Barcelona, February 14th 2008
Ambassador Doru Costea
President of the Human Rights Council
doru.costea@romaniaunog.org
Your Excellency,
The HIC General Assembly, held in Barcelona on February 12th, 2008, deliberated on the
candidates for the next UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing and I wish to communicate the following to you as the Chair of the Human Rights Council.
HIC is an independent, nonprofit global coalition, committed to human rights based approach to housing and human settlements, for more than 30 years. HICs membership consists of civic organizations and movements. The Coalition has members in 106 countries in five continents.
After having reviewed the three candidates for the Special post, the HIC General Assembly
supports the candidatures of Raquel Rolnik from Brazil and Leilani Farah from Canada.
Both candidates deserve our support because of the hope that they represent in favour of all the HIC members in the world, due to their struggle for everyones right to have a place to live in peace and dignity. Also, we would like to recognize their long trajectory of dedicated work related to the housing right, particularly in favour of those who suffer most the consequences of diverse human rights violations related to housing and of the lack of public policies that allow the fulfilment of these rights.
However, in our considered opinion, Raquel Rolnik reflects the best qualifications for this post. She comes from the South and she has a global outlook. She has a track record of commitment to peoples struggles and processes. She is fluent in four languages: Portuguese, Spanish, French and English.
We also recognize the commitment and the work that Leilani Farah has performed in the area of the adequate housing rights.
My best regards.
Sincerely,
Ana Sugranyes
General Secretariat
Habitat International Coalition, HIC
Download the spanish version of the letter (PDF)
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