As organizations working to protect the rights of children and health workers in armed conflict, we are shocked by your decision announced on June 6, 2016 to remove the Saudi Arabia-led Coalition from the "list of shame" annexed to your published 2016 annual report to the United Nations Security Council on children and armed conflict, "pending the conclusions of [a] joint review" of the cases and numbers included in the text.

On 25 May 2016, Hany Mohamed Hassanin Sharaf, founder of the Civilized Alternative Party and former Egyptian Air Force pilot, was released from jail after spending more than six months in arbitrary detention. Prosecuted under trumped-up charges that were triggered by his political activism and in particular his work on the creation of a new opposition party, Hany was facing death penalty in case of a trial before a military court. Alkarama had solicited the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in November 2015, to ask the Egyptian authorities to release him.

Human rights stand, alongside development and peace and security, as one of three pillars of the UN's work. Human rights defenders, being essential actors in the promotion and protection of human rights and the prevention of violations, should be at the core of this work. Despite this, in all regions of the world, human rights defenders face unacceptable restrictions and risks – from defamation to criminalisation, and from arbitrary detention to torture.