published its latest annual report, outlining key impacts during the last year and its vision for 2021 and the years ahead . They have remained deeply interconnected with defenders and have supported, protected and amplified their work at the national, regional and international levels. With them, the “essential workers” of our times, ISHR strives for a 2021 full of freedom, equality, dignity and justice.
What did we achieve in 2020?
Here are just a few examples of our collective impact:
- Working with UN experts, governments from all regions, and major investors to issue public statements of concern regarding human rights in China and to call for independent investigation and monitoring of widespread and systematic violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong
- Partnering with family members, human rights defenders and civil society partners to secure an urgent debate at the UN on the issue of police violence and systemic racism and to mandate the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate and report on this issue in the US and globally
- Working with civil society partners to ensure that key international principles on equality and justice for LGBTI persons are reflected in laws, policies, practices and jurisprudence at the national, regional and international levels
- Working with family members, civil society partners, UN experts and States to increase pressure on Saudi Arabia for the release of detained women human rights defenders
- Conducting our first ever fully virtual Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme – providing training, strategic advice and advocacy support to 19 defenders over a 12 week period
- Working with the African Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights to conduct its first ever virtual session and to develop and adopt a landmark resolution on a human rights-based approach to COVID-19 in Africa
- Contributing to the UN Security Council’s first ever dedicated discussion on reprisals and intimidation against women human rights defenders and peacebuilders
- Developing a new five-year strategy setting out the ways in which we will support and act in solidarity with defenders
- Strengthening our own governance, transparency, accountability and sustainability, including through the establishment of a Working Group on Wellbeing and a Working Group on Non-Discrimination, Divers
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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