A/HRC/24/29 her participation in the fifty-fifth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, held in New York in March 2011. 3. Saudi Arabia 42. Further to the information contained in my previous report on Mohammad Fahad Al-Qahtani,29 lawyer and co-founder and President of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights, which campaigns against arbitrary detention, it was reported that, on 9 March 2013, the Riyadh Criminal Court sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment and a 10-year travel ban for, inter alia, having provided false information to outside sources, including the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations.30 4. Sri Lanka 43. In previous reports I made reference to the climate of fear that human rights defenders experience in Sri Lanka.31 During the twenty-second session of the Human Rights Council, the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka circulated a letter, in which it described the screening of a film about Sri Lanka by non-governmental organizations as: efforts on the part of entities based overseas with links to rump elements of the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam], as well as certain non-governmental organizations with accreditation by the Economic and Social Council, in facilitating programmes containing unsubstantiated material that is morphed and diabolical. This approach […] serves to strengthen the rump elements of the LTTE seeking refuge in the West, who use the propaganda value derived from the screening of this film as a tool to intensify their fundraising and recruitment activities, thereby undermining the process of reconciliation in Sri Lanka. 32 Such statements could have the effect of undermining the work of human rights defenders monitoring the situation of human rights in Sri Lanka. 5. Sudan 44. The case of Bushra Gamar Hussein, chairperson of the Human Rights and Development Organisation, was included in my previous report, where it was alleged that he had been arrested and tortured in connection with his work in defence of human rights.33 In a letter dated 3 July 2012, the Government of the Sudan declared that the Attorney General had decided to close the case of Mr. Hussein owing to “insufficiency of the evidence”.34 6. Uzbekistan 45. Further to information included in my previous reports with regard to Erkin Musaev,35 the Government of Uzbekistan stated that the allegations of poor conditions of detention in Uzbekistan, and of Mr. Musaev's situation in particular, were not justified. It added that, throughout his imprisonment, Mr. Musaev had never been subjected to torture, ill-treatment, degrading treatment or any other violent acts by penitentiary staff, and that the conditions under which sentences were served in the correctional facilities of the Ministry 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 ibid., paras. 35-37. See A/HRC/24/21. See A/HRC/14/19, paras. 40-43; A/HRC/18/19, para. 69; and A/HRC/21/18, paras 38-46.; A/HRC/22/G/7, para. 7. A/HRC/21/18, paras. 48-50. See https://spdb.ohchr.org/hrdb/21st/Sudan_03.07.12_(3.2012).pdf. A/HRC/14/19, para. 44; A/HRC/18/19, para. 86; A/HRC/21/18, para. 67. 13