UN rights team to visit Bahrain

A four-member team from the United Nations Office of High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) will visit Bahrain to follow up the Bahraini government's response to a report by an independent commission on the rights violations in the kingdom's earlier protests, the Bahrain News Agency reported Sunday. The team, headed by Bacre Ndiaye, director of the OHCHR's Human Rights Council and Special Procedures Division, and Frej Fenniche, chief of the OHCHR's Middle East and North Africa section, will visit Bahrain from Dec. 13 to Dec. 16 at the invitation by the Bahraini government. The trip is meant to follow up Bahrain's response to the recommendations of a rights report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, and the team members are expected to submit a report to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. The delegation is scheduled to meet representatives of the Bahraini human rights and social development ministry on a program of technical cooperation between the kingdom and the OHCHR.