QNA/Doha
Qatar’s Ministry of Justice participated in the 53rd Annual Session of Asian-African Legal Consultative Organisation, held in Tehran at ministerial level.
Qatar’s delegation presented two working papers on two axes of the meetings: the first related to a world against violence, which constitutes a threat to individuals, communities and security in the whole world, while the second dealt with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as a framework setting a general and important system for world trade.
HE the Minister of Justice Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr al-Mohannadi said that the recent Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip is considered a form of genocide set forth in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948, a matter that makes everyone responsible for the deterrence of this aggression and the punishment of its perpetrators in collaboration with all members of the international community.
Assistant Undersecretary for Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Justice, Ibrahim bin Musa al-Hitmi delivered a speech on behalf of HE the Minister of Justice, in which al-Mohannadi underlined the importance of a set of issues that requires to be addressed radically and fairly due to the critical stage in which this meeting was held and in which conflicts and hotbeds of tension are spreading.
The Justice Minister also referred to presence of problems and multiple challenges of which some are old and constant and some new or casual.
The minister added that some of these challenges are the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, religious extremism which is coupled with violence, protection of disasters’ victims, internal conflicts and strife, the fight against poverty and terrorism and the unmaking of its funding sources.
He stressed that terrorism is no longer a danger threatening a certain state or an international group, but has rather become a global threat and no society is any longer free from the possibilities of its expansion to it, saying that technological advancement assisted in the diversification of means of committing terrorist crimes.
He pointed out that terrorism added new means that contributed to its funding and the continuation of its activities. Therefore national and international efforts to counter terrorist acts and to monitor suspicious financial transactions that could provide resources to terrorists, have not hitherto been able to completely halt terrorism offences and still terrorist acts infecting large numbers of innocent people and face human groups.
Therefore collective responsibility towards this daily life danger requires an incessant work and human and material potential that we should all join hands to provide.
HE the Minister of Justice said that Qatar had given this matter what it deserve as it issued several legislations to combat terrorism, the latest of which was Law No. 4 of 2010 on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism, through which Qatar legislators were keen to match international efforts in this area. A national committee to combat terrorism in order to achieve a permanent co-operation between competent authorities in the state in the face of terrorism and to develop means of this confrontation was also formed.
He stressed the importance of the development of the Afro-Asian action within the framework of the World Trade Organisation, especially at this stage in which the world witnessed openness in trade relations and transcended the many previous limitations due to the establishment of the WTO as a general framework, explaining that previous agreements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had been characterised by a flexibility that allowed the accommodation of the requirements of member states’ national interests the most important of which were requirements of national security and national public health.
Concluding, HE the Minister of Justice underlined the importance of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organisation which embodies the aspirations of the peoples and governments of two large continents and is work to develop an influential and sustainable cooperation to achieve their hopes for growth, progress and well-being.
