The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, will start today his five-day high-level visit to Brussels to assess prison conditions, migrants, measures against discrimination, women’s and children’s rights. Commissioner Hammarberg and his team will visit institutions of human rights relevance in Brussels and Antwerp, such as prisons, centres for detention of minors and shelters for women in need. The Commissioner will also hold meetings with federal government representatives, included the Prime Minister, Yves Leterme, the ministers for foreign affairs, interior, justice and for migration and asylum policy and ministers of the Wallon and Flemish regions. Further meetings will be held with the Presidents of the Constitutional Court of Belgium, the federal ombudsmen, the ombudsmen for children, the centre for equal opportunities. On Friday 19, preliminary observations will be presented in Brussels in the "Maison des Parlementaires". The visit falls within a series of activities carried out in accordance with the Commissioner’s mandate to assess the implementation of human rights commitments by all Council of Europe member states. An assessment report with relevant recommendations will be published early 2009.” ” ” “
