To promote the screenings of human rights cinema worldwide, Movies that Matteroffers grants to human rights film events in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, especially in countries with limited resources and freedom of press. These events can take various forms, such as human rights film festivals, LGBT film festivals and mobile cinema projects. Please note that Movies that Matter does not support film production. You can apply on-line. The deadline is 15 April 201§8
Prominent Pakistani human rights defender and lawyer Asma Jahangirhas died at the age of 66. She reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest and was taken to hospital, where she later died.
She was one of the most recognized and honored human rights defenders with over 17 human rights awards, including the Martin Ennals Award in 1995, whose film on her work shows a much younger Asma, fearless in spite of threats on her life:
I met her for the first time in 1993 at the 2nd World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, where she deeply impressed me by standing up and openly criticizing her fellow NGO representatives for having tried to prevent former President Jimmy Carte from speaking at the NGO forum. This principled stand was a hallmark of her life as Pakistani human rights lawyer and as UN Special Rapporteur. In many instances she was able to give sound advice on cases of other human rights defenders in difficulty. For earlier posts on Asma see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/asma-jahangir/
Asma Jahangir’s career in short:
Trained as a lawyer and worked in Pakistan’s Supreme Court from age 30
A critic of the military establishment
Jailed in 1983 for pro-democracy activities
Put under house arrest in 2007 for opposing military leader’s removal of Supreme Court chief justice
Co-founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and of the first free legal aid centre in Pakistan (together with her sister Hina Jilani)
Co-founder of the Women’s Action Forum, set up to oppose law that reduced a woman’s testimony in court to half that of a man’s
The first female leader of Pakistan’s Supreme Court bar association
Winner of 17 human rights awards and the French Legion of Honour
Served twice as UN special rapporteur: on freedom of religion and on later on Human Rights in Iran
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai called Ms Jahangir a “saviour of democracy and human rights”.
This week’s ‘television programme’ Just Asia (9 February 20018) covers a number of important issues:
Burma: the UN’s Human Rights Commissioner warning that the government’s persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority has the potential to spark regional conflict. “It is sometimes said that today’s human rights violations will become tomorrow’s conflicts.” Also this week, the Associated Press confirmed at least five mass graves found in Rakhine, through multiple interviews and time-stamped cell phone videos. The graves are the newest piece of evidence suggesting genocide.
Indonesia: the visit of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, ended 7 February. Among the Commissioner’s various meetings, two important ones were the civil society meeting hosted by Indonesia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the meeting with victims of human rights violations hosted by the National Commission on Human Rights. Local groups are hopeful that the high profile visit will significantly influence human rights development in Indonesia. Moreover, Mr. Zeid ended his visit with the announcement that his office would soon send a mission to West Papua to learn about the human rights situation there. (with an interview with Mr. Bedjo Untung, a Survivor of the 1965-1966 massacre)
The Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte’s political allies are proposing to amend the Constitution, to change the country’s presidential form of government to a federal one. While focusing on political changes, the current constitutional debate is silent on constitutional rights. Philippines’1987 Constitution includes the Bill of Rights and many provisions relating to social justice. These are the culmination of a people’s aspirations after suffering for years under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. Any debate on constitutional change must therefore include discussion on the protection of constitutional rights.
Nepal, Plain clothes police arrested 14 year old Sandip Prasai on 1 February, and accused him of being a thief and a drug addict. Sandip was admitted to a hospital on February 4, where the doctors said there are no visible signs of injuries on his body, but he has suffered from panic attacks. Activists are calling on the government to investigate the incident and suitably punish the officers involved in beating a juvenile.
On 9 November 2017 ISHR met Yaxue Cao, the founder and editor of ChinaChange.org, an English-language website devoted to news and commentary related to civil society, rule of law, and human rights activities in China. She works to help the rest of the world understand what people are thinking and doing to effect change in China. Reports and translations on China Change have been cited widely in leading global news outlets and in U.S. Congressional reports. Yaxue Cao grew up in northern China during the Cultural Revolution and studied literature in the US. She lives in Washington, DC.
In then clip above Juliet Stevenson (one of many) makes her nomination for A’ UK’s Suffragette Spirit campaign. People who know women human rights defenders today in the UK. can nominate. Visit https://www.amnesty.org.uk/suffragett…
Background: The Suffragette Spirit Map of Britain is a part of Amnesty’s global BRAVE campaign to champion and protect human rights defenders around the world. Every day, ordinary people from all walks of life – from students to farmers, office workers to street sellers – are doing extraordinary things to protect our human rights. But human rights and the people who defend them are coming under increasing attack – the scale and level of which is now at an alarming rate. In 2016, 281 human rights defenders were killed – and last year is set to be the deadliest year yet. Since the UN Declaration of Human Rights Defenders in 1998, at least 3,500 activists have been killed – an average of 180 deaths a year – and the annual death toll shows no sign of diminishing. There were a number of high profile deaths of women human rights defenders last year including Heather Heyer, who was killed in August in Charlottesville while protesting against a white supremacist rally. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/08/14/human-rights-defender-heather-heyer-murdered-in-protest-against-hate-in-charlottesville/].
While studying at the College of Charleston, Tom Laffay’s political consciousness came not from the classroom but in the fields while working alongside Mexican migrant laborers on a farm in North Carolina. “How they were living in the shadows made me want to know where they came from,” says the St. Ignatius High School alum.
With a background in Latin American studies and photojournalism, Laffay moved to Nicaragua in 2011 and Bogota, Colombia, in 2016. “I’ve never liked the idea of parachute journalism,” says the 28-year-old Laffay, whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic and Al Jazeera. “I get really invested in a place.” Laffay’s latest project Defender, a portrait of human rights defenders under threat for their work in Columbia, is part of the Cleveland Print Room’s Anthropocene group exhibit, running 19 January to 23 February 2018.
Cleveland Magazine talked with Laffay about the perilous work of defenders intent on protecting their native environment:
Q: In 2016, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia signed a peace agreement. Since then, nearly 200 indigenous leaders, environmental activists, LBGTQ leaders and lawyers have been murdered in Columbia. Why? A: It’s open season on human rights defenders in Columbia, who are being killed with impunity for documenting blatant oil contamination by companies using water in fuel extraction. With the rebels demobilizing, the country is open for business in areas they couldn’t be involved with before.
Q: Are you in danger for your associations with the local activists?
A: There are a lot of extremely talented and brave journalists here. I definitely take precautions and I make calculated risks. You have to really trust the people you’re with. I make sure I’m always in touch with the legal collective I work with and they always know where I’m going to be.
Q: What do you want people to take away from this exhibit?
A: These are men and women defending their communities and environment, and their rewards are arbitrary arrests, fake judicial processes and death. The landscape has become so dominated by the oil industry. … Oil extraction comes first and communities are a distant second. ..
Brazil’s “Piripkura” has won the Amsterdam Human Rights Award at this year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Recognition for a devastating chronicle, the award comes with a cash prize of €25,000. The jury said of the film: “With this poignant, exceptional story, the filmmakers tackle a broad series of issues that should be high up on the international human rights agenda. The filmic quality of this documentary left us no choice but to award the Amsterdam Human Rights Award to ‘Piripkura.’”The film was produced by Brazil’s Zeza Filmes with Maria Farinha Filmes and Grifa Filmes as associate producers.
“Piripkura,” is a a modern-day ethnographic documentary with distinct differences from its scholarly predecessors. Ethnographic filmmaking started with voyeuristic or educational intentions, as an attempt to show the world something it had never seen. Perhaps it says something about the modern world that these films are now made in the spirit of conservation.
[The film follows Jair Candor, an official with Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency FUNAI, as he ventures into one of the Amazon’s protected indigenous lands, Piripkura. Only three Piripkura tribe-members are still alive today, and only two in their native land. The third, Rita, was forced to flee the lands when logging companies sent in mercenaries to kill the tribespeople, and thus lift government protections of the area. Rita accompanies Candor on his initial visits to confirm the continued existence of Pakyî and Tamandua, the last remaining Piripkura, an undertaking which must be done to sustain the areas protected status. Beyond the inherent dangers of living in the Amazon; corporate farms, fires, logging companies and massive budget cuts to aid agencies are constant threats to the two men.]
Movies that Matter presented the ten festivals that it recently decided to support. This month, it offered grants to a new round of projects. Among others, two debuting festivals that will receive the start-up grant: for the first time a human rights film festival will take place in Timor-Leste in 2018. To bring the cinema to the people, the Timor-Leste Human Rights Film Festival will use a portable set-up to screen their selection of films at multiple sites. A new film festival will also arrive in South Africa: Shining Lights onto Langa. The festival introduces people to the Sunshine Cinema, a solar powered mobile cinema that converts solar energy into social impact. It brings people together with the intent to uplift grassroots movements and create networks of social change.
Additionally, the support goes to three film festivals that pay direct attention to LGTBQI+ rights in Turkey, Pakistan and Myanmar. Other supported cinema projects include those in Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Palestine, Turkey and Peru.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 