN mission that it would continue cooperating with the OHCHR headquarters either directly or through its permanent mission in Geneva.