A/HRC/54/61 a new hearing to be held on 19 January 2023 which sought a restraining order vis-à-vis the Registrar’s Office from taking coercive actions against CSJ. However, the hearing for the restraining order did not take place and was postponed indefinitely. On 30 November 2022, Mr. Suneel Nasir (Malik), a representative of CSJ, participated in the UPR pre-session for Pakistan, an NGO-led event that took place in UN premises in Geneva (PAK 1/2023). 95. Mandate holders expressed concerns at the reported acts of intimidation and harassment against CSJ allegedly in reprisal for its participation in the UPR process. They stated that the attempted restrictions on CSJ’s scope of activity not only violated international standards on freedom of association, but also risked deterring other civil society actors from engaging in human rights advocacy, including with United Nations bodies and mechanisms (PAK 1/2023). 19. Qatar 96. On 24 March 2023, special procedures mandate holders addressed allegations of intimidation and cyber-attacks against Mr. Mark Somos, a human rights lawyer and director of the NGO Just Access residing in Germany, following his engagement with various UN human rights bodies and mechanisms on alleged violations committed by the State of Qatar against his clients (QAT 1/2023).71 97. Between December 2019 and February 2020, a series of cyberattacks reportedly took place against Mr. Somos’s email accounts, including attempts to access his account and at least one occasion in which an unauthorised device accessed his email account. These cyberattacks came less than two months after Mr. Somos submitted complaints to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) and other UN human rights mechanisms regarding the detention of a member of the Qatari royal family and alleged abuses against his wife and children by the State of Qatar. The allegations were addressed by several special procedures mandate holders (QAT 2/2020) and the Government responded72 (QAT 1/2023). 98. During the above period, the NGO Just Access also made joint public submissions to different UN human rights mechanisms, such as the treaty bodies, and Mr. Somos participated in NGO side-events at the margins of the Human Rights Council. Mr. Somos reported the hacking attempts of his e-mail accounts and those of his clients to Google and to the German police, and the case is under examination by the German prosecution office. Mandate holders expressed concern at the intimidation and cyberattacks against Mr. Somos which, in their view, may constitute acts of intimidation or reprisal and appear to be directly linked to his work as a human rights defender, including his cooperation with the UN and its mechanisms in the field of human rights (QAT 1/2023). 20. Russian Federation 99. In October 2022, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 51/25 on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation. The resolution called upon the Russian authorities to refrain from all forms of intimidation and reprisals against persons and associations for their cooperation with special procedures mandate holders, including the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, the treaty bodies and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 100. On 6 October 2022, special procedures mandate holders addressed allegations of intimidation of Ms. Yana Tannagasheva, an indigenous civil society representative and human rights defender of the rights of the indigenous Shor people in the Russian Federation (see Annex II), during the fifteenth session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) in July 2022 (RUS 15/2022). On 4 July 2022, 71 72 36 See DEU 3/2022; OTH 19/2023; and government reply at: https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadFile?gId=37527. See government reply at: https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadFile?gId=35907. GE.23-15378

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