Final requests and suggestions to:

Chile, France, Germany, Romania and USA

Dear XX

Keeping in mind all your efforts to assist and in a way "defend" our organization during the last three months, as well as the extremely volatile situation of these hours, I am taking the liberty to write to you on the eve of the Committee's decision on TRP's case to re-emphasise our position and to flag a couple of proposals for your kind consideration.

In the conclusion of TRP's comprehensive response, we have expressed our negative opinion on any compromise that will reduce the sentence also to one year, convinced as we are, that that TRP has not done anything wrong and that our activities at the UN have never ever violated ECOSOC resolution 1996/31, and that the so-called written reasons lack any evidence of TRP's misbehaviour and present several internal contradictions. We therefore strongly urge you to discourage and refuse any compromise that will not only confirm a suspension of our consultative status, but also create a dangerous precedent that may be systematically applied to dozens of other Non-Governmental Organizations in the future.

Some proposals for tomorrow's debate:

In the likely event of a vote, we believe that it could be useful if, at some point during the debate, one delegation could ask the Committee to annex our comprehensive response to the report that will be presented before the Council. In this way another crucial step could be made in order to prevent politically motivated complaints against NGOs. ECOSOC members that have not followed the whole process since June could in this way be informed, officially through a UN document, of the final sentence on which they will have to agree upon, and may look into the ordeal in a completely different, and hopefully more positive, way. Moreover, we are of the opinion that such an inclusion could not only be instrumental in keeping TRP's Consultative Status with the UN active, but could also be concretely useful for other organizations that will have to undergo the same procedure in the future.

Another proposal that could prove useful to our cause, could be the request to allow the TRP to address ECOSOC on 18 October. It is our opinion that to give an "additional" opportunity to an NGO to explain its reasons before the ECOSOC, would not only be in accordance with the principles of fairness and due process, but also in accordance with ECOSOC Resolution 1996/31; in fact, according to Paragraph 32 a) "The Committee on Non Governmental Organization shall make recommendations to the Economic and Social Council as to which organizations in general consultative status should make an oral presentation to the Council and on which items they should be heard. Such organizations shall be entitled to make one statement to the Council, subject to the approval of the Council". We are fully aware this Paragraph does not necessarily refer directly to our situation, but in a way, testifies that such a procedure is welcomed, if not favoured, by the United Nations. The matter of interest, in this case, will not merely

be some sort of NGO "self-defence" before a UN body, but a more wider argument in favour of NGOs role at the UN, where currently some sort of consultative status is in place. We believe that this could reverse a recent pattern of actions coming from certain countries that have done their utmost to limit NGOs presence at UN. In addition, we believe that this opportunity may be acceptable by the Committee for two other sets of reasons: the first is that ECOSOC is the UN body that is asked to confirm or reject the Committee's recommendations regarding "punishments" on NGOs and therefore should be in its interest to hear a party concerned, secondly, because there are some elements that make our case a complex issue (for example the fact that we were allowed to submit a third response after having questioned the Committee's written reasons).

Hoping that these few points can be of interest for you, and confidant in your pro-active role tomorrow, I once again would like to express all our gratitude to your delegation for your time, consideration and assistance in this matter and wish you a fruitful debate tomorrow. All my best