ASEAN human rights declaration to be finalized by this year: Cambodia

  SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia, 2012’s ASEAN chair, vowed to finalize the drafting of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration by this year in order to help build an ASEAN community: One Community, One Destiny, Cambodian Human Rights Committee chairman Om Yintieng said Monday.
  “The declaration is our priority and is in line with the ASEAN Charter, we have agreed and are committed to finalizing it sometime in 2012,” he said in a press briefing after the first two-day meeting of the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights, which was attended by human rights chiefs of the ASEAN member states.
  “The declaration will be very important for the ASEAN to build an ASEAN with the goal: One Community, One Destiny,” he said. “We want the ASEAN citizens to have the same rights.”
  After the finalization, there will be two public consultations on the draft of the declaration with civil society in order to take constructive ideas, he added.
  The meeting of the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights was concluded just a day before the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ retreat meeting which will be held on Jan. 10-12 in Siem Reap.
  Om Yintieng said that the meeting’s outcome would be submitted to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ retreat meeting.
  The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.