share information on human rights defenders, with special focus on human rights awards and laureates
MEA 2015 nominees: Robert Aung, Ahmed Mansoor, Asmaou Diallo
A very early “save the date’ announcement: those who need to travel from far away may want to note that the 2015 Martin Ennals Award Ceremony will take place on 6 October, at 18h30 at Uni-Dufour, Geneva. It is the event that opens Human Rights Week hosted by the University of Geneva from 6 – 9 October.
The laureate will be selected from among the three 2015 finalists, shown in the picture above: Read the rest of this entry »
Nominations for the 2015 Human Rights Tulip award for human rights defenders are now, Monday 15 June, welcome. For more information on this award see: http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/tulip-award.
Deadline for nominations 16 July, to tulip@hivos.org which is hosting the logistic secretariat.
There is a short video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3KD-jniuM can help encourage people to nominate.
Please see also: Home | Human Rights Tulip.
Waleed Abu al-Khair, a human rights defender from Saudi Arabia has won the 2015 Ludovic Trarieux Prize, a prestigious award for human rights lawyers [for more info on the award see: http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/ludovic-trarieux-international-human-rights-prize]. Waleed Abu al-Khair is a long-standing campaigner (started the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia – MHRSA) and was given a 15-year jail sentence by a Jeddah court last year, in a ruling that Human Rights Watch (HRW), Front Line and many others have heavily criticized [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/waleed-abu-al-khair/].
Currently in jail himself, Al-Khair represented prominent blogger (and brother-in-law) Raif Badawi who has been jailed for 10 years and sentenced to 1,000 lashes. [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/saudi-court-upholds-bloggers-10-years-and-1000-lashes/]
Bertrand Favreau, the founder of the Ludovic Trarieux Prize, told AFP the award goes to those who “through their work, activities or suffering defend the respect for human rights“.
Saudi Arabia: jailed blogger Raif Badawi’s lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair wins human rights award.
On 25 May 2015 the inaugural PEN Canada/Honduras Award for investigative journalism, ‘Escribir sin Miedo’, was presented in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to the journalist and documentary filmmaker Fred Alvarado for his essay “HONDURAS: the Process of American Remilitarization and the Failure of the War on Drugs”.
Escribir sin Miedo was organized and launched by the newly established PEN Honduras centre, in partnership with PEN Canada, with funding from the British embassy in Guatemala. “Investigative journalism has never been more important in this country,” said Dina Meza, president of PEN Honduras, “and awards like this recognize the importance of creating a culture in which writers and human rights defenders can address sensitive issues without fearing for their lives.”
And the problems are grave:
– At least 30 journalists have been killed since the country’s 2010 Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations, and at least 48 since 2003. Several were killed even after receiving protection measures, including “precautionary measures” granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). To date the government has obtained convictions in just four of these cases, with the remaining 44 unresolved – an impunity rate of over 90 per cent.
– Frontline reports that Honduran human rights defender, Ms Gladys Lanza Ochoa, continues to face intimidation and harassment following her sentencing to 18-months imprisonment on 26 March 2015. An appeal against the sentencing has been lodged before the Supreme Court of Honduras. [Gladys Lanza Ochoa is Coordinator of the Movimiento de Mujeres por la Paz Visitación Padilla (Honduran Women’s Committee for Peace “Visitación Padilla”), a collective of women human rights defenders from across Honduras who work on issues such as gender violence and women’s participation in public life, in addition to advocating for democracy and human rights in Honduras. Over the last years, Gladys Lanza Ochoa, as well as other members of Visitación Padilla have been regularly victims of threats, intimidation and surveillance in connection with their human rights work (https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/19743) Most recently, on 14 May 2015, the human rights defender was followed by unidentified persons riding motorcycles and driving a car that did not bear registration plates. This intimidation occurs right after Gladys Lanza Ochoa’s lawyer launched her appeal before the Supreme Court against her sentence to 18 months in prison https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/28385.
– On 25 May 2015 Telesur published a lengthy “Analysis From Reagan to Obama: Forced Disappearances in Honduras” which provides many details on 30 years of horror: “Hondurans today suffer not just from the terror of death squads but from the ravages of three decades of the implementation of neoliberal policy made possible by death squads, which makes them that much more vulnerable.”
– Bertha Oliva, director of COFADEH and winner of the Tulip award, lost her husband Tomas Nativi to forced disappearance by Battalion 316. Nativi was taken from their home by masked agents in 1981 and has never been seen again. Over the years after Nativi’s disappearance, Oliva came to realize that she was not alone, and others had similar experiences of family members being disappeared. In 1982, 12 of these families came together to form COFADEH with the objective of bringing back alive family members who had been disappeared. In the majority of cases throughout the 1980s while Battalion 316 was operating, COFADEH did not succeed in their goal. After the 1980s, COFADEH broadened its scope as an organization not only committed to seeking justice for the families of the disappeared and truth for Honduran society, but also representing and defending victims of human rights abuses, documenting cases, and providing training to raise awareness about human rights. The creation of COFADEH was, in its own words, a “concrete action” in the face of the inactivity of the state to ensure “the right of victims to live and to have due process, among other rights that have been violated.” COFADEH has continued to play a key role in documenting and denouncing human rights abuses and demanding justice, particularly once again in the years since the coup.
for more on Honduras: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/honduras/
Whether one believes in sainthood or not, it is not difficult to rejoice with Pax Christi International about the 23 May beatification of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero who became known for his persistent search for truth, justice and reconciliation in the late seventies in conflict-torn El Salvador. He was shot dead while celebrating mass on 24 March 1980. The assassin has never been identified, but it is widely believed that the assassins were members of a death squad led by former Major Roberto D’Aubuisson. Read the rest of this entry »
Under the title ‘Lawyers are not their clients’ the Netherlands-based NGO Lawyers for Lawyers [L4L] puts the 25th anniversary of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers in the limelight. On 29 May 2015 the seminar starts with an introduction by Phon van den Biesen, President L4L, and Cees Flinterman, Professor Emeritus of Human Rights (University of Utrecht and Maastricht).
Basic Principle 18 states that lawyers “shall not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes as a result of discharging their functions.”
In Break-out sessions the following aspects are considered:
The plenary discussion concludes with the Award Ceremony for the 2015 L4L award to Jorge Molano (see: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/jorge-molano-from-colombia-laureate-of-2015-lawyers-for-lawyers-award/).
Visit www.lawyersforlawyers.org or contact the Executive Director (+31.6 262 743 90).
is recruiting a Communications Manager, based in Geneva or Stockholm. The successful applicant will be shaping its international communications strategy and working closely with its Laureates. She/he will lead the Right Livelihood Award Foundation’s communications team and be responsible for the conceptualisation, implementation and the daily running of all communications of the foundation. Read the rest of this entry »
Under the title “Dooley doodling” appeared a post in the Gulf Daily News of 18 May 2015. It is supposed to a pun on the name of Brian Dooley, the director of Human Rights First’s human rights defenders’ programme. The writer [Duri?] draws fortunately more attention to Dooley’s piece in the Huffington Post of 6 May: ‘How to Sound Like a Washington Expert on Bahrain’.
There is a rather-vaguely worded attack on his work for human rights defenders in Bahrain without ever substantiating any of the claims that he or his organization is receiving money from unnamed sources (“Guess who foots the bills?“) or going in any detail on the harassment of the human rights defenders (“Every time Mr Rajab or any of the players happen to be [SIC] behind bars, expect one piece from him attacking the Bahraini government and its institutions.“). Dooley is quite capable of defending himself, but the awards aspect below is worth a bit more attention: Read the rest of this entry »
Jorge Elecier Molano, a Colombian human rights Lawyer and member of DHColombia, is the winner of the Lawyers for Lawyers Award 2015. He is based in Bogota and works as an independent lawyer and legal advisor to several NGOs, including ‘Sembrar’. Jorge Molano received numerous death threats in the course of his work as a lawyer and human rights defender. After the death threats in 2009 and 2010, he felt obliged to send his daughters to live abroad for security reasons. In January 2013 the Colombian State’s National Protection Unit (NPU) defined Jorge Molano’s risk level as “extraordinary,” due to several security incidents. In 2014 Jorge Molano and other members of DHColombia and Sembrar have been the victim of several aggressions including attacks on family members, raids on his home to steal information, cyber-attacks on email and website accounts, telephone interception, and illegal surveillance, among others.
Currently, Jorge Molano represents victims in some of the most emblematic human rights cases in Colombia, such as the disappearance of 11 people after the dramatic events around the hostage-taking at the Palace of Justice in Bogota on 6 and 7 November 1985, and the killing on 21 February 2005 of several members (including minors) of the Comunidad de Paz of San José de Apartado, a group of villagers who have sworn not to become involved in the conflict in Colombia. Jorge Molano also provides legal support to persons in cases where organizations and human rights defenders are spied upon by national intelligence agencies, and in cases concerning extrajudicial executions.
“The jury noted that among the nominees a shockingly large amount of lawyers are imprisoned for doing their work. In far too many countries human rights lawyers and their relatives live in constant danger. The jury found in Jorge Molano a lawyer who is standing out for his decennia long commitment to those who are not accepting the suppression by the often criminal and violent powers that be. By awarding Molano the jury wants to applaud his immense personal courage and stamina and draw attention to the largely overlooked dire human rights situation in Colombia”.
Human rights lawyers from across the world were nominated for the L4L Award. Khalil Maatouk from Syria and Pu Zhiqiang from China were the other two shortlisted lawyers. Jorge Molano will accept the award on 29 May at L4L’s seminar ‘Lawyers are not their clients’.
For more information on the award see: http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/lawyers-lawyers. For L4L visit www.lawyersforlawyers.org or contact the Executive Director (+31.6 262 743 90)
