HUMAN RIGHTS PRIORITIES FOR MALAYSIA BASED ON THE FINDINGS OF THE UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW (UPR 2013)

Proham Document

Edited by

Denison Jayasooria & Rama Ramanathan

PERSATUAN PROMOSI HAK ASASI MANUSIA

Society for the Promotion of Human Rights

Introduction

The Universal Periodical Review (UPR) is a peer review system introduced by the United Nations where all the member states will undergo review of their human rights situation in their respective countries. This State-driven process provides an opportunity for each State to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfil their human rights obligations. It also provides stakeholders to provide their analysis and assessments including recommendations for improvements. This is a very transparent process with all information accessible to all. A useful data base can be found at http://www.upr-info.org

Malaysia underwent the UPR in 2009 and more recently on Oct 24, 2013. The recent UPR drew much attention in Malaysia especially with the differing views by both political and civil society groups.

Proham hosted three Roundtable Discussions to review the submissions made for the UPR discussions as well as the outcome document. In addition we sought to identify the priorities for 2014 and beyond for Malaysia especially before the next UPR review due in 2018

The Proham document entitled Human Rights Priorities for Malaysia is an attempt to capture the key issues, concerns and recommendations for the Malaysian agenda. It is divided into three parts. The first containing two press statements, part two with the three RTD reports and some papers and part three with a collection of review articles by Rama Ramanthan from the Proham secretariat.

On behalf of Proham I take this opportunity to thanks all who participated in the discussions and to our rapporteurs Ms Susan Tan (RTD Oct 22& Nov 14, 2013) and Chuah Siew Eng (Dec 9, 2013). Grateful thanks to Raman Ramanathan for the analysis articles on the UPR 2013 outcome document and for his role in co-editing this document.
Proham’s dream is for Malaysia to develop a National Human Rights Action Plan which will place human rights at the centre of public policy and administration. In a multi ethnic, religious and diverse society, adopting a human rights approach which has a built in commitment for a needs’ based development agenda and protection for all is most essential for building social inclusion and cohesion.

Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria

Proham Secretary General
Jan 23, 2014

Request for a soft copy of this report:  prohamsecretariat@gmail.com