Archive for the 'Human Rights Defenders' Category

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In praise of whistleblowers as human rights defenders

March 17, 2018

Are whistleblowers “Traitors or Defenders of Human Rights“? I have asked myself this question many times also in this blog [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/09/29/edward-snowden-can-still-not-collect-his-awards/. On 16  writes for the Good Men Project a convincing  piece that they are:

We all know, or are becoming aware, that the ‘global war on terror’ is being pushed by the Western Hemisphere. (Case in point Daniel Ellsberg}…In today’s post modern world, we have Edward Snowden who exposed cover ups of war crimes, controversial mass surveillance, and bulk data collection programs as legal and effective; all while having violated warrant procedures/court orders, due diligence, privacy laws, human rights, liberties, and the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land. Every government and former government member has taken an oath to serve and protect the Constitution, and the laws that are supposed to defend and help every single one of us. Unfortunately, rogue policies and states have gotten away, and continued to operate without any accountability, oversight, or responsibility. Torture under the euphemism of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques was exposed by the former CIA case officer turned whistleblower, John Kariakou. Thomas Drake, former Senior CIA and NSA analyst, blew the whistle on the cover ups of 9/11, fraud, waste, and abuse that went all the way up to the highest levels. Bill Binney, former NSA mathematician and cryptanalyst blew the whistle too on 9/11 and mass surveillance programs that are unconstitutional. Documentaries on Netflix such as Silenced, A Good American, and CitizenFour reveal what happened to whistleblowers when tyrannical governments label them as ‘traitors’ and want them to be existent.

….

Lessons can be learned from whistleblowers:

Strength. The courage to speak the truth against lies and crimes against humanity, against the corrupt, greedy, poisoned hearts of men.

Grit. Determination through educational and awareness events, peaceful protests, doing interviews, community engagement and media involvement shows perseverance of standing up for one’s beliefs of speaking the truth. Having support systems helps continue one’s sparked resolve to shed light on the dark. There’s no I in Team.

Honesty is best policy. Candor delivered right through honesty is the best approach to demonstrating what one wants or needs to say. Honesty is about dignity of self and respect of others to speak the truth.

Human rights are of moral and ethical issue not merely illegal v. legal. Human rights are part of the law. Legal decisions and conclusions aren’t equivalent to morality and ethics. Crimes against humanity were once legal. Policies aren’t the same as having a conscience and exercising moral fiber.

United we rise, divided we fall. Note: Not to say breaking oaths to keep legitimate secrets are to be violated. Leaks can do severe damage to government projects, and the lives of those who work the operations to make a difference. To serve and project justice is serious business. Being a leaker and a whistleblower are two different things. Advocating and exercising truth, morality, ethics are the important take away from this story. Our humanity through liberty makes us, human.

Remember, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke

see also https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/05/27/5-june-stockholm-breakfast-seminar-on-the-importance-of-whistleblowers/

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/traitors-or-defenders-of-human-rights-wcz/

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Meet some of the women human rights defenders on Duterte’s list of 500

March 17, 2018

Posted in Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
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About the CLOUD Act and lists of ‘safe countries’

March 17, 2018
For the weekend two long pieces (copied below in full) about a seemingly technical issue but one that could have big consequences for human rights defenders. The key issue is that foreign government who wanted to obtain information on a social media user from a US tech company (such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and Facebook) had to go through a cumbersome procedure using diplomatic procedures (MLATs, – mutual legal assistance treaties). The draft CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) proposes to make it easier for governments to get these data directly from the companies – and here is the tricky part – as long as these foreign government are on a kind of ‘safe list’ with regard to human rights. And that is where the questions come in according to the specialists below. And there are quite a few other worries.

Human Rights Groups Denounce Proposed Global Data Sharing

(CN) – With a pleasant-sounding name and acronym, the CLOUD Act stands for Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data, but human rights groups take a far less sunny view of the bill than the tech giants pushing for its passage through Congress.

Possibly heading to Capitol Hill next week, Microsoft, Google, Apple and Facebook have lined up behind the legislation that overhauls how tech companies share data with foreign governments without notification or oversight.

Amnesty International’s U.S. director Naureen Shah depicted the legislation as a dystopic threat to human rights and press freedom globally while explaining her “grave misgivings” with the bill.

“The CLOUD Act jeopardizes the lives and safety of thousands of human rights defenders around the world at a time when they face unprecedented threats, intimidation and persecution, as we have documented in recent years,” Shah told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.

The CLOUD Act’s proponents and critics agree that the bill arose from the need to plug a gap in domestic and international law.

For decades, foreign governments requesting information from a U.S. company would have to work through diplomatic procedures known as MLATs, short for mutual legal assistance treaties.

“This process – from a privacy and human rights standpoint – is fairly rights-respecting,” the American Civil Liberties Union’s counsel Neema Singh Guliani said at a press conference from Washington.

For U.S. and foreign prosecutors, the MLAT process is cumbersome and gives the targets of criminal investigations cover to hide incriminating data in servers abroad.

This controversy came to a head in 2013, when New York federal prosecutors sought to circumvent the process to obtain emails of a target of a drug-trafficking investigation held on Microsoft’s servers in Dublin, Ireland. Microsoft went to court to protect the privacy of its users, waging a protracted legal battle currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Perhaps unwilling to gamble on Supreme Court victory, Microsoft and other companies have backed the CLOUD Act as an alternative.

“One of the things the bill would do is that it would moot the Microsoft Ireland case,” the ACLU’s Guliani noted.

For rights groups, however, Congress’ solution would be worse than the problem. The CLOUD Act lets countries that pass unspecified human rights vetting bypass government vetting and work directly with tech companies for information requests.

“We’re essentially relying on tech companies to be a kind of failsafe,” Shah told reporters.

Once a foreign government is safe-listed, Shah said, that nation can freely request information held by tech companies without congressional oversight for any particular request for five years.

That remains true even if a foreign government’s human rights record undergoes a dramatic decline during those years, as happened in Turkey over the last half decade.

“That’s a problem because we see governments around the world in a human rights freefall,” Shah noted.

Amnesty International has unique insight into that danger: The Turkish government jailed its Turkey chair Taner Kilic in an ongoing crackdown on journalists, human rights workers, and other critical voices that country has targeted in the wake of a coup attempt against its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“If you had looked at Turkey in 2012 or 2013, and matched it against the criteria in this bill, Turkey might have passed muster,” Shah said. “Of course, we know that especially since the coup in mid-2016, Turkey has become the world’s largest jailer of journalists.”

“More than 50,000 people at this point in Turkey have been swept up in their crackdown, including the chair and the director of Amnesty International, who were held, one of whom remains in prison, both of whom are being charged with terrorism offenses,” she added.

Under the CLOUD Act, Shah said, Congress would not be able to intervene if a safe-listed nation followed Turkey’s path.

Should that system fail, it is unclear that either the target of a foreign government’s investigation or the U.S. government would even know it.

The CLOUD Act offers the promise of subjecting governments to compliance reviews, but Guliani, the ACLU’s counsel, called this measure meaningless without individualized notice to users or the federal government.

“How can there be real compliance reviews if the U.S. government isn’t getting notice of individual requests?” she asked.

Guliani added that the CLOUD Act would also enable other governments to circumvent Wiretap Act restrictions against real-time interception.

Opposition from civil society groups has kicked into high gear out of fears that the CLOUD Act may get attached to an omnibus budget bill heading next week to Congress.

Joining the ACLU and Amnesty International, a coalition of 22 other groups signed a letter to elected representatives last week stating: “We urge you to oppose the CLOUD Act, and efforts to attach it to other pieces of legislation.”

As the omnibus budget has not yet been released, it is unclear whether that fear will come to pass.

—–

The CLOUD Act Doesn’t Help Privacy and Human Rights: It Hurts Them

By Neema Singh Guliani, Naureen Shah

Friday, March 16, 2018

At a time when human rights activists, dissidents and journalists around the world face unprecedented attacks, we cannot afford to weaken our commitment to human rights. But the recently introduced CLOUD Act would do just that.

The bill purports to address complaints that current mechanisms for foreign governments to obtain data from U.S. technology companies are slow, requiring review by the Justice Department and a warrant issued by a U.S. judge pursuant to the mutual legal assistance (MLA) process. The solution it proposes, however, is a dangerous abdication of responsibility by the U.S. government and technology companies.

Writing on Lawfare, Peter Swire and Jennifer Daskal have penned a the CLOUD Act, arguing that things don’t work well now, that they could get worse and that this is the best option on the table. But even if we accept Daskal and Swire’s dire view of the state of current affairs, their argument leaves a lot unexplained—such as why an alternative framework or improved version of the CLOUD Act is not tenable, why efforts to pass the bill without any public markups of the legislation or the opportunity for amendments are advisable, and why no major international human rights organizations support it. Two of the largest human rights organizations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, oppose the bill, along with over twenty other privacy and civil liberties organizations. (Swire and Daskal do note that some of these groups participated in a working group on this issue, though they don’t describe the strenuous objections made during that process.)

Most importantly, however, Daskal and Swire do not address how this bill could fail human rights activists and people around the world.

The very premise of the current CLOUD Act—the idea that countries can effectively be safe-listed as human-rights compliant, such that their individual data requests need no further human rights vetting—is wrong. The CLOUD Act requires the executive branch to certify each of these foreign governments as having “robust substantive and procedural protections for privacy and civil liberties” written into their domestic law. But many of the factors that must be considered provide merely a formalistic and even naïve measure of a government’s behavior. Flip through Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch’s recent annual reports, and you can find a dizzying array of countries that have ratified major human rights treaties and reflect those obligations in their domestic laws but, in fact, have arrested, tortured and killed people in retaliation for their activism or due to their identity.

In the case of countries certified by the executive branch certifies, the CLOUD Act would not require the U.S. government to scrutinize data requests by the foreign governments—indeed, the bill would not even require notifying the U.S. government or a user regarding a request. The only line of defense would be technology companies, which hypothetically could refuse the request and refer it to the MLA process, but which may not have the resources, expertise, or even financial incentive to deny a foreign government request. Likewise, the bill requires that countries permit “periodic” reviews for compliance with civil liberties and privacy protections, but does not specify what these reviews will entail. It also doesn’t require even a cursory individual review of all orders or explain how the U.S. government can effectively ensure compliance in a timely fashion when without being aware of requests in real time. For this reason, the periodic U.S. government reviews contemplated in the bill are an insufficient substitute for case-by-case consideration.

Daskal and Swire point to other safeguards: Judges or independent authorities in the foreign country would review their government’s requests for data, they argue. But what about when courts greenlight, rather than check, police and intelligence services to go after human rights activists? This is not a problem confined to a small set of countries. In 2016, Amnesty International recorded at least in which human rights defenders were detained or arrested based solely on their work.

Similarly, the CLOUD Act would not prevent harm to human rights activists and minorities in cases where a country experiences a rapid deterioration in human rights. Under the CLOUD Act, once a foreign government gets an international agreement, it is safe-listed for five years—with no built-in mechanism to ensure that the U.S. government acts quickly when there is a rapid change in circumstances.

For example, in early 2014, Turkey may have met the CLOUD Act’s vague human rights criteria; Freedom House even it a three and four on its index for political and civil rights. But since the attempted coup in mid-2016, the Turkish government has arrested —including journalists and activists such as the chair and director of Amnesty International’s Turkey section—many on bogus terrorism charges. According to : “Most of these accusations of terrorism are based solely on actions such as downloading data protection software, including the ByLock application, publishing opinions disagreeing with the Government’s anti-terrorism policies, organizing demonstrations, or providing legal representation for other activists.”

Under the CLOUD Act, neither Congress nor U.S. courts would be able to prompt a review or a temporary moratorium for a case like Turkey. Users, without notice, would have little practical ability to lodge complaints with the U.S. government or providers. Even if the U.S. government were to take action, the CLOUD Act fails to ensure a sufficiently quick response to protect activists and others whose safety could be threatened.

In such a situation, the only real fail-safe to prevent a technology company from inadvertently acceding to a harmful data request is the technology company itself. But would even a well-intentioned technology company, particularly a small one, have the expertise and resources to competently assess the risk that a foreign order may pose to a particular human rights activist? Would it know, as in the example above, when to view Turkey’s terrorism charges in a particular case as baseless? In many cases, companies would likely rely on the biased assessments by foreign courts and fulfill requests.

Daskal and Swire argue that without the CLOUD Act, foreign governments with poor privacy standards will turn to data localization, which would pose greater human rights risks. But if the bill’s criteria are as strong as needed to protect privacy and human rights, those same foreign governments will not qualify for an international agreement—and so they may still push for data localization. The bill also does nothing to prevent a foreign government with an international agreement from data localization. If a technology company refused a government’s requests, the government could threaten to retaliate with localization and pressure the company to comply.

Finally, Swire and Daskal fail to address the CLOUD Act’s numerous ambiguities as to what human rights standards are a predicate to inclusion in the new data club the bill purports to create. Indeed, many of the criteria listed are merely factors that must be considered, not mandatory requirements. To highlight just a handful of the deficiencies in the bill:

  • The bill states that the Justice Department must consider whether a country respects free expression, without stating whether free expression is defined under U.S. law, international law, or a country’s own domestic law;
  • The bill states the Justice Department must consider whether a country respects “international universal human rights” without definition or clarity regarding how to assess this (indeed, this is not a recognized term in U.S. or international law);
  • The bill requires that requests be based on “articulable and credible facts, particularity, legality, and severity regarding the conduct under investigations”—a standard that is, at best, vague and subject to different interpretations, and is likely lower than the current probable cause standard applied to requests;
  • The bill fails to prohibit agreements in cases in which a country has a pattern or practice of engaging in human rights abuses, nor does it require an assessment as to whether there is effective central control of law enforcement or intelligence units;
  • The bill fails to require that countries meet any standards for metadata requests—leaving companies free to provide this data to human rights abusing countries without restriction;
  • For the first time, the bill allows foreign governments to wiretap and intercept communications in real-time, without even requiring governments to adhere to critical privacy protections in the Wiretap Act (such as notice, probable cause, or a set duration); and
  • The bill permits broad information sharing between governments, allowing countries (including the U.S.) to obtain information from foreign partners under standards that may be lower than their own domestic law.

These ambiguities provide the Justice Department with significant flexibility regarding the human rights standards a country must meet. What’s more, there’s no way for Congress or the judicial branch to practically act as a check in cases in which the executive branch makes the wrong decision. Country determinations are not subject to U.S. judicial review, and Congress would need to pass legislation within 90 days, likely with a veto proof majority, to stop an agreement from going into effect—an extremely high hurdle that will be difficult to overcome.

In light of this, it’s far from clear that, as Daskal and Swire write, the bill “will raise privacy protections on a global scale.” If members of Congress and technology companies want to address concerns with the MLA process while protecting privacy and human rights, they should abandon the CLOUD Act and craft a rights-respecting solution. 

https://www.courthousenews.com/privacy-groups-denounce-proposed-global-data-sharing/

http://www.lawfareblog.com/cloud-act-doesnt-help-privacy-and-human-rights-it-hurts-them

see also related:

https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2014/11/27/united-nations-declares-again-that-mass-surveillance-threatens-the-right-to-privacy/

https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2014/12/02/ngos-concerned-about-alarming-proliferation-of-surveillance-technologies-to-repressive-countries-the-wassenaar-arrangement/

https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2013/05/23/facebook-joins-the-global-network-initiative-for-human-rights/

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Call for nominations for the 2018 United Nations Human Rights Prize

March 16, 2018

The 2018 United Nations Human Rights Prize(s) will be given out at the United Nations HQ in New York on Human Right Day, 10 December 2018. The Call for Nominations is now open. This year’s award will coincide with the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The honorary prize is given out every five years, usually shared by 6 laureates. For more information see http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/united-nations-prizes-in-the-field-of-human-rights

An remarkable feature of this ‘inter-governmental’ award is that nominations can be received from: “member States, specialized agencies and non-governmental organizations in consultative status and from other appropriate sources.” Nominations may be made by submitting the online nomination form with basic identifying information about the nominee and the reasons for making the nomination.

Hard copies can, alternatively, be sent by post to: Human Rights Prize, OHCHR New York Office, Room S-1306, United Nations, New York, NY 10017. A printable form for submitting a nomination by post is available for download here.

The deadline for submission of nominations is 6 April 2018.

—-

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/12/08/new-human-rights-award-music-to-our-ears/

Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, UN | Leave a Comment »
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Marielle Franco, 38-year-old human rights defender and city councilor of Rio, assassinated

March 16, 2018

The targeted assassination of Marielle Franco, a 38-year-old human rights defender and Rio de Janeiro city councilor known for denouncing police abuses and extrajudicial executions, is a sickening development that must be fully investigated, said Amnesty International 0n 15 March. Marielle was shot dead in Rio de Janeiro’s Estacio neighborhood on Wednesday 14 March 2018. Her driver was also killed and a press officer was injured in the attack.

“This a chilling development and is yet another example of the dangers that human rights defenders face in Brazil. As a member of Rio de Janeiro’s State Human Rights Commission, Marielle worked tirelessly to defend the rights of black women and young people in the favelas and other marginalized communities,” said Jurema Werneck, Amnesty International’s Brazil director.

In 2016, Marielle was elected to the Rio de Janeiro city council. Two weeks ago, she was appointed rapporteur for a special commission that the city council created to monitor the ongoing federal intervention in Rio de Janeiro and the militarization of public security.

Gunmen riding in another vehicle carried out the attack, shooting indiscriminately before fleeing the scene without stealing anything, the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro State said. The attack came a day after the 38-year-old city councilor had posted a message on social media criticizing the deployment of army soldiers to Rio’s sprawling “favelas”.

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/01/05/front-lines-2017-report-confirms-worst-expectation-over-300-hrds-killed/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/brazil-authorities-must-investigate-the-killing-of-human-rights-defender-marielle-franco/

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2452754&CategoryId=14090

Posted in AI, Human Rights Defenders | 4 Comments »
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Save the date 20 March 2018: side event on UN Declaration on HRDs

March 15, 2018

In the month of the International Women’s Day and in the year of the 20th Anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, this event will highlight the experience of women human rights defenders and the implementation of the Declaration.

It will also share findings and recommendations related to a recent joint researchon implementation carried out by the Colombian Commission of Jurists, the Tunisian League for Human Rights and ISHR.

Confirmed panellists include:

  •  Ana Maria Rodriguez – Colombian Commission of Jurists
  •  Djingarey Maiga – Femmes et Droits Humains Mali

Other panellists and co-sponsors will be announced soon.
20 March, 16h00 – 17h30 Room XXII, Palais des Nations, Geneva.

Attendance with UN identification pass only!

Posted in Human Rights Council, Human Rights Defenders, ICJ, ISHR | Leave a Comment »
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MEA reopens call for nominations due to change in cycle

March 14, 2018

Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders

The Martin Ennals Award (MEA) will change its annual award cycle starting with the next Laureate announcement and ceremony. In recent years, the three finalists have been announced in April and the ceremony announcing the Laureate has been held in October. The annual cycle will shift forward by four months. The next Laureate will be announced at the ceremony in February 2019. The three finalists will be announced in October/November 2018.

Thus, the MEA will be reopening nominations with a new deadline of 26 March 2018. Nominations already submitted for October 2018 will be considered for February 2019 and do not have to be resubmitted.

The new schedule will allow for better advocacy opportunities between the finalist and laureate announcements. It will also come just before the most important session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is held in March.

This change occurs in year that the MEA is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Fo more on this and other awards see: http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/martin-ennals-award-for-human-rights-defenders

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Bahrain: human rights protected but on paper only

March 12, 2018

“The use of the judiciary in Bahrain to target human rights defenders and other activists” is a side event organised by CIVICUS and FIDH in co-operation with Americans for Human Rights & Democracy in Bahrain (ADHRB), the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and co-sponsored by ISHR.

It will take place on 13 March 2018 at 11:00 to 12:30 at Room XXIV. The event will address the politicisation of the judiciary to criminalise human rights defenders.

The context in which this event takes place should be well-known by now [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/bahrain/], but some recent events can be added:

On 21 February human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, BCHR President and FIDH Deputy Secretary General, was sentenced to 5 years in prison under trumped-up charges in relation to tweets denouncing the torture against detainees at Jaw prison and exposing the killing of civilians in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition. “This surrealistic verdict”, writes IFEX,  “after a trial that was by itself a mockery of justice, illustrates once again the current crackdown on any dissenting voice in Bahrain, where scores of critics are currently jailed’.

Also the Observatory (FIDH-OMCT) and BCHR reiterate their call to the Bahraini authorities to immediately release him, as well as all detained human rights defenders.

Perhaps the most damning information comes from the Bahraini Government itself (8 March 2018) when it responded to the statement of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights  which had been ‘negative’ in his  written review on the annual report on Bahrain. Dr. Yusuf Abdulkarim Bucheeri, Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, said in a statement that the review contained inaccurate information such as harassment of human rights defenders and other deleterious comments on the recent legal actions taken by Bahrain. ..They deliberately and unfairly side with malicious elements who have suspicious political agendas and sectarian tendencies and who want to inflict harm on the Kingdom of Bahrain and demean its achievements in the field of human rights, he said. “This is crystal clear from their support for the discourse of hatred and internal violence groups and for this reason, the Kingdom of Bahrain totally rejects the content of this statement with all the wrong and unacceptable descriptions it has given to the state.”
Bucheeri said that Bahrain’s constitution stipulates the right to freedom of opinion and expression in an unquestionable manner and in a way that guarantees everyone’s right to express their opinion and disseminate it by word, writing or otherwise, but within the legal framework and without inciting division or sectarianism or undermining national security.
……
He called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to make concerted effort to understand the reality of human rights and the great challenges facing the Kingdom of Bahrain which faces terrorist acts aimed to destabilize its security and stability.
The kingdom, he explained, confronts a phenomenon of violent extremism and it is the duty of the Office of the High Commissioner to do its best to double check the credibility of the information it obtained and to seek such information only from neutral, objective and non-politicized sources…

https://www.ifex.org/bahrain/2018/02/22/nabeel-rajab-sentenced/

https://www.fidh.org/en/issues/human-rights-defenders/bahrain-fears-for-nabeel-rajab-s-life-inside-his-prison

https://www.ifex.org/middle_east_north_africa/2018/03/05/revolutionary-anniversaries/

http://www.bna.bh/portal/en/news/829935

https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-nabeel-rajab

Posted in Human Rights Council, Human Rights Defenders, ISHR, Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, OHCHR, UN | Leave a Comment »
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UN Declaration on HRDs at 20: important event on 19 March in NY

March 8, 2018

The UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders has played an important role in expressly stating the right to defend human rights, and outlines the duties of States in this regard. As it forms the basis of key protection mechanisms, such as national and regional guidelines for the protection of human rights defenders, it has thus legitimated the work of human rights defenders. Twenty years on, women human rights defenders are marking this anniversary year to reflect on the significance of the Declaration to their work, movements and identities.

Therefore a number of NGOs are jointly organizing an event “The UN Declaration on HRDs at 20: Legitimating the work of Women Human Rights Defenders” on 16 March 2018 13:15-14:30 in Conference Room 11, UNHQ, New York

Opening remarks by Ms Ine Eriksen Søreide, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway

Evdokia Romanova, Youth Coalition
Weaam Youssef, Gulf Centre for Human Rights
Alma Sinumlag, Cordillera Women’s Education Action Research Center

Lopa Banerjee, UN Women
Closing remarks by Ms Neziha Labidi, Minister of Women, the Family and Childhood, Tunisia

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/11/21/breaking-news-un-adopts-key-resolution-on-human-rights-defenders/

https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/12/11/good-introduction-to-the-anniversary-of-the-un-declaration-on-hrds-in-2018/

Click to access csw_side_event_flyer-final.pdf

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Cartoonist Ramón Esono Ebalé freed in Equatorial Guinea

March 8, 2018
Good news is rare but deserves attention, especially when it seems to be the result of an international campaign: the global #FreeNseRamon coalition:
An Equatorial Guinean court on 7 March, 2018 released an artist imprisoned on dubious charges for nearly six months, 18 human rights groups including PEN America said today. The prosecution dropped all charges against Ramón Esono Ebalé, a cartoonist whose work is often critical of the government, after the police officer who had accused him of counterfeiting $1,800 of local currency admitted making the accusation based on orders from his superiors.  [Esono Ebalé, who lives outside of his native Equatorial Guinea, was arrested on 16 September, 2017, while visiting the country to request a new passport. Police interrogated him about drawings critical of the government, said two Spanish friends who were arrested and interrogated alongside him and were later released. But a news report broadcast on a government-owned television channel a few days after the arrest claimed that police had found 1 million Central African francs in the car Esono Ebalé was driving. On 7 December, he was formally accused of counterfeiting. The charge sheet alleged that a police officer, acting on a tip, had asked him to exchange large bills and received counterfeit notes in return.]“It is a huge relief that the prosecution dropped its charges against Ramon, but they should never have been pressed in the first place,” said Salil Tripathi, chair of PEN International’s Writers-in-Prison Committee. “We urge the authorities to guarantee his safe return to his family, allow him to continue creating his hard-hitting cartoons, and ensure that Equatorial Guinea respects the right to freedom of expression.”

“Ramon’s release from prison is a testament of the power of collective work of hundreds of artists, concerned citizens, and NGOs,” said Tutu Alicante, director of EG Justice, which promotes human rights in Equatorial Guinea. “But we must not forget that dozens of government opponents who are not as fortunate fill Equatorial Guinea’s jails; thus, the fight against human rights violations and impunity must continue.”

(The human rights groups are Amnesty International, Arterial Network, Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, Asociación Profesional de Ilustradores de Madrid, Cartoonists Rights Network International, Cartooning for Peace, Committee to Protect Journalists, Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, Jonathan Price and Paul Mason, Doughty Street Chambers, UK, EG Justice, FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Freemuse, Human Rights Watch, Index on Censorship, PEN America, PEN International, Reporters without Borders, Swiss Foundation Cartooning for Peace, World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.)

(see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/cartooning-for-peace-award/)

https://pen.org/press-release/equatorial-guinea-artist-freed-prison/

https://freedomnewspaper.com/2018/03/07/press-release-amnesty-international-equatorial-guinea-artist-freed-from-prison/

 

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