International human rights day is an occasion for a multitude of local activities, some denouncing violations others quietly remembering, some (trying to) march in the streets, others issuing statements. This anthology of 10 such events is far from complete but gives an idea of the variety, from human rights defenders speaking out to governmental institutions ‘celebrating’ …. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for the 'Human Rights Defenders' Category
Selection of what happened at the local level on Human Rights Day 2015
December 13, 20152015 Human Rights Tulip awarded to IRA-Mauritania
December 12, 2015On 10 December the 2015 Human Rights Tulip was awarded to IRA-Mauritania, an organisation from Mauritania that is working to abolish slavery. The Nethertlands Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bert Koenders, presented the €100,000 prize and the accompanying bronze tulip sculpture to Abidine Merzough, the European representative of IRA-Mauritania.
Working both in Mauritania and at international level, IRA-Mauritania (Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement in Mauritania) is drawing attention to the issue of slavery and supporting victims in building a new life. ‘IRA-Mauritania stands up for people who are marginalised and excluded, and in this way it makes an important contribution to the battle against slavery,’ said Mr Koenders. ‘That is why I have decided to award the Human Rights Tulip to this organisation this year.’
Thousands of people in Mauritania are living in conditions which could be described as modern slavery. Many are born into and grow up as part of a household in which they receive no pay for their work. Often they are also mistreated. What’s more, they are prevented from owning land, attending school or participating in politics. The most common victims of such abuses are women and children. In August this year slavery was made a crime against humanity under Mauritanian law. Mr Koenders said that the Netherlands welcomes this positive development and pointed out how important it is for the Mauritanian authorities to enforce this law.
Mr Koenders’ added. ‘Of course, it is not enough to reflect on human rights once a year. I will continue every day to emphasise the importance of complying with human rights obligations, especially now, when the focus is understandably on combating terrorism and addressing security challenges. Human rights organisations are our allies, as they work towards peaceful, free societies. We need to prevent them from being impeded by incorrectly applied counterterrorism measures, whether here or elsewhere. They must be able to continue their important work.’
At the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Dutch NGO Hivos will also support the organisation’s activities.
Source: 2015 Human Rights Tulip to be awarded to IRA-Mauritania | News item | Human Rights Tulip
HURIDOCS not too worried about the theft of its computers – read why
December 11, 2015
Last weekend, HURIDOCS office in Geneva and the office of an ally organization were burglarized; two of its desktop computers were stolen. Computers were the only stolen items at both offices, but it’s not possible to say whether the theft was specifically for information stored on the hard drives or just for the computers themselves. Either way, it states confidently in a message that they have not experienced a data breach, because both computers were encrypted and locked with strong passwords. They also didn’t lose any data, because it’s safely stored in Casebox. Here’s how to protect your information and yourself, critical for human rights defenders, in case of physical computer theft:
- Lock your computer with a strong and unique password. All passwords should be strong and unique, but perhaps even most importantly for your computer itself. Simple passwords are more easily hacked by ‘brute force’ (guessing until success), seen by someone glancing as you type, or determined from camera footage (that’s why Snowden typed his passwords under a blanket in Citzenfour). There are some good tips for better passwords.
- Safeguard all passwords. Do not keep your passwords written on paper near your computer. A multitude of secure passwords will be impossible to keep in mind, so we recommend using a password manager like KeePassX instead; KeePassX also rates the strength of your passwords.
- Consistently lock your screen when you step away. Theft can happen very quickly and obviously, unexpectedly. Encrypt your hard drive. If it’s encrypted, no one else can read it. Check your settings in Filevault on Mac and Bitlocker or Veracrypt on Windows.
- Regularly back up your encrypted hard drive to another location. If your computer is stolen, you’ll still have all of your information. If you use a password manager like KeePassX, your backup will include a locked file containing all of your passwords. To further protect yourself against privacy breaches and malicious threats, we also recommend to: Scan your hard drive for viruses at least once a week with updated antivirus software like Sophos or Avast.
- Update your computer’s operating system and all critical software as soon as updates become available. These updates are often to better protect you from breaches. Set up two-factor authentication and two-step verification on all critical accounts like email, social networks, Apple ID, and shared workspaces. Change your passwords often.
HURIDOCS conclusion: If you’ve taken the above steps and your computer is stolen, you won’t need to worry about your data being stolen along with it. We strongly recommend all human rights defenders take these precautions.
https://www.huridocs.org/2015/12/steps-to-protect-your-data-computer-theft/
Human Rights Day 2015: human rights defenders are main topic
December 10, 2015International Human Rights Day is an occasion for many organizations to publish statements on human rights. For those who have not enough time to go through all of them, here a selection of four main statements that focus on human rights defenders: Read the rest of this entry »
One of Azerbaijan’s key human rights defenders, Leyla Yunus, freed – now the others
December 10, 2015
Many NGOs have welcomed as a good Human Rights Day present the announcement of the freeing of Leyla Yunus in Azerbaijan. Here the views of the Deputy Director, Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, Rachel Denber:
Emma Bolshia helps Bolivian victims recover from torture and its second trauma, silence
December 9, 2015In the series “10 December, 10 Defenders” OMCT published on 4 December 2015 the profile of Emma Bolshia Bravo who helps Bolivian victims recover from torture and its second trauma, silence.
“Considering the magnitude of the psychological effects on the victim, the fear it generates within society, and the traumas transmitted to the following generations, torture causes irreparable damage,” says Emma Bolshia Bravo. “That’s why prevention of torture is crucial.” Read the rest of this entry »
Council of Europe: draft resolution addresses reprisals with priority
December 9, 2015An interesting read is the latest report to the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly by Rapporteur: Ms Mailis REPS, Estonia, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. The (draft) report is entitled: “Strengthening the protection and role of human rights defenders in Council of Europe member States“.
[On 19 March 2013, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights appointed Ms Mailis as rapporteur, following the departure from the Assembly of the previous rapporteur, Mr György Frunda.]
The Draft resolution and draft recommendation (AS/Jur (2015) 37) were adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights on 8 December 2015 and here are some highlights:
Thailand returns recognized refugees to China (and falsely claims they did not know about their status)
December 8, 2015Anneliese Mcauliffe in Al Jazeera on 6 December 2015 reported that two Chinese human rights defenders recognised as UN refugees were forcibly deported from Thailand to China last month and have appeared on Chinese state-run television and confessed to human-trafficking offenses. CCTV reported that Jiang Yefei was arrested for “assisting others to illegally cross the national border”, and Dong Guangping was charged with using a trafficking network to flee China while awaiting trial on sedition charges. It was the first time the two men were seen since being taken from a detention centre in the Thai capital Bangkok in November and deported to China.
Norbert Fanou-Ako protects children in Benin’s cycle of violence
December 8, 2015In the series “10 December, 10 Defenders” [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/10-december-10-defenders-profiles-of-human-rights-defenders-against-torture/]the OMCT publishes today the case of “Benin: Meet Norbert: Better protecting children to break Benin’s cycle of violence“. “Violence is the first inheritance of a child born within a violent family,” says Norbert Fanou-Ako. As director of a non-governmental organization called Solidarity for Children in Africa and the World (ESAM) he is trying to break Benin’s vicious cycle of violence. The violence deeply engrained in this country starts at home and in school with commonplace whipping, caning, slapping and other uses of ill-treatment against children and then extends to regular beatings to force confessions out of suspected juvenile delinquents at police stations. Read the rest of this entry »
Salah Abu Shazam keeps hope for redress amid civil war in Libya
December 7, 2015“Torture is certainly practised in all societies, but the problem in Libya is the frequency of its occurrence,” explains Salah Abu Khazam, who founded and heads the Libyan Network for Legal Aid. “That’s because the Government is only concerned with its own security.” This comes from OMCT’s profile “Libya: Meet Salah: Keeping hope for redress in the absence of a State, amid a civil war“.
Salah doesn’t have it easy. He works in a country with two governments, non-existent police force, a defunct judicial system and no rule of law, where human rights defenders like him, prime targets of scores of armed groups, regularly get kidnapped or killed. Two volunteer human rights lawyers working for his organization were directly threatened, and chances are he himself is on the black list for promoting democratic ideals, gender equality, or any value opposed to those upheld by Islamist armed groups. Yet, he still gets up every morning thinking that Libya is going to become a better place: “The day will come when the culprits will be held accountable for their crimes and victims will receive reparation,”.
While most of his peers are in exile, Salah, 31, holds onto his country. He is proud to say he has rescued two people from death under torture, and a third one from a death sentence for having stolen a military vehicle. He is convinced no one can enjoy any wellbeing or lead a proper life while such violations are tolerated by the social and political system, until the universal values of human rights are enforced in Libya. One has to say, though, that the light at the end of the tunnel still seems very far at this stage.
After the 2011 attacks and uprising that led to the downfall of the Qadhafi regime after 24 years of dictatorship, many Libyan intellectuals and lawyers such as Salah engaged in the defence of human rights. With the backing of international NGOs including OMCT, Amnesty International, and the Red Cross a number of local networks and civil society organizations sprung up to better protect citizens from routine human rights violations. Yet this hopeful period of building up democratic institutions and restoring civil rights was short-lived as another wave of widespread violence overtook the country, home to the world’s 10th-largest oil-reserves, as numerous belligerents fuelled political, racial, ethnic, religious and interregional conflicts.
The country has been divided since June 2014, when a number of factions refused to accept the legislative election results and the establishment of a new Parliament, leaving Libya with two Governments: one recognized by the international community based in al-Bayda, and another loyal to the former General National Congress based in Tripoli. To make things worse, many regions have ties to Islamist groups while other areas are self-governing, and rival armed groups have spread across the territory, creating additional lines of fracture.
The result was complete chaos, with a collapse of state institutions and deteriorating economic, social and health conditions, which forced the European Union and United Nations Support Mission to Libya to leave the country. The escalation of violence since in August 2014 – when Islamist militias took over Tripoli and its civilian airport – was so ferocious that the UN Security Council called for the application of sanctions against violators of humanitarian and human rights law. The violence also led to at least 400,000 internally displaced Libyans and to hundreds of thousands migrant workers fleeing the country.
It is in this improbable context that Salah’s organization, founded in 2014 with OMCT’s help, has documented 90 torture cases, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and abuses. It has filed 15 complaints with local courts for torture, detention and extra-judiciary executions. It is working with other partners on how to use international mechanisms to seek redress for victims of torture in the face of an incompetent national judicial system. Society must free itself from passivity and dependence and participate collectively to demand the respect of its rights,” explains Salah.
– By Lori Brumat in Geneva
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 