share information on human rights defenders, with special focus on human rights awards and laureates
This video of Human Rights Defender Marija Mitrovic from Serbia, focusing on the right of Roma, is another of the profiles recently published by European External Action Service (EEAS) in the context of the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/10/04/chia-wei-chi-first-in-series-of-videos-by-european-external-action-service/].
You do not have it hear it through me as most mainstream media carry the news (here the BBC with elaborate information) that the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has gone to campaigners against rape in warfare, Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege. After the controversy created around some of the recent laureates, these two are safe bets as both have been recognized widely:
Ms Murad is an Iraqi Yazidi who was tortured and raped by Islamic State militants and later became the face of a campaign to free the Yazidi people. She found recognition from at least two earlier awards:
Dr Mukwege is a Congolese gynaecologist who, along with his colleagues, has treated tens of thousands of victims. He received wide recognition with 8 international human rights awards:
Ms Murad, 25, dedicated the award to her mother, who was killed by the Islamic State (IS) militants who overran their home in 2014. Ms Murad described her escape in a BBC interview in 2016, detailing how the women who were held captive were treated by IS.
Dr Mukwege was operating at his hospital when he heard he had won the prize. He dedicated his award to all women affected by sexual violence. He lives under the permanent protection of UN peacekeepers at his hospital and has also previously called for a tougher line on rape as a weapon of war.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45759221
see also: https://dansmithsblog.com/2018/10/08/the-nobel-peace-prize-and-sexual-violence-in-war/
Over 50 Special Rapporteurs, independent experts, chairs of working groups and treaty bodies will present findings and recommendations to the Committee, and engage in interactive dialogues with member States. These reports and exchanges should inform the focus and shape of negotiated resolutions.
The Committee will consider over 60 resolutions, this year focusing on a range of issues from extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to the rights of indigenous peoples, and the human rights situation in Syria. Once adopted, resolutions will pass to the UN General Assembly plenary for confirmation in early December.
While opportunities for civil society to interact with the Third Committee are more limited than those available at the Human Rights Council, NGOs can attend formal sessions, follow them on UN Web TV and engage informally with individual member States. For more on the Third Committee see here.
ISHR will be working to see the inclusion of positive references to human rights defenders and civil society space, in Third Committee resolutions. We will be monitoring the Third Committee closely, as well as the General Assembly plenary meetings, and reporting on key developments. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @ISHRglobal and at #UNGA73for the latest updates.
Also, note that the ISHR will be hosting two side events during the Third Committee session. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/07/09/civil-society-participation-at-the-un-subject-of-ishr-event-on-17-july/]
The first event will be about implementing commitments on human rights defenders, and it will be held on Tuesday 23 October at 1:15 p.m-2.45pm. The location of the event is to be confirmed. See here for updates.
ISHR’s second event will focus on treaty bodies and the importance of ensuring transparent elections. ISHR aims to facilitate dialogue about ways to improve treaty bodies and election processes moving forward. Time and date for this event to be confirmed. See here for updates.
http://www.ishr.ch/news/alert-ga-73rd-session-agenda-third-committee
It would be foolish to think that defending human rights is just an issue for people in faraway countries
Every night Juana Ramirez Santiago would deliver her husband’s dinner to the hardware store he worked as a watchman. One evening in late September she called him to tell him she was on her way. She never arrived. Neighbours heard four gun shots then found her lying dead on the street. Juana – who helped found a group to challenge violence against women – was just one of hundreds of human rights defenders brutally assassinated so far this year. 2018 is on course to set a grisly record.
Tomorrow, the Nobel committee will announce the winner of the 2018 Peace Prize. This year the prize should be awarded not to a person or an organisation but – for the first time ever – to a community: a collective award for human rights defenders like Juana Ramirez all around the world.
Each day, these brave people stand up and speak out for nothing more than the rights which everyone should be entitled. And as a result, each day, many are silenced – thrown in jail, attacked or even murdered.
Yet how many of us have heard their names? They are hidden heroes. Too often they have to stand alone, courageous individuals and small grassroots communities forced to face down crooked legal systems, corrupt multinationals and oppressive governments. That’s why the role of UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders was developed. It’s why organisations like Peace Brigades International – who provide crucial life-saving support to defenders on the ground – exist.
The prize would shine a global spotlight on their struggle in a year when we mark the 20th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders which outlined how defending human rights is a right in and of itself, not a crime.
The award could not come at a more urgent time. Not just because they deserve recognition, but because in the words of the late Kofi Anna, “We need to be vigilant in the protection of human rights defenders, for when the defenders’ rights are violated, all our rights are injured.”
Defenders are an example to us all. They show us that our rights are not only granted by law but upheld and protected by communities and individuals. They demonstrate that we all need to be human rights defenders. Particularly now that there’s a growing backlash against human rights.
It would be foolish to think that this is just an issue for people in faraway countries. Threats to hard won rights are advancing across the West, even in the United States. Just look at women’s rights. Access to abortion is being tightened in states like Iowa, Louisiana and Mississippi.
On LGBT rights it’s still legal to fire someone for being gay in most places in the United States. There are real fears about a rollback of rights from the Supreme Court.
When even leaders of even the oldest democracies brand the media as an enemy of the people or say that “it’s embarrassing for the country to allow protesters” it’s time to recognise that the struggle of distant human rights defenders is a struggle everyone must face. That is, if we want to continue living in healthy, free and democratic societies.
Make no mistake, the tide has shifted – freedom and democracy are on the defensive. Authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide. That’s why we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with defenders across the globe. And that’s why they should win the Nobel Prize. Worldwide, a narrative is spreading that human rights defenders are criminals.
The Nobel Prize is the loudest stage we have to challenge the growing discourse that discourse that dismisses and delegitimises non-violent activists as terrorists, anti-patriots, or threats to security and development.
It would send a clear message: to human rights defenders both home and abroad – you are not alone. To those who would harm them – the eyes of the world are watching and your actions will have consequences. And to the rest of us? The rights we don’t defend are the rights we can so easily lose.
Michel Forst is the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights defenders and Susi Bascon is the director of the Peace Brigades UK
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On my ‘favorite’ topic of reprisals [see e.g.: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/reprisals/ ] the ISHR reported that for the first time, the Human Rights Council had a chance to have a dialogue on the Secretary-General’s annual report on reprisals on 20 September 2018. Civil society had hoped States would seize this opportunity to denounce States carrying out reprisals against defenders engaging with the UN. Regrettably only one State, Germany, made explicit reference to a case of reprisal in the report. ‘We welcome in particular Germany’s intervention in the dialogue, citing the case of Egyptian lawyer Ibrahim Metwally, detained since October 2017 by the Egyptian authorities’, said Salma El Hosseiny, ISHR Human Rights Council Advocate. ‘This is precisely what we need more of—States having the courage and conviction to stand up for defenders and call out countries that attack and intimidate them. What we see now is defenders dissuaded from engaging because the cost is too high. What we need is for States to turn away from repression and attacks, because the cost to them is too high’.
The senior official on reprisals, Andrew Gilmour [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/andrew-gilmour/], presented the Secretary-General’s annual report on reprisals during the first ever interactive dialogue with the Human Rights Council. The report catalogues 45 new cases of reprisals, ranging from travel bans and smear campaigns to arbitrary arrests and detention, inhuman treatment, torture, and killing. The ASG made it clear in his presentation that reported cases are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and spoke of three significant trends:
(1) the systematic denigration of human rights defenders and civil society organizations as “terrorists”;
(2) reprisals often being disguised as legal, political and administrative measures; and
(3) the use of accreditation and security procedures to hinder people from speaking out at UN headquarters and elsewhere.
ISHR delivered a statement during the session citing cases of reprisals against Chinese defenders not included in the report—Wang Qiaoling, Li Wenzu, Cao Shunli, and Uyghur activist Dolkun Isa—and calling for systematic follow-up by the Council on cases in the report.
‘We are especially concerned, once again, about the high number of Council Members or candidates for Council membership cited in the report, including: Bahrain, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Hungary, India, Iraq, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela,’ said El Hosseiny.
Half of the States cited in the report intervened during the dialogue to deny the allegations against them. While a significant number of States engaging in the dialogue supported the mandate to varying degrees and asked the ASG what could be taken to strengthen it, another group questioned the ASG’s methodology. Still others firmly opposed the work of the ASG on reprisals, including China and Cuba. China said it ‘regrets and objects’ to the report and the mechanism, and its use of ‘unproven information’, which it deems an interference with its sovereignty.
A side event organised by ISHR following the dialogue highlighted the urgent need to improve both the physical and digital security of defenders at risk of reprisals, and for States and the OHCHR to take a stronger position on this issue at a time when powerful States are threatening the UN system and its core values. ISHR in particular noted its disappointment with the low number of States in the dialogue that took due note of the allegations in the report, as opposed to attacking the methodology of the report and the reliability of the information.
Watch the statement here:
Read ISHR’s full statement to the Council here.
Becca Heller – a Human Rights Lawyer with the International Refugee Assistance Project in New York – became a MacArthur ‘Genius” scholar in 2018. She has been mobilizing the resources of law schools and law firms to defend the rights of refugees and improve protection outcomes for many of the world’s most at-risk populations.
In 2015, Svetlana Alexievich received the Nobel Prize in Literature for her body of work primarily centred around oral histories of victims of wars and catastrophes. Alexievich has been relentlessly exposing the injustices in post-Soviet Union Russia and other regions facing the threat of Russian aggression. Alexievich has repeatedly criticised the Russian annexation of Crimea as well as Ukraine’s growing nationalism, which has rendered her vulnerable to threats from both Russian and Ukrainian nationalists.
Responding to the RAW in WAR’s decision to honour her, Alexievich said: “My friends and I, we are all trying to resist the all-consuming grey gloom that surrounds us today, but our efforts are not visible!! But in order to remain true to ourselves, we continue to do our little bit all the same. Thank you for your support.”
The awards will be presented to the winners in March 2019 in London at RAW in WAR’s ‘Refusing to be Silenced’ event, which is part of the 2019 Women of the World Festival at the London’s Southbank Centre.
This video of Human Rights Defender Chia-Wei Chi in Taiwan is one of 13 that have recently been published by European External Action Service (EEAS) in the context of the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human Rights Defenders all over the world embody that resilience.
“These are some of their stories. The EU stands up and continues to relentlessly support human rights defenders, to speak out against the shrinking civil society space, and to use political and financial action to support them. They stood up, will you? #Standup4humanrights.”
I will publish these videos in the coming weeks in the lead up to 10 December 2018 as they did not get much publicity until now.
In December 2017, a video was released of Ahed slapping a soldier in the front yard of her house just hours after her cousin had been shot in the head and put in critical condition by Israeli soldiers who fired at him during a non-violent demonstration. The next day, Ahed and her mother were pulled from their beds in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, separated, and imprisoned. Ahed was imprisoned for eight months, and released in July 2018.
17-year old Ahed was greeted by former striker Emilio Butragueno, who presented the teenager with a personalised football jersey. The jersey had ‘Ahed’ printed across the back, and the number 9, which is commonly assigned to strikers who take the front lines of the field and score most of the goals.
(In 2012, her father Bassem Tamimi, was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International)
In response to the honor by Real Madrid, Emmanuel Nahshon, the Israeli foreign minister spokesman, tweeted in Spanish, “A shame! Real Madrid receives a terrorist who incites hatred and violence. What has that to do with the values of the football?!?!”
Spanish Football Team ‘Real Madrid’ Honors Teenaged Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
Nepram is the founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network which has helped more than 20,000 female survivors of gun violence rebuild their lives and strive for justice. Binalakshmi Nepram is a writer from the Manipur. A human rights defender on the Indo-Myanmar border, she believes that returning to India would endanger her life. She fears that she could meet the same fate as Gauri Lankesh, a well-known journalist and co-winner of the 2017 Anna Politkovskaya Award. Last year Lankesh was gunned down in Bengaluru for speaking out against religious extremism and violence in India.[see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/10/06/gauri-lankesh-and-gulalai-ismail-win-2017-anna-politkovskaya-award/]