Qatari media distorted remarks of UN human rights High Commissioner

Geneva: The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that it regrets the appearance of inaccurate accounts in Qatari media of a meeting held on Thursday between UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussain and the Permanent Representative of Qatar at the United Nations in Geneva.

While confirming the meeting did take place, the UN Human Rights Office said reports appearing in the Qatari media significantly distort the remarks of the High Commissioner.

The position of the UN Human Rights Office on various aspects of the dispute between Qatar and four other countries in the region are contained in the following two items:

1) A comment issued by the High Commissioner on June 14, 2017, and 
2) A press briefing conducted by the UN Human Rights Office’s spokesperson on June 30, 2017.

The UN Human Rights Office does not normally comment on bilateral meetings between states, except on the rare occasions when it believes the state concerned has publicly misrepresented the content of the meeting.