Madame Chair,
Estonia fully aligns itself with the statement delivered by the European Union.
This year’s session is extraordinary in many ways. The new challenges brought by the COVD-19 pandemic influence the substance of our deliberations as well as our working methods. We need to counter all attempts to undermine human rights with the excuse of tackling the pandemic. We should pay special attention to the increased vulnerabilities of women, children, elderly and indigenous peoples among others.
Last Thursday we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. There is a recognition that the pandemic threatens to reverse the gains of decades of collective effort on women’s rights. As the Secretary-General noted, we need to push back against the push-back and continue the work for a truly gender equal world.
One of the 12 critical areas of the platform for action concerns women and armed conflict. As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, women and girls continue to be disproportionally affected by conflicts. Their voices, however, are still not sufficiently taken into account in peace processes.
Madame Chair,
Estonia continues to stress the importance of freedom of expression, both online and offline, during this Committee session. In this context we urge all states to refrain from internet shutdowns. Access to timely and accurate information is crucial especially in times of pandemic, conflicts or political turmoil. Internet freedom is highly relevant also for human rights defenders – the ones pushing the human rights forward by exerting necessary pressure on governments.
With respect to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly, we cannot disregard the human rights situation in Belarus. Estonia welcomed the urgent debate and the resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council. Estonia is appalled by the continuing mass violence and brutality by the authorities against peaceful demonstrators. These people rightly demand that their civil and political rights be respected and their will as electors be honoured. We condemn the intimidation, imprisonment and torture of peaceful protesters and the repressions against journalists and opinion leaders. People are missing, killed and arbitrarily detained. We urge UN bodies to continue to keep the situation and its further development under view.
Madame Chair,
The human rights situation in Crimea, occupied by the Russian Federation, and in the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions continues to deteriorate. We are disturbed by the persistent campaign of oppression targeting the Crimean Tatars who have become main objects of reprisals of the occupying power. We reiterate the call for the unimpeded access of independent international observers, including OHCHR, to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including to the places of detention.
Among other alarming human rights situations, Myanmar deserves our continued close attention. We are facing most serious crimes and grave human rights violations that continue to unfold in front of our eyes. We urge all parties to immediately cease violence and to hold perpetrators accountable. We urge the Government of Myanmar to duly comply with the January 2020 order of the ICJ and to take all measures within its powers to stop mass atrocity crimes against the Rohingya people.
In Syria the civilians, including children, are suffering in the conflict which is now in its 10th year. There is an entire generation of children who have known nothing but war. We are alarmed by the denial of access of humanitarian aid and about deliberate attacks against schools and hospitals. Estonia`s priority in the Security Council has been to maintain the cross-border humanitarian mechanism to ensure access of humanitarian aid to millions of civilians and to continue to draw attention to grave human rights violations in Syria.
Human rights violations are very often an early warning sign of conflict. We strongly support strengthening the linkages and synergies between Geneva and New York. In these precarious times we need to defend human rights and freedoms even more vigorously and work together in this regard.
Thank you.
