The conference “Defending the defenders!”, hosted by the six women Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, will bring together 100 women human rights defenders and organizations working to support them in order to advance the global agenda to protect women’s human rights defenders. During two days, participants will examine trends of threats that women all over the world face, and the strategies they employ to address these threats.
The conference is designed for maximum interaction, learning from each other, open dialogue and strategizing. It will include panels, participant-led discussions, skill-related workshops and strategy sessions. Participants will be able to showcase their work, including relevant films and documentaries, and have time to socialize and reconnect with each other. Invited participants will be women who are:
• Civil society activists and women human rights defenders from at least 20 different countries
• Academics
• Government officials
• Corporates
• Donor organizations and philanthropists
• Media (including journalists, filmmakers, writers and social media experts)
From 24-26 April 2015 in Duin & Kruidberg, Netherlands
In a post of 10 March 2015, Rachel Finn of the Enough Project describes an interesting but in Europe mostly unknown gathering of US student leaders preparing to become human rights defenders:
From 21-13 February 2015, the Lemkin Summit: A National Gathering of the Next Generation of Human Rights Defenders took place in Washington DC. During the three-days students networked with one another, developed their advocacy and movement-building skills, and engaged with experts on current conflict areas including Burma, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, and Syria. Participants were from 28 States, including D.C., as well as the UK, Canada, India, Rwanda, and South Sudan, with 48 different high schools, colleges, and universities represented.
Students arrived Saturday night for a screening of Watchers of the Sky, as well as two special presentations by community leaders. Sunday’s program included panels on sexual & gender based violence, the financial leverage of combatting atrocities, and conflict-specific overviews; advocacy trainings, communications and storytelling workshops; and an Open Space for students to capitalize on the collective knowledge they brought to the Summit themselves. Sunday’s program included student participation in a Keynote Discussion with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, who skyped into the Summit, moderated by John Prendergast.
The final day of the Summit was an advocacy day on Capitol Hill, during which students discussed these ongoing issue areas with various congressional offices, and urged Congress to support the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and additional expert capacity to the Treasury Department to investigate and enforce sanctions on people in the DRC, Sudan, South Sudan, and Central African Republic. Students met with 43 offices in the House, 27 in the Senate, and one at the State Department, with Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region and DRC Russ Feingold.
For a visual representation of the students’ experience over the weekend through social media, check out the Storify below or click here.
True Heroes Films (THF), is a non-profit organisation working to ensure audiences outside the usual human rights community are reached and engaged by human rights stories. THF is looking for a coordinator to keep the team running smoothly and to ensure the organisation’s further development.
Reporting directly to the Committee of the THF Association, the coordinator is charged with managing the administration and functioning of the organisation. The coordinator is responsible for overall organisational coherence and THF’s reputation, as well as maintaining the organisation’s relations with stakeholders and coordinating the projects and work that our team is doing.
In close collaboration with the Institutional Developer, the Coordinator contributes to the development of the organisation’s strategy, to raising core funds and specific project funding, and to maintaining relationships with the organisations core stakeholders.
RESPONSIBILITIES
– Maintaining relations with partners, among THF associates and with the Committee.
– Planning day-to-day activities and overseeing to strategic planning
– Overseeing organisational accounting
– Logistics (office, transport, etc)
– Fundraising
– Role of Producer on films (Organisational view on deadlines, quality, resources and relations with client; troubleshooting when needed)
CORE COMPETENCIES
– Excellent organisational and project management skills
– Good interpersonal skills and experience coordinating teams
– Previous experience with fundraising (project drafting, discussions with donors, reporting) – A dedication to highlighting human rights issues
– Speaking English and French fluently, German a valuable addition
– Having a valid work permit for Switzerland
ADDITIONAL COMPETENCIES
– Experience in communications and audio-visual work
– An existing network or knowledge of human rights organisations, actors and donors
DETAILS
Salary: CHF 3200.- (brut) per month for a 50% position (21hrs/ week), with possibility of increasing both percentage worked and remuneration depending on projects received. Location: based in Geneva, but work times and location of work (office, home, etc) are flexible and to be agreed with associates; limited travel
Starting date: 1 June 2015
APPLICATION
Send CV and email explaining why you feel you fit the description and what you would bring to the team to info@trueheroesfilms.org.
The 13th edition of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) has started in Geneva. It will run until 8 March at:
MAISON DES ARTS DU GRÜTLI | 16 RUE GÉNÉRAL DUFOUR
PHONE +41 (0)22 809 69 00 |
Human rights defenders in the Philippines have been using information technology to advance their advocacy work. Launched in 2011, the human rights website http://www.hronlineph.com started by Egay Cabalitan and Jerbert Briola is used by human rights defenders for updates on most recent social issues in the country. The website has produced a video featuring testimonies from various advocacy groups – medical, anti-mining, human rights defenders, and international support NGOs – on the usefulness of the website.
Recently HRonlinePH launched two videos about human rights and internet rights now shared on social media outlets.
“Human rights defenders fully realize the potential of video to bring about change, And this video, a groundbreaking information tool for the HRonlinePH, is a supportive infrastructure how we can harness the power of technology and to help realize our shared interests in promoting and defending human rights, offline and online,” Human Rights Online Philippines said.
Featured in one of the videos are human rights defenders from Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM ASIA), Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Asia-Pacific (CATW-AP), Medical Action Group (MAG), Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) and Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ).
Today, 20 January, a verdict is expected in the trial of Nabeel Rajab, an internationally recognized human rights defender in Bahrain. President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and a member of Human Rights Watch’s Advisory Board, Rajab is charged with insulting public institutions via Twitter. A huge number of NGOs (see below) strongly condemn the politically motivated prosecution of Nabeel Rajab and call on the Government of Bahrain to drop all charges against the peaceful human rights defender. The video statement was prepared by True Heroes Films (THF).
On 1 October 2014, Rajab was arrested after hours of interrogation regarding one of his tweets. Rajab had just returned to Bahrain from a months-long advocacy tour, which included appearances at the 27th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the European Parliament in Brussels, as well as meetings with foreign ministries throughout Europe. Charged with insulting public institutions under article 216 of Bahrain’s penal code, Rajab was granted bail on 2 November 2014, but was banned from leaving the country.
[Rajab is one of many Bahrainis who have been victimized by the government’s intensified campaign to silence dissent: On 28 December, Sheikh Ali Salman, General-Secretary of Bahrain’s largest opposition party Al-Wefaq, was arrested for his political and human rights activism. Earlier in December, human rights defender Zainab al-Khawaja was sentenced to four years in prison for insulting the king and ripping up his picture, while her sister Maryam al-Khawaja, Director of Advocacy of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, was sentenced to one year in prison for allegedly assaulting a police officer during her arrest in August 2014. – https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/bahrain-travails-of-a-family-of-human-rights-defenders/]
What better way for a blog that is interested in the power of images for human rights than this overview – courtesy of Witness – which published this compilation on 10 December 2014. To see the original videos used in this montage and more about them, as well as a map of videos curated on the Human Rights Channel in 2014, an accompanying article by the curator, and more, click on the following link: http://bit.ly/HRC-2014
The music is from: We Always Thought the Future Would Be Kind of Fun by Chris Zabriskie.
Award-winning singer/songwriter John Legend joined Amnesty International USA as part of its annual Write for Rights campaign. For Human Rights Day 2014 the Write for Rights cases included Chelsea Manning, victims of gun violence in the USA and Brazil, and women and girls of El Salvador impacted by the country’s abortion ban.
JOHN LEGEND:
Writing is a transformative experience.
I write songs to express myself.
I write songs to give hope.
I write songs to heal the hurt.
I write because living free from violence is a human right.
I write because I refuse to accept this is ‘just the way it is.’
I write because leaders who let their police forces jail, beat and kill people who are simply, peacefully trying to express themselves need to know the world is watching.
I write because I take injustice personally. Because there are no throwaway lives.
I write because silence feeds violence.
I write because lyrics change music, but letters change lives.
Former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden was given the Carl von Ossietzky Medal in Berlin on Sunday, a medal which honors those who exhibit extraordinary civic courage or commitment to the spread and defense of human rights. According to website of the International League for Human Rights in Berlin, which has awarded the prize since 1962, Snowden was chosen because of his “momentous decision of conscience … to put [his] personal freedom on the line” to expose the “abuse of power” exercised by the US and Germany.
Snowden shares the medal with Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who broke his story, along with Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who was in Berlin to accept it on the whole trio’s behalf [Snowden appeared on skype]. Several speeches were given, including one from former federal Interior Minister Gerhart Baum and human rights lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck, who represents Snowden. Baum spoke of how the Snowden had “opened our eyes to the largest intelligence surveillance scandal I know.” See more: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/snowden/
The von Ossietzky medal is named after the German Nobel Peace Prize winner who spoke out actively against the Nazi regime. Not to be confused with two other awards in the name of Ossietzky.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 