Ladies and Gentlemen,

I'm speaking on behalf of the organisation Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Homme, and Arab Center for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Education.

As part of a technical assistance agreement, the United Nations High Commissionner for Human Rights and the League of Arab States, set up a group of Arab experts from United Nations treaty monitoring bodies and special procedures of the Commission for Human Rights in charge with examining the text of the Arab Charter of Human Rights in its 1994 and 2003 versions and evaluating its conformity with international human rights protection standarts.

At the conclusion of a meeting held in Cairo December 21-26, 2003, the group of Arab experts formulated a certain number of recommandations and proposed a new text of the Arab Charter of Human Rights. " Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Homme " and the Arab Centre (ACIHL) welcome this initiative as well as the work accomplished by the Arab experts.

While the majority of these recommandations were included in the final text of the Arab Charter of Human Rights adopted by the Arab Standing Commission for Human Rights in January 2004, it is nevertheless regrettable that they were not adopted in their entirety and that certain proposals, notably concerning the role of NGOs in procedures before the Arab Committee of Human Rights, were not retained.

Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Hommeand the Arab Centre invite the Arab Standing Commission for Human Rights to :

• Bring more details concerning the equality between men and women
• Prohibite explicitly death penalty for minors and for mental disabled people
• Provide better protection for minorities and non-citizen people
• Widen competences of the Arab Committee for Human Rights in the field of Human Rights : especially conduct inquiries and receive complaints from States, individuals and NGOs…

Thank you for your attention.