Workshops on human rights to begin soon in Oman

Muscat: A number of workshops, lectures and an awareness campaign covering several governorates will kick off in Oman as part of the Oman Human Rights Commission’s 2017 activities.
“Our 2017 programmes will begin really soon. We will have workshops focussing on women’s rights, child rights and also the rights of the disabled. There will be other workshops and programmes dealing with sustainable development goals, a really important issue at the moment,” said an official of the Oman Human Rights Commission (OHRC). The Commission’s activities also include organising a number of lectures at various universities in Oman.“We are trying to include all the universities in Oman for such lectures.”
Towards the end of this year, a very concentrated awareness campaign will be launched, focussing on certain governorates in Oman.
“We had organised such campaigns in Salalah and Musandam, and this year we will go to Al Buraimi. It will run for four to five days and will include workshops, lectures, a meeting with different officials and also visits to a number of places there.”
Basic human rights
The idea behind organising these programmes and the campaign is to protect basic human rights. The OHRC has outlined a detailed plan for the purpose.
Article 7 of the Royal decree no. 124/2008 and article 12 of the State Council Chairman’s decision no. 4/2013 have defined certain objectives for the OHRC.
These objectives include ensuring human rights protection in Oman in line with the basic statute of the State and various international charters and conventions; following up on the observations of foreign governments in relation to human rights; monitoring human rights violations in the country and abroad; studying any complaints and taking necessary action to resolve these. The OHRC has been carrying out activities to spread awareness about human rights in the Sultanate and also participated in international human rights events in the past.
They delivered awareness lectures at the Sultan Qaboos Scout Camp, participated in a ‘Women Rights Awareness – Opportunities and Challenges’ workshop, met with the General Federation of Arab Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists and participated in ‘Human Rights and Sustainable Development Plan 2030’ workshop in Amman.
They had also organised several workshops and lectures at schools and conducted workshops on the issue of Freedom of opinion and expression, and on child rights at Al Siddiqah bint Al Siddiq School.