The Guardian of 10 February 2021 reports that a Chinese publisher who spoke out in support of a dissident academic has been jailed for three years in Beijing after she pleaded guilty to illegal business operations.
Geng Xiaonan, 46, and her husband Qin Zhen, were arrested in September on suspicion of publishing thousands of illegal titles. According to reports, Geng told the court she was guilty of the charges against her, that she was the primary decision maker, and asked it to show leniency to her husband and staff who were just following instructions. She also asked for leniency for herself, because she was sole carer to her ailing father. Qin was given a suspended sentence of two-and-a-half years.
The court proceedings were streamed live and reportedly viewed more than 80,000 times before the recording was taken offline, according to local media. The South China Morning Post said several dissidents and supporters had been prevented from attending the hearing.
Chinese Human Rights Defenders said Geng had also tried to raise awareness about the disappearance of citizen journalist, Chen Qiushi, and said it was another example of the Chinese government criminalising dissent. Her jailing is the latest in a string of crackdowns on prominent people who have criticised the party, including academic Xu Zhiyong, and businessman Ren Zhiqiang.
On 9 February 2021 Hamida Giyasbayli of OC Media reports thatAzerbaijani human rights lawyer Shahla Humbatova has vowed to fight disbarment procedures against her despite what she says is a campaign of ‘harassment and threats’ from the Bar Association.
The Azerbaijani Bar Association has accused Humbatova of submitting a fake document as evidence during a civil case she was litigating, a criminal offence. They have also accused her of owing ₼460 ($270) in membership fees. The association has taken her to court in an attempt to disbar her, which would strip her of the right to practice law.
Speaking with OC Media, Humbatova said the allegation she submitted fake documents was baseless, and that her defence had submitted evidence proving this.
She confirmed that she had owed eight months of membership fees, but insisted the association did not make any effort to notify her of this. ‘I learned about this from the media the day after the Board’s decision [to take me to court]’, she said. She immediately made the payment, so when the Bar went to court with her disbarment request, there was no longer any debt. Emin Abbasov, a legal practitioner who also works on human rights cases, criticised the proceedings against Humbatova for being conducted behind closed doors and without any records. Abbasov, along with four others, is himself appealing to the European Court of Human Rights after being denied certification by the Bar Association.
Humbatova told OC Media that the move to disbar her was a continuation of the policy of dismantling human rights defenders in the country. ‘It is lawyers and human rights activists who are fighting against politically motivated arrests, torture, repression of dissidents and those who simply demand their rights, and informing the public and international organisations. Therefore, they are being neutralised’, she stated.
In December 2019, 42 member organisations of the Human Rights House, a global rights group, called on the Azerbaijani Bar Association to ‘halt reprisals against a number of human rights lawyers, including Shahla Humbatova and Elchin Sadigov’. Sadigov is Humbatova’s current lawyer.
Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul had been sentenced to almost six years in jail (AFP/File photo) By Ali Harb in Washington
After more than 1,000 days in detention where she endured torture and hunger strikes, Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul is expected to be released on Thursday, her sister revealed in a tweet on Monday.
Her early release would come weeks into the administration of US President Joe Biden, who has vowed to “reassess” relations with Riyadh and prioritise human rights in its dealings with the kingdom. In a phone call with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan last week, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken stressed “several key priorities of the new administration including elevating human rights issues and ending the war in Yemen”, according to a statement by the State Department.
On 7 the ADHRB published a joint letter by 20 major NGOs to the EU about the EU-Bahrain Cooperation Agreement, which they say must Depend on Human Rights Improvements.
TO: Joseph Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission and Eamon Gilmore, EU Special Representative for Human Rights
Your Excellencies,
In light of the meeting between Bahrain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and the European External Action Service currently scheduled to take place in Brussels on 10 february 2021, we are writing to raise concerns about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Bahrain, following a year in which Human Rights Watch reports that the Bahraini government has “escalated repression” against critics. As the informal EU-Bahrain Human Rights Dialogue originally scheduled for November 2020 has been indefinitely postponed, it is vital that human rights concerns are placed at the center of your conversations with Bahraini officials during this upcoming meeting.
Bahrain’s Crackdown on Political Opposition and Civil Society
Bahrain’s February 2011 Arab Spring uprising was an event which many hoped would herald a new era of democracy in the country. However, since the government’s violent suppression of the protests, promised reforms have failed to materialise. The leaders of the protest movement, some of them now elderly, continue to languish in prison.
Since 2017, authorities have outlawed all independent media and dissolved all political opposition parties. Among the most prominent prisoners currently incarcerated are high-profile political opposition leaders, activists, bloggers and human rights defenders sentenced to life imprisonment for their roles in the 2011 pro-democracy protests. These include Hassan Mushaima, Abduljalil AlSingace, Abdulhadi AlKhawaja,[see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/4d45e316-c636-4d02-852d-7bfc2b08b78d] Sheikh Mohammed Habib AlMuqdad and Abdulwahab Husain. In 2018, the leader of Bahrain’s largest opposition bloc, Sheikh Ali Salman, was sentenced to life in prison following trials on speech charges and spurious accusations of espionage.
Over the last four years, political activists have borne the full brunt of political repression in Bahrain, facing arbitrary arrest and lengthy prison terms, and in some cases torture, for opposing the government. Hundreds have been arbitrarily stripped of citizenship, while activists and journalists who continue their work from exile risk reprisals against family members who remain in the country.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least six journalists are currently imprisoned for their work in Bahrain, while the country has fallen to a lamentable 169/180 on the Reporters Without Borders 2020 World Press Freedom Index. Bahrain scored a paltry 1/40 for political rights in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2020 report.
In addition, Bahrain’s government has increasingly turned to repressive cyber crime legislation to further restrict civic space, with prominent defence lawyers, opposition leaders and human rights defenders prosecuted over their social media activity since 2018. As Amnesty International has reported, Bahrain’s authorities have used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext “to further crush freedom of expression.”
Medical Negligence and Mistreatment in Jau Prison
Bahrain’s prisons remain overcrowded and unsanitary, and human rights groups have called on the government to release those imprisoned solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression in light of the threat posed by COVID-19. Prisoners are frequently subjected to humiliating treatment and denied adequate medical care, in violation of Bahrain’s international human rights obligations. These include Hassan Mushaima and Dr Abduljalil AlSingace, who suffer from a range of chronic medical conditions, as well as human rights activists Ali AlHajee and Naji Fateel.
Other prominent prisoners include two European-Bahraini dual citizens, the Danish-BahrainiAbdulhadi AlKhawaja and the Swedish-BahrainiSheikh Mohammed Habib AlMuqdad, both of whom are considered prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International, having been prosecuted and sentenced to life imprisonment for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and subjected to torture and other ill-treatment including denial of medical care.
In April 2011, security forces violently arrested Al-Khawaja and broke his jaw, leading to surgery for four broken bones in his face. Security officers tortured Al-Khawaja directly after his major jaw surgery, while blindfolded and restrained to a military hospital bed, which forced the doctor to ask the security officers to stop as it would undo the surgical work. Almost ten years later he still suffers from chronic pain and requires additional surgery to remove the metal plates and screws that were used to reattach his jaw. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/01/27/over-100-ngos-write-to-prime-minister-of-denmark-to-pressure-bahrain-to-release-abdul-hadi-al-khawaja/]
AlMuqdad, who was tortured by methods including severe beating and electrocution, suffers from multiple health problems, including a hernia likely caused by his torture, but is being denied proper health care. As of January 2021, in addition to the need for urgent surgery to repair the hernia, AlMuqdad is in need of heart surgery to unblock his coronary arteries and examination by a urologist to diagnose a prostate problem. The prison administration continues to delay the surgeries and specialist appointments, blaming the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Death Penalty and Arbitrary Killings
In 2017, Bahrain abandoned a de facto moratorium on the death penalty and has since conducted six executions, five of which were condemned as arbitrary by UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Agnes Callamard, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. According to recent research by the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) and Reprieve, 26 death row inmates currently face imminent execution in the country, nearly half of whom were convicted on the basis of confessions allegedly extracted under torture in cases related to political unrest.
These include Mohammed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa, whose death sentences were upheld in July 2020 despite credible evidence that both men were convicted on the basis of confessions obtained under torture. Independent experts at the International Committee for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims concluded that investigations by Bahrain’s human rights oversight bodies into the torture of the two men “fail[ed] to meet the minimum professional standards and the minimum international legal standards”, while the Bar Human Rights Council of England and Wales warned that “upholding the convictions would be wholly inconsistent with Bahrain’s international obligations”. Both men are at risk of imminent execution. Three UN human rights experts warned on 12 February 2020 that carrying out these death sentences would constitute an arbitrary killing.
Our Requests
Bahraini authorities have engaged in widespread violations of human rights enshrined in both Bahrain’s national legal system as well as in multiple international human rights treaties to which Bahrain is a state party.
Furthermore, a prevailing culture of impunity has allowed suspected perpetrators of serious human rights violations to avoid accountability. In light of the continued deterioration of the human rights situation in Bahrain, we therefore ask that during the meeting the EEAS:
Urges the unconditional and immediate release of all those imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, including Hassan Mushaima, Abduljalil AlSingace, Abdulwahab Husain and Sheikh Ali Salman;
Urges for the unconditional and immediate release of Danish-Bahraini Abdulhadi AlKhawaja and Swedish-Bahraini Sheikh AlMuqdad;
Calls for an independent review of the cases involving those facing the death penalty, including the cases of Mohammed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa; as well as for the ultimate revocation of their death sentences;
Urges Bahraini authorities to reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty;
Pressures Bahrain to end the use of torture and other -ill-treatment and to tackle the culture of impunity by holding suspected perpetrators accountable and ensuring effective mechanisms for victims to receive justice and restitution;
Urges Bahrain to rescind its arbitrary bans on opposition parties, civil society groups and independent media and encourage the development of civic space in Bahrain;
Urges the Bahraini Government to ensure its respect to, and protection of, the right to freedom of expression, and to take necessary steps to ensure freedom of the press; and
Persuades Bahrain’s government to take concrete and measurable steps towards justice reform and respect for human rights.
This African American musician was also a civil rights activist. With her unique voice and powerful music, she would often talk about the injustice and discrimination that black people had to face in the United States. And more often than not, radio stations, at the time, would simply refuse to have her on or play her songs.
Another musician, Belafonte had his boyish charm and powerful voice do the work for him. But he was also a civil rights activist and a friend of Martin Luther King Jr. Due to this, the white American media ostracised him, labelled him a communist during the age of the McCarthism Witch Hunt. See also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/2083D5D5-2B65-456E-8BB0-9CEFEE7B3EC0
The former NFL quarterback is famous for taking a knee during the national anthem to protest against police brutality and the judicial murders of people of colour. As a result of this, not only was he demonised by ‘patriots’, who believed that he had insulted the American troops, but Kaepernick also lost his spot in the team and has been a free agent ever since. See also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/c871b795-61a3-40e8-8635-37aeb02bc205
During his years as a cricket administrator, Sir Don Bradman met with South African President, John Vorster during the height of apartheid. Vorster was of the opinion that black people or people of colour were inferior and thus would be a curse on the game of cricket. Bradman then reportedly asked him if he knew who Sir Gary Sobers was. He came back to Australia and said ‘We will not play them until they choose a team on a non-racist basis’. Following this he cancelled Australia’s tour of South Africa.
The greatest boxer of all time was also one of the fiercest defenders of human rights on the planet. When his name was drafted during the illegal war in Vietnam, Ali promptly refused to go. This not only cost him heavyweight title belt but the man also had to spend his prime years in jail. He had very famously said: My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America… And shoot them for what? They never called me n*****, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father…Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail. See also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/76C5F0C9-D414-3DC0-BB0C-AFBD1EEDBD6A
During the medal ceremony in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, two African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, each raised a black-gloved fist during the national anthem. They were also wearing black socks at the time to raise awareness about black poverty. The duo also had other symbols on them protesting the lynchings and murders of black people in America.
Following the murder of the communist playwright and director Safdar Hashmi, actor Shabana Azmi started protesting against the INC government. Addressing the crowd at the 12th International Film Festival of India in 1989, Azmi said: We filmmakers and film lovers wish to register out protest against the system that, on one hand, claims to promote creativity and on the other connive in the murder of a cultural activist.
8. John Boyega
Following the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers, many celebrities stage rose in support of protests against police brutality. One of these celebrities was Star Wars actor John Boyega. Boyega, who was once advertised as a key selling point in the Star Wars franchise, had been gradually losing screen time as the series progressed. Many believed internalised racism was a cause of it. The actor was on the streets on the day of the protests and addressed the crowd: We have always been important. We have always meant something. We have always succeeded regardless. And now is the time. I ain’t waiting…We are a physical representation of our support for George Floyd. We are a physical representation of our support for Sandra Bland. We are a physical representation of our support for Trayvon Martin. We are a physical representation of our support for Stephen Lawrence… I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but fuck that.
Franklin was known as the Queen of Soul. In fact, when she passed away, people referred to her as the best America ever had. However, when she was alive, she was a huge supporter of Angela Davis. Davis was and still is quite vocal about black rights, human rights, which at that time was frowned upon in the USA. So Franklin’s white audience wasn’t too please about her association with someone like Davis.
Newman was a famous Hollywood actor and director with awards like the Oscars and BAFTAs associated with his name. He was also one of the more consistent activists during the civil rights movement in the USA. He even marched with Martin Luther King in 1963, along with his colleagues that involved celebrities of the stature of Marlon Brando and Bob Dylan.
Speculating about the Nobel Peace Prize is a sport that keeps some media busy most of the year.
Although thousands of people, from members of parliaments worldwide to former winners, are eligible to propose candidates (see list in link), it is the group of Norwegian parliamentarians that has nominated the eventual laureate every year since 2014 (with the exception of 2019), according to Henrik Urdal, Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. And for this year Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the World Health Organization and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg are among those nominated by backed by Norwegian lawmakers.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides who wins the award, does not comment on nominations, keeping secret for 50 years the names of nominators and unsuccessful nominees. But the nominators themselves can choose to reveal their choice and often do.
On 31 January 2021 Gwladys Fouche and Nora Buli started off the guessing season by reporting that, according to a Reuters survey of Norwegian lawmakers, nominees include Thunberg, Navalny, the WHO and its COVAX programme to secure fair access to COVID-19 vaccines for poor countries.
Other names are Belarusian activists Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo for their “fight for a fair election and inspiration for peaceful resistance”, one nominator, Geir Sigbjoern Toskedal, said. Another, Jette Christensen, also named the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group, and IUSTITIA, a group of Polish judges defending civil rights. “My nomination this year is … for the fight to preserve democracy as a form of government in Europe,” Christensen said.
Freedom of information is a recurring theme with nominees including the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists; former Charlie Hebdo journalist Zineb el Rhazoui; news website Hong Kong Free Press, the U.S.-based International Fact-Checking Network and Paris-based Reporters without Borders (RSF). Also mentioned are: the Black Lives Matter movement and Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate who has become a leading voting rights advocate.
Other nominees include former U.S. President Donald Trump (by Jaak Madison, a member of the right-wing populist EKRE party) as well as Kushner and Berkowitz for negotiating deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco), .
Also on the list are NATO and again the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) as well as Aminatou Haidar, for her peaceful campaigning towards an independent Western Sahara, the International Space Station and the International Scout Movement.
Gulalai Ismail, one of Pakistan’s boldest human rights defenders and a stalwart critic of Pakistan’s security services, succeeded in escaping to the United States in 2019, humiliating the authorities who had been persecuting her. Now Pakistan has taken aim at her parents, accusing them of terrorism, and throwing her father, who was recovering from Covid-19, into jail.
A bail hearing ended with Mohammed Ismail being led away in handcuffs. He faces charges of sedition and terrorism financing, which human rights defenders say are bogus and thinly veiled revenge against the family for embarrassing the state security services.
Ms. Ismail, who now lives in New York and has applied for political asylum in the United States, said the charges against her and her parents were “malicious and false.” “This is about setting a precedent,” she said on Wednesday, by phone from Brooklyn. “If a woman raises her voice, the whole family will face consequences.”
With the launching of the new Digest of human rights laureates by True Heroes Films (THF) today, 2 February 2021, I have decided to centre my blog more on human rights awards and laureates. It will give the blog more focus and this will also help the Digest to stay up to date. After many years of work, True Heroes Films (THF) has made public its gateway to human rights awards and their laureates at www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest. The Digest is a new free online tool that gives everybody access to information on human rights awards, including the list of people who received such awards. Over the last 20 years, the human rights movement has discovered the value of awards. The Digest tells that story and makes human rights defenders more visible as an encouragement and role model for others.
Here some specialised user comments: The Digest “will help us demonstrate to the world how many human rights defenders there are in the world and the different human rights they defend and fight for” stated Guadalupe Marengo, Head of Global Human Rights Defenders Programme at Amnesty International.
“It is a useful resource that places individuals, the laureates, at the heart of the search process,” commented Eleanor Davies of the Centre of Applied Human Rights at York University.
“With a simple and straightforward way to find what you are looking for, it helps initiate partnerships,” says Friedhelm Weinberg, Executive Director of HURIDOCS, an organisation specialised in information technology.
For human rights defenders, the Digest allows finding awards and people concerned with similar causes worldwide. Award givers can quickly check their candidates. For media, the Digest means instant access to information on human rights defenders or an award announcement to complete their story.
The Digest was created during 8 years with support from the City of Geneva, Brot für die Welt and the Permanent Mission of the Netherlands to the United Nations Office.
A woman holds up a placard with the slogan “Black Lives Matter” as people march in Brixton, south London to protest against police brutality in the US after two recent incidents where black men have been shot and killed by police officers. Daniel Leal-Olivas, AFP
AFP reported on 30 January that the international civil rights movement Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation on Friday won Sweden’s Olof Palme human rights prize for 2020.
The foundation was honored for its work promoting “peaceful civil disobedience against police brutality and racial violence all over the world,” prize organizers said in a statement.
The Black Lives Matter movement, founded in 2013 in the United States, has “in a unique way exposed the hardship, pain, and wrath of the African-American minority at not being valued equal to people of a different color,” the statement said.
The movement had its major international breakthrough in the summer of 2020 following several cases of extreme brutality in the US, including the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Prize organizers noted that an estimated 20 million people have taken part in Black Lives Matter protests in the US alone, and millions more around the world.
“This illustrates that racism and racist violence is not just a problem in American society, but a global problem.”
The Court of Appeal held on Friday 29 January 2021 that a group of activists who broke into Stansted Airport in an act of protest should “never have been prosecuted” for an “extremely serious” terror-related offence under s.1(2)(b) of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990 (“AMSA”).
It overturned the Stansted 15’s convictions.
Lord Burnett said the protestors should not have been prosecuted for the extremely serious offence … because their conduct did not satisfy the various elements of the offence. “There was, in truth, no case to answer.”
This case has been controversial, drawing attention both nationally and internationally. Following the initial convictions, a joint letter was sent to the Government by UN experts, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur in the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms when countering terrorism. The UN experts urged the UK government not to use security and terrorism-related legislation to prosecute peaceful protesters.
The failure of the ground relating to necessity, duress and s.3 CLA are unlikely to surprise those with experience of defending protestors in direct action cases. Nevertheless, it is notable that the actions of the appellants did prevent the deportation of five persons on the flight who have consequently been able to establish their legal right to remain in the UK, including three on human rights grounds. One of those has been granted asylum as a victim of human trafficking. In total, of the 60 persons due to be on the deportation flight, eleven reportedly remain in the country.
Amongst the human rights group who have celebrated the ruling are Amnesty UK, who welcomed “a good day for justice” and Liberty, who hailed “a major victory for protest rights” and deprecated the now-quashed convictions, calling them “part of a sustained attack on the right to protest.”
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 