A list of tasks for Germany's involvement in the UN Human Rights Council

"As a newly elected member of the UN Human Rights Council, Germany must show more initiative against human rights violations all around the world in 2013," demands the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). On Thursday, close to New Year's Eve, the human rights organization published a twelve-page memorandum with the ten most important human rights issues that the Federal Republic should help to resolve.

Germany must show more initiative to work on the following topics:

1. Start international initiatives to resolve "forgotten conflicts" – for example in northern Caucasus, in Turkish Kurdistan, the Baluch regions of Iran, in Pakistan, the Sudan, Western Sahara, South Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Xinjiang in the Chinese People's Republic and in Syria;

2. Protect human rights defenders who are being criminalized and oppressed by repressive states, for example in Russia, Mauritania or Chile;

3. Protect civilians in armed conflicts, for example in eastern Congo, the provinces of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile in Sudan and also in Myanmar, Mali, Somalia and southern Thailand;

4. Call a special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council about the escalating situation in the Tibetan areas in the People's Republic of China;

5. Draw attention to the largely unknown plight of the people from the Horn of Africa, the Sinai region or the Gulf of Aden/Yemen, to stop human trafficking in these areas;

6. Stop land theft to ensure the survival of various indigenous peoples;

7. Try to implement the "United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples" (September 13, 2007), because of the increasing marginalization and oppression of indigenous peoples.

8. Emphasize the inseparable unity of human rights, environmental protection and sustainable economy – to ensure that any commitment towards environmental protection also respects the human rights of the affected peoples.

9. Advocate for the basic human right to have access to safe drinking water – especially in western Papua (eastern Indonesia), on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines and also in Myanmar, Brazil and Chile, where water supplies are significantly impaired by mining projects.

10. Germany should respect and make use of the "expert-status" of the Human Rights Council, which expresses the concerns of the indigenous peoples within the Council and also gives recommendations.