May 17, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1424

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LAHORE, May 16: UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders Ms Hina Jilani will leave here for Thailand on Saturday (today) to look at the human rights activities there.

She is also expected to examine legal structure and institutional arrangements for protection and implementation of human rights in China.

During her 10-day-long visit, she would focus on the safety and security issues affecting the human rights activists in Thailand, which is emerging as a regional hub of human rights organisations.

Speaking to Dawn on Friday, she said her mission to Thailand was partly investigative. “But it is also part of my mandate as the UN secretary-general’s special representative, which requires me to establish a dialogue with governments for creating and effective mechanism for the protection of human rights defenders as well as to make recommendations for the implementation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted in 1998.”

Ms Jilani has been invited by the government of Thailand. During her visit, she is expected to hold meetings with the Thai prime minister, foreign minister and other senior officials.

She will also hold consultations with human rights organizations, specially those involved in the social, cultural and economic spheres, in Thailand. She said she was not going to Thailand to investigate any particular incident but to look at the general situation there.

Though there were some concerns about human rights situation in Thailand, it was not a country where there were a lot of pressure on human rights defenders.

Ms Jilani said she would submit her report in this regard to the United Nations secretary-general.