Doha - The Ministry of Interior is holding a two-day workshop from today on 'Promoting Human Rights Culture in Qatari Society'.
The workshop, to be held at the Doha Sheraton, will be open to expatriates as well.
"They can raise issues related to human rights with speakers who include Interior Ministry officials," Lieutenant-Colonel Abdullah Saqr Al Mohannadi said.
Al Mohannadi, who heads the Human Rights Department at the Interior Ministry, was addressing the press late last week along with Lt-Col Abdullah Khalil Al Muftah to give details of the workshop.
The workshop is being held in cooperation with Qatar's National Human Rights Committee (NHRC), the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the Supreme Council for Family Affairs.
Qatar Television (QTV), which is also one of the organizers, will air the proceedings and lectures to help spread awareness in the Qatari community about the importance of basic rights of workers.
Qatar's Constitution guarantees people's basic rights and the workshop, while highlighting this, will outline the steps taken by the government to help protect these rights within the framework of Islam as well as international treaties.
The objective of the workshop is to basically promote human rights culture in Qatari society by outlining measures to be taken to protect workers' rights, the officials said.
The role of the Interior Ministry in protecting human rights will also be highlighted, aside from laying emphasis on the need to respect human dignity.
"Spreading human rights culture among the staff of the Interior Ministry (including public security agencies) is one of the main objectives of the symposium," the officials said.
The focus will be on projecting Qatar's efforts to strengthen communication channels with non-Arabic speaking expatriate populations and the need for printing and distributing materials on protecting human rights in different languages.
In all, some eight papers will be presented by different government and private agencies on the first day. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will present a paper on 'Human Rights and Expatriate Workforce'. Expatriates can put questions during the question-answer sessions.
On the sidelines of the workshop, books on human rights and related issues will be displayed and distributed.
© The Peninsula 2007
