Kazakh commitments being fulfilled, UN Human Rights Council assured

GENEVA. March 2. KAZINFORM As part of his working visit to Geneva from March 1 to 3 Kazakhstan's Secretary of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kanat Saudabayev today delivered a speech at the High-Level Segment of the 16th Session of the UN Human Rights Council and held a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Russia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Slovenia and Thailand, the press service of Kazakh Foreign Ministry reports

Congratulating Mr. Sihasak Phuangketkeow on his election to the position of the head of the Human Rights Council, Saudabayev focused on Kazakhstan's practicing of fundamental human rights and freedoms.

"In the annual address to the people of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced a new stage of social modernisation, the main goal of which is to enhance people's welfare", Saudabayev says.

In order to further raise living standards Kazakhstan carries out a number of programmes of further development of education, health, modernisation of housing and utilities infrastructure, providing the population with quality drinking water, and a new employment strategy.

According to the Kazakh Minister, legislation and law enforcement practice in the human dimension are also undergoing certain changes as indicated in the National Action Plan on Human Rights for 2009-12 and the Concept of Legal Policy for 2010-20.

"Within the framework of the law enforcement system reform during 2010, 16 laws on humanisation of the criminal law by expanding the scope of the non-custodial penalty were adopted", which leads to a release from prison of two thousand convicts for crimes of small and medium-gravity this year.

Besides, Saudabayev emphasised that Kazakhstan is eager to strengthen the role and status of women in the society by gradually implementing the Gender Equality Strategy for 2006-16 and adopting the laws "On Prevention of Domestic Violence" and "Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Women and Men".

Among other important steps of Kazakhstan towards improvement of human rights protection mechanisms Saudabayev mentioned the following ones: "signing of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, working out a draft law on establishing an Independent national preventive mechanism under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, and considering the issue of ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities".

Further, Saudabayev underlined Kazakhstan's close cooperation with international partners, in particular, the tools of the Human Rights Council, in an attempt to further ensure compliance of the national legislation and law enforcement practice with international standards.

In particular, "successful accession of Kazakhstan in 2010 of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) has opened a new stage of cooperation, i.e. full implementation of the UPR recommendations", Saudabayev noted.

According to him, Kazakhstan manifested strong commitment to strengthen human rights through active international cooperation during its chairmanship in such authoritative international organization as the OSCE last year.

In the humanitarian dimension the Kazakh OSCE chairmanship in 2010 paid equal attention to the entire spectrum of human rights - from promotion of tolerance and intercultural dialogue to freedom of religion and conscience, from gender balance and participation of women in political and public life to the issues of education of persons belonging to ethnic minorities and access to justice.

"The logical result of our work was the reaffirmation by all OSCE participating States of all obligations of the Helsinki Final Act in the 21^st century at the first over the past 11 years Summit of the Organization in Astana, which was held on December 1-2, 2010", Saudabayev said.

Speaking of the chairmanship in the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Conference in 2011-12, Saudabayev noted that Kazakhstan will continue its work in the designated areas with special emphasis on strengthening of tolerance and dialogue between the West and the Islamic world.

As emphasised by Saudabayev, Kazakhstan considers the Human Rights Council as an effective global human rights body in reviewing human rights observance at the country level, and is committed to fully implement the recommendations of the UN, NGOs, treaty bodies and special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council.

Concluding his statement, Saudabayev put forward Kazakhstan's candidacy for membership in the HRC for 2012-15.

On the sidelines of the session of the Human Rights council Kazakh Minister Saudabayev held a meeting with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The two ministers discussed the agenda for the upcoming summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Astana in June 2011, and topical issues of the operation of the Customs Union, which includes Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus.

Saudabayev also held talks with the Foreign Ministers - Karel Schwarzenberg of Czech Republic, Antonio Milososki of Macedonia, Samuel Žbogar of Slovenia and Kasit Piromya of Thailand, during which issues of strengthening bilateral and multilateral cooperation were discussed.