The soul-searching of the human rights movement continues unabated in a climate of growing hostility towards some of the basic tenets which the international human rights movement assumed were widely accepted. Now this can no longer be taken for granted as shown in action by some major players (China, Russia) and inaction(USA, EU) and by a worrying number of middle-sized states (such as Turkey, Hungary, Philippines, Venezuela) where backsliding on human rights is underpinned by populist leaders.
In this context the Martin Ennals Award for Humans Rights Defenders (MEA) is organising its 25th Anniversary event on 30 May in Geneva with a public event “Human Rights in a Changing World”. The leaders of the 10 international NGOs on the MEA Jury and several laureates come together for this occasion. In the morning they meet in private session on the same topics.
Panel 1 (35 Min)- The rising influence of autocratic states
Speakers: Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch Debbie Stothard, Secretary-General, International Federation for Human Rights Sam Zarifi, Secretary-General, International Commission of Jurists
Panel 2 (35 Min)- Populism as a threat to human rights
Speakers: Elisa Massimino, President and CEO, Human Rights First Gerald Staberock, Secretary-General, World Organization Against Torture Friedhelm Weinberg, Executive Director, HURIDOCS Julie Verhaar, Senior Director, Amnesty International
Panel 3 (35 Min)- Effective human rights action in today’s environment
Speakers: Julia Duchrow, Head of Human Rights, Brot Für die Welt Andrew Anderson, Executive Director, Front Line Defenders Vincent Ploton, Director, Treaty Body Advocacy, Int’l Service for Human Rights.
This blog has devoted several posts to these developments and here is a small selection that may help prepare for the meeting:
Peter Sewakiryanga (left) and Margret Arach Orech after receiving their awards at a function in Bugolobi. Photo by Ashraf Kasirye
The 2018 Human Rights Defenders Award went to Margaret Arach Orech, the founder of Uganda Landmine Survivors’ Association and Peter Sewakiryanga, the founder of Kyampisi Childcare Ministries, an organisation that supports child victims of sacrifice.
Arach, who lost her leg to a landmine during an attack by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in 1998, uses her organisation to solicit for support for fellow survivors and persons with disabilities.
Sewakiryanga, a pastor now takes care of 80 child survivors of trafficking and human sacrifice has built an extensive network linking communities and security to track suspected cases. In 2017, Sewakiryanga travelled to Oman to rescue six victims of child trafficking. He is credited for championing research and spearheading an awareness campaign in communities to stop the crime.
“The defenders we’re honouring today work in some of the most dangerous areas of the world, sacrificing their own security to peacefully demand justice and human rights for their communities,” said Andrew Anderson, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders, as he announced the winners in Dublin.
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Nurcan Baysal, Turkey – Regional Winner for Europe & Central Asia & Global Laureate
Nurcan is a Kurdish journalist and human rights defender based in Diyarbakir. When the government launched a military offensive in the south-east in 2016, Nurcan spent months visiting Kurdish villages under bombardment, documenting human rights violations, and stopping to help families who’d lost everything in the conflict. Her writings are known for their critical focus on voice women living under the bombardment. When the authorities launched a military operation in Afrin, Nurcan took to social media to demand peace and condemn the violent assault. She was detained for speaking against the violence, and although later released she now faces up to 3 years in jail in a separate case related to her writing. Nurcan, according to authorities’ absurd claims, had “spread propaganda for armed terrorist organizations … and a call for provocative actions.” In addition to her reporting, Nurcan has also co-founded several NGOs, set up a camp to help Yazidi women fleeing the Islamic State, and been a key voice in countless reconciliation programs in the region. [see also: http://bianet.org/english/human-rights/197288-kurdish-journalist-baysal-wins-frontline-defenders-human-rights-prize]
Soni Sori, India – Regional Winner for Asia
Soni Sori is an indigenous and women’s rights defender in the militarised Bastar region of Chattisghar, India, where state-backed paramilitary forces are waging a violent campaign against local Adivasi tribes in the name of combating an armed Maoist insurgency. Soni documents and advocates against violence perpetrated by the paramilitary and police forces, which includes razing villages, burning homes, raping local women, and torturing and sexually assaulting tribes people detained without cause. Soni has also defended a number of educational centres from destruction by Maoist groups. In retaliation for her work, security forces detained and tortured Soni, pushing stones inside of her body and assaulting her for hours. Years later, men attacked her with acid and threatened to do the same to her daughter if she did not cease her advocacy on behalf of tribeswomen raped by the security forces. She has refused to stop her work, and continues to travel into the Maoist regions to speak with survivors of the ongoing conflict. [see also: https://feminisminindia.com/2018/05/18/soni-sori-wins-front-line-defenders-award/] and https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/02/23/human-rights-defenders-in-india-democracy-is-not-enough/
Peaceful Resistance of the Micro-Region of Ixquisis, Guatemala – Regional Winner for the Americas
La Resistencia Pacífica de la Microregión de Ixquisis formed in response to grave rights violations committed in the name of economic advancement in Guatemala. The government has authorised destructive mining and hydroelectric mega-projects in the region despite the widespread opposite from the 59 villages and 7 communities in the municipality. HRDs in the Peaceful Resistance risk their lives to defend the territory. In 2016 alone, there were more than 75 reported attacks against HRDs in the Peaceful Resistance including killings, shootings, harassment, and defamation campaigns.
LUCHA, DRC – Regional Winner for Africa
LUCHA is a non-partisan youth movement formed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that struggles against chronic corruption and impunity in the DRC. Initially focused on
local issues like access to drinking water, electricity, and youth unemployment, in just 6 years the movement has developed into an extensive national-level network of powerful social organisers. Peaceful protests and demonstrations led by LUCHA are routinely attacked by authorities. In October 2017, 5 young protests were killed during a LUCHA-organised demonstration, and many of their members and leaders having been arrested and detained during peaceful assemblies. The Congolese national intelligence agency has detained several members, who have endured physical and psychological abuse in detention.
Hassan Bouras – Regional Winner for the Middle East & North Africa
Hassan Bouras is a journalist, blogger, leading member of the Algerian League of Human Rights, and founding member of the Rejection Front, a coalition against fracking to extract shale gas in Algeria. His reporting on both corruption and torture in Algeria spans more than two decades and because of this work he has been repeatedly targeted by Algerian authorities. He has continued his writing and advocacy despite years of judicial harassment, arbitrary detentions, violent raids on his home, and imprisonment.
The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) was established in 1982 to recognize and celebrate the highest standards of journalistic quality and integrity in Asia. Today, the SOPA Awards for Editorial Excellence are regarded as the gold standard against which Asia’s best journalists and publishers are measured. There are several categories and one of them is: Excellence in Human Rights Reporting, honoring the work that demonstrates high standards of reporting on a human rights topic of significance
The 2018 finalists include:
Reuters, Duterte’s war falters
The Associated Press, The Rohingya Exodus
The New York Times, A Humanitarian Crisis Unfolds
Frontier Myanmar, “We eat the same rice”
The Phnom Penh Post, The sky became white’
This Week In Asia, Rohingya: nowhere like home.
I reported already on the creation of a new award in Mexico [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/03/24/new-national-award-to-honor-slain-mexican-journalists/]. On 3 May 2018, the Mexican journalist Daniela Rea, known for her chronicles of the violence gripping her native country, was awarded the first edition of the Breach-Valdez Prize in Journalism and Human Rights. “We are gathered here today for them, for a prize born out of pain,” Rea said on accepting the award from Valdez’s widow. “But we are also here for all those other colleagues, many of them anonymous, who continue going out into the street, notebooks in hand, to ask questions, to write, to try to understand the workings of this machinery of death… despite our narco-government.”
(Rea, 35, was born in Guanajuato, in central Mexico, but launched her journalism career in the eastern state of Veracruz, one of the most violent in the country because of turf wars between rival drug cartels. From 2005 to 2012 she worked in Mexico City for respected newspaper Reforma, focusing on the consequences of the Mexican government’s decision in 2006 to deploy the military to fight drug trafficking. “I didn’t make a conscious choice and say ‘I’m going to write about human rights.’ It was the natural result of writing about Mexican life,” Rea told AFP.)
Yesterday, 3 May 2018, was World Press Freedom Day and many noteworthy activities took place. The Economist and many other newspapers of course paid attention with grisly statistics from the Committee to Protect Journalists and other sources. It was also a time to award courageous journalists and cartoonist; just to mention a few:
Musa Kart was announced as the 2018 laureate of the International Press Cartoon Prize by Cartooning for Peace.
The 2018 International Press Cartoon (or Drawing) Prize, presented biannually in Geneva, was awarded to the Turkish cartoonist who was recently sentenced to almost four years in prison for “aiding terrorism”. He is a 64-year-old artist working with the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet and was described as a “free spirit and a remarkable artist” by Swiss cartoonist Chappatte, a member of the jury.
It was also the day of the presentation of the first Ari Rath Prize for Critical Journalism (established to honour journalists who have rendered outstanding services to critical reporting on immigration, expulsion and asylum, committed to respect for human rights, in the spirit of the former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, who died in January 2017). Austrian journalist Alexandra Föderl-Schmid was the laureate.
The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) partnered with the London-based International Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR) to commemorate World Press Freedom Day in Stockholm with an event focused on Turkey, which leads the world in the highest number of journalists in jail. According to SCF data, 258 journalists and media workers were in jail as of today, with 59 of them already convicted on dubious charges of terrorism, defamation and coup plotting. In addition, 142 Turkish journalists who were forced to go into exile or still remain at large in Turkey are wanted for arrest by authorities.
Nine NGOs wrote on World Press Freedom Day a joint letter expressing deep concern over the continued arbitrary detention of Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan language advocate arrested in 2016 after giving an interview to the New York Times. Tashi Wangchuk has since been tried for “inciting separatism,” a politically motivated charge that violates his rights to freedom of expression and association. [Tashi Wangchuk began raising public concern for the lack of rightful Tibetan-language education …In late 2015, he spoke with the New York Times in an interview about his attempts to promote the teaching of Tibetan; he insisted the interview be on the record. A journalist from the New York Times also accompanied him to Beijing, where Tashi Wangchuk attempted to file a lawsuit to ensure local authorities guarantee the provision of Tibetan language education. The result was an article and video documentary featured in the New York Times in November 2015.
In his article, Tashi Wangchuk insisted that his language advocacy was peaceful and non-political. His attempts to persuade the Chinese government to guarantee Tibetan language instruction were conducted through official channels and he made it clear that he was not advocating Tibetan independence. Instead, his main focus was ending the destruction of Tibetan language and culture. Despite taking these precautions, Tashi Wangchuk was arrested on 27 January 2016, held in an unknown location and later stood trial in a closed session. See also:
And then there were many smaller events all around the globe that also deserves attention, such as Amnesty International Nepal voicing support to journalists as human rights defenders (such as Charan Kumar Prasai and Subodh Pyakurel and Rajan Prasad Kuikel).
On 23 April the Guardian and other papers announced the laureates of the 2018 Goldman environmental prize and note that most of the winners are women. They are grassroots activists who have taken on powerful vested interests. For more on this award: http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/goldman-environmental-prize.
Goldman environment prize winners 2018: (clockwise from top left) Manny Calonzo, Francia Márquez, Nguy Thi Khanh, LeAnne Walters, Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid, Claire Nouvian. Photograph: 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize
This year’s Goldman environmental prizes celebrate six remarkable success stories, five of them driven by women.
In Latin America, the winner is Francia Márquez, an Afro-Colombian community leader who led a 10-day, 350-mile march of 80 women from the Amazon to Bogotá that prompted the government to send troops to remove illegal miners who were polluting rivers with cyanide and mercury. [The dangers of environmental activism have been evident in the murder of two Goldman-prize recipients in the past two years: the 2015 winner Berta Cáceres and the 2005 winner Mexican activist Isidro Baldenegro López] “The first thing we need is to be more aware of the historical moment in which we find ourselves: the planet is being destroyed, it’s that simple, and if we do nothing to avoid it we will we will be part of that destruction,” Francia Márquez said. “Our time has come, we must act, we have a responsibility to future generations to leave a better world, in which taking care of life is more important than producing cumulative wealth.”
Three Child Rights Heroes are honoured by the World’s Children’s Prize(WCP) 2018. Learn more about them by clicking their names below.
• Gabriel Mejía Montoya for his efforts over the course of more than 30 years to support Colombia’s street children, child soldiers and children in prison. Father Gabriel has suffered repeated attempts on his life because of his work.
• Rachel Lloyd for her 20-year fight against commercial sexual exploitation, CSEC, and domestic trafficking of girls and young women in the US. Rachel is a survivor of sexual and mental abuse during her childhood in England and exploitation in the sex industry in Europe.
• Valeriu Nicolae for his tireless struggle to protect the poorest and most vulnerable children in Romania’s Ferentari ghetto. Valeriu grew up in extreme poverty and was discriminated against because he was Roma.
The candidates were selected by a jury of children from 15 different countries. Rachel Lloyd has been elected Child Rights Hero by millions of young people. Gabriel Mejía Montoya from Colombia and Valeriu Nicolae from Romania get the World’s Children’s Honorary Awards.
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 2017 Sportsperson of the Year Show on December 5, 2017 at Barclays Center in New York City.
USA athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick has been honoured with Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for 2018. The award was officially presented at a ceremony in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on 21 April 2018, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of AI Netherlands.
“The Ambassador of Conscience award celebrates the spirit of activism and exceptional courage, as embodied by Colin Kaepernick. He is an athlete who is now widely recognised for his activism because of his refusal to ignore or accept racial discrimination,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International. [for more on this and other human rights awards see: http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/ambassador-of-conscience-award]
[During the 2016 pre-season of the American National Football League, Colin Kaepernick knelt during the US national anthem, as a respectful way of calling for the country to protect and uphold the rights of all its people. The bold move was a response to the disproportionate numbers of black people being killed by police. It sparked a movement that follows a long tradition of non-violent protests that have made history. While the polarised response to the “take-a-knee” protest has ignited a debate about the right to protest and free speech, Colin Kaepernick has remained focused on highlighting the injustices that moved him to act. His charity, the Colin Kaepernick Foundation, works to fight oppression around the world through education and social activism, including through free “Know Your Rights” camps which educate and empower young people.]
“I would like to thank Amnesty International for the Ambassador of Conscience Award. But in truth, this is an award that I share with all of the countless people throughout the world combating the human rights violations of police officers, and their uses of oppressive and excessive force. …said Colin Kaepernick. “While taking a knee is a physical display that challenges the merits of who is excluded from the notion of freedom, liberty, and justice for all, the protest is also rooted in a convergence of my moralistic beliefs, and my love for the people.“
See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/05/07/ais-ambassador-of-conscience-award-2016-shared-by-angelique-kidjo-and-african-youth-groups/
As part of the global Celebration of World Press Freedom Day, the winner of the “UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize” will be announced on 3 May 2018. for last year’s award: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/05/04/eritrean-born-journalist-dawit-isaak-awarded-2017-unescos-guillermo-cano-world-press-freedom-prize/
The jury on Monday 23 April awarded the honor to Mahmoud Abu Zeid, known as Shawkan, who has been in jail since he was arrested in Cairo in August 2013 for covering a demonstration at Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry strongly warned UNESCO against the move Sunday, saying that Shawkan faces terror-related charges. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions says Shawkan’s arrest is arbitrary and his continued detention infringes his human rights.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 