Archive for the 'Human Rights Defenders' Category
February 26, 2015
HRD Alert – India (a Forum of Human Rights Defenders) and Front Line Defenders have called for the release of Mr Kalimuthu Kandhasamy who was arrested in the morning of 26 February 2015.
[Kalimuthu Kandhasamy is the District Organizer of Citizens for Human Rights Movement (CHRM), which provides legal counsel and assistance to victims of human rights violations in Tamil Nadu, including by providing assistance in complaints before courts, human rights institutions, law enforcement officials and other relevant bodies. The organisation was founded by People’s Watch, an NGO that monitors human rights violations and provides legal assistance to victims in Tamil Nadu. The human rights defender also works as an assistant to a lawyer providing legal representation in People’s Watch’s cases.]
The accusations against Kalimuthu Kandhasamy include, ‘impersonating a public servant’, cheating, and improper use of emblems. And here comes the almost funny part: the charges against Kalimuthu Kandhasamy are reportedly in relation to the fact that CHRM contains the words “human rights” in its title. It is claimed that this is in violation of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, which reportedly states that no non-governmental institution should have the terms “human rights” in its name (this amendment was made on the recommendation of the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission [SIC] that no non-governmental institution should have the terms “human rights” in its name! Would seem a clear violation of the right to association). The accusations are being brought under sections 170 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code, and Section 5 of the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act 1950.
The human rights defender denies that either he or CHRM have posed as a public authority.
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: arrest, Citizens for Human Rights Movement (CHRM), freedom of association, Front Line (NGO), HRD Alert - India, human rights violations, illegal detention, India, judicial harasment, Kalimuthu Kandhasamy, Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission
February 26, 2015
Getty Images
Whatever your opinion of George Clooney as an actor, there is no doubt that he is one of the most willing to use his celebrity for human rights causes. The latest example is his Op-Ed piece in the The New York Times, entitled, “George Clooney on Sudan’s Rape of Darfur” (together with John Prendergast and Akshaya Kumar, published on 25 February 2015) .
“Because Sudan’s government routinely blocks journalists from going into the Darfur region and severely restricts access for humanitarian workers, any window into life there is limited,” Clooney says. “The government has hammered the joint peacekeeping mission of the United Nations and African Union into silence about human rights concerns by shutting down the United Nations human rights office in the capital, Khartoum, hampering investigators of alleged human rights abuses and pressuring the peacekeeping force to withdraw.”
The 53-year-old actor then explains the evidence that has been received from citizen journalists and local human rights defenders with that videos have been smuggled out.
Read the complete piece here.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Akshaya Kumar, celebrities, Darfur, George Clooney, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, John Prendergast, New York Times, rape, sexual violence, star power, Sudan, United Nations, video
February 26, 2015
The IOC Executive Committee is meeting in Rio de Janeiro these days (26-28 February) to discuss implementation of Agenda 2020, its “strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement”. The IOC’s adopted agenda requires Olympic host countries to respect anti-discrimination measures and labor standards, improve transparency, and promote good governance.
The new Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA see below for membership) addressed a letter to the IOC saying that “too often major sports events have seen people forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for infrastructure, workers exploited, campaigners locked up, the environment damaged beyond repair and notoriously opaque bidding processes,” … “The recommendations in the IOC’s Agenda 2020 are a chance to change that and ensure human rights, the environment and anti-corruption measures are central to all stages of the Olympic Games, from bidding, through to the development and delivery phase to final reporting.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in AI, Amnesty international, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 4 Comments »
Tags: AI, Brazil, HRW, human rights abuses, human rights standards, International Olympic Committee, IOC, labour rights, media, Olympic Games, Olympics, Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA), Trade union
February 26, 2015
In the morning of 24 February 2015, the bodies of human rights defender Ms Intissar Al Hasairi and her elderly aunt were discovered in the boot of the human rights defender’s car in Tripoli, Libya, by security forces. The human rights defender and her aunt had allegedly been shot by members of an armed group. The human rights defender had been missing since the previous evening. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Front Line Defenders, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, Intissar Al Hasairi, islamic fundamentalists, killings, Libya, murder, Salwa Bugaighis, Sami ElKawafi, Tanweer Movement, Tawfik Bensaud, women human rights defenders
February 25, 2015
Award-winning photographer Platon will speak at Renaissance Esmeralda Resort in Indians Wells, USA, at 6 p.m., sharing human rights experiences behind his acclaimed photography.
[He worked for Rolling Stone, New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ and The Sunday Times Magazine, TIME, The New Yorker. Platon’s New Yorker portfolios have focused on many themes, including the U.S Military, portraits of world leaders and the Civil Rights Movement.]
Platon has teamed up with the Human Rights Watch to help them celebrate human rights defenders from Burma as well as the leaders of the Egyptian revolution. In 2011, Platon was honored with a “Peabody Award” for collaboration on the topic of Russia’s Civil Society with The New Yorker magazine and Human Rights Watch.
The event is sponsored by the H.N. & Frances C. Berger Foundation
H.N. & Frances C. Berger Foundation Presents Desert Town Hall.
Posted in HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: awards, Berger Foundation, Burma, Egypt, HRW, images, Indiana Wells, Peabody award, photography, Platon, portraits, Rolling Stone, Russia, USA
February 23, 2015
From the blog “News You May Have Missed” I picked up this interesting news item showing how each person can be a human rights defender when they want to:
Photo from Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Facebook page
More than 1000 Muslims formed a human shield around a synagogue in Oslo, Norway on February 21 in response to the attack on a synagogue in Denmark last weekend. Chanting “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” an estimated 1200-1400 Norwegian Muslims formed a “ring of peace” around the synagogue, offering symbolic protection for the city’s Jewish community. See video coverage on the NRK website here. One of the speakers in the video is 17-year-old Hajrah Asrhad, one of the event’s organizers.
News You May Have Missed (15-21 February 2015) – The Human Rights Warrior.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: anti-Semitism, blog, christians and muslims, Hajrah Asrhad, Human Rights Defenders, intolerance, Islamophobia, Muslim Public Affairs Council, News You May Have Missed, Norway, solidarity action, synagogue, video
February 23, 2015
On 23 February 2015
Radio Prague reported that a new centre designed to promote civic engagement in post-Soviet countries has formally begun operating in Prague. T
he Prague Civil Society Centre seeks to cultivate values such as openness and human rights in countries such as Belarus, Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. Download
MP3 for the full interview by Dominik Jun with
Rostislav Valvoda, head of the new centre.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Azerbaijan, Civil society, CS Mott Foundation, Czech Republic, Eastern Europe, former soviet union, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights House Foundation, NGO, Oak foundation, People in Need, Prague, Prague Civil Society Centre, Rostislav Valvoda, Russia, Sweden, USA
February 18, 2015
11 February 2015 marks the 36th anniversary of the Islamic regime in Iran. Karim Lahidji, President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), answers questions about freedoms and liberties in Iran today. The very experienced and well-respected Iranian exile recalls briefly the historical background and states the record on freedom of religion in Iran: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in FIDH, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Abdolfattah Soltani, apostacy, Ayatollah Khomeini, blasphemy, FIDH, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, Iran, Iranian revolution, islamic regime, Karim Lahidji, Nargess Mohammadi, Nasrin Sotoudeh, SAVAK, Shirin Ebadi
February 17, 2015
For someone who 25 years ago (!!) started the development of legal databases on human rights (specifically the legal protection of refugees) and wrote articles about it (e.g Int J Refugee Law (1989) 1 (1):89-100.doi: 10.1093/ijrl/1.1.89Pp. 89-100, see ABSTRACT below), the news that the UN has now published, on-line, a database of case law on human rights is exciting and it should be for all practitioners.
The new site http://juris.ohchr.org/ contains all case law issued by the UN human rights expert committees, the Treaty Bodies.
The database was developed using data from the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) of Utrecht University School of Law (of which I had the honor to be the first Director). Since the mid-1990s, SIM had developed a comprehensive record on the jurisprudence stemming from the decisions by four Treaty Bodies on complaints brought by individuals. Over 20 years, academics compiled and indexed Treaty Bodies’ case law, making the SIM database the most authoritative online resource on this. Due to budget restrictions, SIM stopped updating the database from 1 January 2014 and took it offline on 1 January 2015. However, SIM offered its data free of charge to the UN Human Rights Office.
“This allowed us to build our own database, with an expanded remit and search capability, and we aim to continue developing it. It is an important part of our efforts to make the work of the Treaty Bodies more visible and accessible, and we hope it will benefit a range of users all over the world,” said Mr. Ibrahim Salama Director of the UN Human Rights Treaties Division. .
There are 10 Treaty Bodies that review and monitor how States that have ratified a particular treaty are implementing the rights contained in it. Eight (listed below) can also consider complaints by individuals who believe their rights have been violated and who have exhausted all the legal steps in their own country.
The site http://juris.ohchr.org contains case law indexed by various categories, including State, date, subject and keywords, which can all be used as search criteria. Users can submit their comments on the functioning of the database as part of ongoing efforts to improve it.
The Committees that can receive and consider individual complaints are:
- Human Rights Committee (CCPR)
- Committee against Torture (CAT)
- Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
- Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
- Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
- Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED)
- Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
- Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Abstract of 1989 article on the development of legal databases: “Today’s information technology can be used to improve the legal protection of refugees, by providing information relevant to the asylum procedure, and laying the foundation for progressive development at the international level. The positive potential of legal databases is only now beginning to be realised, thanks to pioneering efforts within human rights and related documentation centre networks. UNHCR is helping to set up a case law database, in co-operation with non-governmental organizations. A database on national legislation is also planned, as is a full text database of international legal instruments database. Legal literature continues to be covered by the database REFLIT (REFugee LITerature) of UNHCR’s Centre for Documentation on Refugees (CDR/UNHCR). This article examines two basic kinds of information-retrieval systems, ‘free text’, and ‘indexed’, and considers their different structures, uses and search procedures, with reference to work on a forthcoming refugee thesaurus. The author calls attention to the need for standard formats, such as those of HURIDOCS, and to problems of scope and coverage. He suggests that information and documentation are areas in which practical co-operation between the UN, governments and non-governmental organizations could be implemented to advantage.”
DisplayNews.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OHCHR, UN | 2 Comments »
Tags: case law, databases, human rights, human rights education, human rights information, HURIDOCS, Ibrahim Salama, jurisprudence, legal databases, Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (SIM), on-line, refugee law, Thoolen, treaty bodies, UN
February 17, 2015
Mchangama is one of the leaders of the “Madji Na Mwendje” (power and water) movement, formed by the FCC and other civil society organizations to protest the government’s inability to resolve the frequent power blackouts and water shortages plaguing the island. The movement called on all Comorian civil society groups to engage in a three-day general strike scheduled for February 9-11. The Sunday before the strike was set to start, Mchangama was summoned to appear at the police station of Moroni where he was immediately arrested and is currently being held.
“Civil society leaders like Mchangama are a threat to competitive authoritarian regimes because of their ability to channel people’s frustration at corrupt and incompetent governments. By arresting him, the government seeks to quash a legitimate demand from hundreds of thousands of Comorians living below the poverty line. He must be released immediately,” said Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation. “We have seen similar instances of repressing freedom of expression in the region. In Burundi, Pierre Claver Mbonimpa was arrested for criticizing the ruling party during a radio interview; and in Swaziland Thulani Maseko and Bhaki Makubu were both arrested for questioning the independence of the judicial system. These are all legitimate concerns in any democratic society. It is these abusive governments that are at fault here, not the people,” said Halvorssen.
For more information contact: Jamie Hancock at jamie[at]thehrf.org or see the original piece:
HRF to the Comoros: Release Activist Mohamed Mchangama and Drop Incitement Charges Against Him | News | The Human Rights Foundation.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights Foundation | Leave a Comment »
Tags: arbitrary arrest, civil society activists, Comoros, Federation of Comorian Consumers (FCC), freedom of expression, freedom to demonstrate, Human Rights Foundation, illegal detention, Mohamed Said Abdallah Mchangama, Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, release
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 