Archive for the 'Human Rights Defenders' Category
January 28, 2015
Recipients of the honorary awards given by Manusher Jonno Foundation, standing behind, with the guests sitting in front, in the capital’s Bangla Academy yesterday, at the award giving ceremony marking Human Rights Day. Photo: Star
A nice little item left-over from Human Rights Day 2014. How human rights awards play at the local level:
Ten human rights defenders from the grassroots level, two eminent social workers with international recognition, and a female football player were given honorary awards by Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) yesterday. The works of the activists focused on land rights, prevention of violence against women, child rights, and the rights of the indigenous people. The 10 grassroots activists were Jharna Ray, Madhobilata Chakma, and Nomita Chakma of Khagrachhari, Birendra Sangma of Mymensingh, Shafique Ullah of Noakhali, Kachhim Uddin of Tangail, Kananbala Gupta of Narail, Umme Kulsum Ranjana of Bogra, Kalpana Tirki of Rajshahi, and Rahela of Dinajpur.
Two social workers Jharna Dhara Chowdhury, chief of Noakhali’s Gandhi Ashram, and Angela Gomes, executive director of Bachte Shekha, were also honoured along with Bipasha Mali, a young footballer who was recently called to play on the national women’s football team.
Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury said, “They don’t work for recognition. Yet when we value their contributions, it makes us proud and we get inspiration to work.”
MJF honours 10 grassroots human rights defenders | Two social workers, a young female footballer also receive the honorary awards.
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: activism, awards, Bangladesh, child rights, football, honorary awards, human rights awards, Human Rights Day, Human Rights Defenders, Land issues, Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), women human rights defenders, youth
January 28, 2015
The following, reported by Front Line on 28 January is a good illustration of what human rights defenders in China face: a bit of good news (re-appearance) mixed with continued repression:
On 28 January 2015 human rights defender Mr Huang Kaiping returned to his home in Beijing, following a period of over three months’ enforced disappearance. Huang Kaiping is director of the Transition Institute, an independent think tank in Beijing that focuses on economic and political liberalisation. The Transition Institute was founded in 2007 to carry out research into tax reform, business regulation and the development of civil society in China. The Institute was forced to close by the Chinese authorities earlier this year, as they stepped up their campaign of harassment against a number of civil society organisations in China. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, disappearance, freedom of association, freedom of expression, Guo Yushan, Huang Kaiping, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, Kou Yanding, release, Transition Institute
January 27, 2015
Human rights defenders in the Philippines have been using information technology to advance their advocacy work. Launched in 2011, the human rights website http://www.hronlineph.com started by Egay Cabalitan and Jerbert Briola is used by human rights defenders for updates on most recent social issues in the country. The website has produced a video featuring testimonies from various advocacy groups – medical, anti-mining, human rights defenders, and international support NGOs – on the usefulness of the website.
Recently HRonlinePH launched two videos about human rights and internet rights now shared on social media outlets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu_E0C2bPDQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPslUqomztU
“Human rights defenders fully realize the potential of video to bring about change, And this video, a groundbreaking information tool for the HRonlinePH, is a supportive infrastructure how we can harness the power of technology and to help realize our shared interests in promoting and defending human rights, offline and online,” Human Rights Online Philippines said.
Featured in one of the videos are human rights defenders from Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM ASIA), Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Asia-Pacific (CATW-AP), Medical Action Group (MAG), Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) and Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ).
Group takes a ride on info-tech for human rights advocacy | SciTech | GMA News Online.
Posted in films, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Egay Cabalitan, empowering civil society, Forum Asia, GMA News Online, Human Rights Defenders, human rights film, information technology, internet, Jerbert Briola, PAHRA, Philippines, social media, video, website, www.hronlineph.com, You Tube
January 27, 2015
It may not be the most important news, but the simple fact that a Conference on Human Rights Defenders in Somalia is being held in Mogadishu at all is not what one expects. A delegation of the African Human Rights Commission led by Reine Alapini Gansou arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia on Monday for the one-day conference.
“The conference is a wider and nationwide consultative meeting that will be focusing improving protection capacity and promoting the right to defend human rights in Somalia and to achieving a safe working environment for Somali HRD’s, especially most-at-risk HRDs including the journalists and the civil society members.” Hassan Shire, the chairperson of the Pan African Human Rights Defenders Network said in a press briefing at his hotel.
allAfrica.com: Somalia: Delegation From African Human Rights Commission Arrive in Mogadishu for HRDS Conference.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, African Human Rights, allafrica com, Hassan Shire, Human Rights Defenders, journalists, Mogadishu, protection, Reine Alapini-Gansou, Somalia, The Pan African Human Rights Defenders Network
January 26, 2015
On 16 February 2015, the York Press carried a feature story by Stephen Lewis about 5 human rights defenders in the temporary shelter programme at York University. The aim of the placements is to give those fighting for human rights around the world a breather, as well as the chance to forge contacts with other human rights workers and organisations around the world.
In York, Hikma can wear jeans – something she’d never be able to do in her own country. “Sudan is a very patriarchal society,” the 33-year-old human rights lawyer says. “Women cannot wear trousers, and I cannot go out in public without a scarf on my head. I want to wear my trousers.“
Born in North Darfur, she graduated with a law degree from Elnileen University in Khartoum in 2002, then started work as a protection officer at a refugee camp in South Darfur for civil war victims. In 2009, her organisation was closed down by the government.
Hikma Rabih
Undeterred, in 2011 she set up a legal aid centre in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Her organisation provides legal aid and representation for women who would otherwise have no chance of getting justice. Because of strict adultery laws, women who have sex outside marriage face 100 lashes, she says: married women who commit adultery can be stoned. If a woman is raped, but fails to prove it in court, she can be given 100 lashes as an adulteress. “The men always go free,” Hikma says.
5 human rights defenders in York tell their incredible stories (From York Press).
Posted in Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Centre for Applied Human Rights at York University, Darfur, Hikma Rabih, human rights lawyer, islamic fundamentalists, legal aid, refugees, rights of women, Sudan, woman human rights defender, York Press
January 25, 2015
On 16 February 2015, the York Press carried a feature story by Stephen Lewis about 5 human rights defenders in the temporary shelter programme at York University. The aim of the placements is to give those fighting for human rights around the world a breather, as well as the chance to forge contacts with other human rights workers and organisations around the world.
Katsiaryna Borsuk was born in a village not far from Chernobyl, Belarus, a year after the nuclear accident which made it infamous. The village was radioactively polluted. When she was four, her family were evacuated to the city of Gomel where, as a child, she was taunted for being ‘radioactive’ herself. Many people of her generation have chronic health problems, she says – her own brother has problems with his eyes and his throat.
Interested in environmental protection, she studied natural sciences at university in Gomel. She got caught up in student environmental protests, then became involved with the youth movement. When she graduated, she began working for a banned youth organisation – one that promoted democracy and civil rights. She was several times questioned by the KGB. “They pretended to not be KGB. But they took notes,” she says. “They mostly took you somewhere. Once, they came by car, and interviewed me in the car.”
Katsiaryna Borsuk
In 2012, although heterosexual herself, she became involved with Gay Belarus. Homophobia is widespread in Belarus, and there are very few people willing to stand up for LGBT people, she says. They are regularly subjected to homophobic attacks – attacks which are often filmed and posted on social media. Her organisation works with the victims of homophobia, trying to convince families to prosecute cases, talking to police and prosecutors’ offices, arranging free legal representation and even psychological support. But it is not easy. “The police are homophobic. They won’t protect you. Even if people are killed – there have been murders – the police don’t take the case.”
5 human rights defenders in York tell their incredible stories (From York Press).
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Belarus, Centre for Applied Human Rights at York University, Chernobyl, environmental activists, homophobia, Katsiaryna Borsuk, KGB, LGBTI, police brutality, students, woman human rights defender, York Post
January 24, 2015
Human rights lawyers and their clients stage a picket at the Supreme Court to mark the ‘Day of the Endangered Lawyer’ (photo courtesy of NUPL)
Human rights lawyers in the Philippines on Friday 23 January 2015 protested publicly against the growing death toll within their ranks as they marked the “Day of the Endangered Lawyer” by trooping to the Supreme Court. The protest spearheaded by the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers [NUPL] and joined by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines was joined by lawyers’ and support groups that staged pickets or held dialogues at Philippine embassies and consulates in 23 cities in 11 European countries.
Figures show that, since attacks on legal professionals began being recorded in 1977, “100 lawyers have been attacked (57 since 2001) while 50 lawyers have been killed (41 since 2001).” “Nineteen judges have been murdered, 18 since 2001”
“Government must simply do its job: protect its citizens, categorically condemn these attacks on lawyers as human rights defenders; seriously and credibly investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators; and uphold human rights because the attacks on lawyers is not only an attack on the individual lawyer, it is an attack on the legal profession, and most fundamentally — in the context of the targeted assaults on human rights and public interest lawyers — an attack itself on the rights and interests of the mostly poor and oppressed in our country”
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/103685/a-deadly-profession–human-rights-lawyers-count-the-costs-on-day-of-the-endangered-lawyer
A petition <http://www.advocatenvooradvocaten.nl/wp-content/uploads/Petition-Day-of-Endangerd-Lawyer-2015.pdf> signed by lawyers organizations from Asia, Canada Europe and the United States calls on the Aquino government to prevent extrajudicial killings and all forms of harassment of lawyers and to end impunity by prosecuting perpetrators of rights violations. The petition also calls on the Aquino government to protect the safety of lawyers as provided for in the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1990. Underlying causes for extrajudicial killings. The practice of labeling (classifying victims as ‘enemies of the state’), the involvement of the military in politics, the proliferation of private armies and vigilante groups and the culture of impunity have been identified by national and international fact-finding bodies as the main root causes for the alarming rate of extrajudicial killings, including the extrajudicial killings of lawyers, in the Philippines.
Away from the capital human rights violations against indigenous people and their human rights defenders also continue as demonstrated in 2 film documentaries:
“Gikan sa Ngitngit nga Kinailadman” (From the Dark Depths) records grave rights violations using interviews and recollections of the survivors and witnesses. The cases featured in the film remains unresolved; the perpetrators waiting for the next human rights defender to hunt. The film shows the atrocities of the military and paramilitary troops, including the armed agents of the agro-industrial corporations in the hinterlands of Mindanao.
-The first case presented in the film is the assassination of Gilbert Paborada—a Higaonon farmer in Bagocboc, Opol, Misamis Oriental. Daisy Paborada, the wife of Gilbert, and Joseph Paborada, his brother, reiterates how the struggle of their community against the entry of palm oil plantations of A Brown Company led to Gilbert’s death.
-The film also shows interviews about the harassment of the Lumad community in Opol as they suffer from the goons of A Brown Company. The harassments and intimidation breed the culture of fear and terror among the people who opt to protect their ancestral domain vis-à-vis the environment over money.
PHOTO taken during the shooting of “Gikan sa Ngitngit nga Kinailadman” in the mountains of Pantaron in Bukidnon. (RMP-NMR)
Dalena is also the director of Alingawngaw ng mga Punglo (Echo of Bullets) that exposed the criminal acts of the military under the infamous General Jovito Palparan, also known as ‘The Butcher.’ Palparan now is in jail, facing allegations of murder against human rights defenders.
Sr. Maria Famita Somogod, regional coordinator of Rmp-Nmr, said the film highlights political repression. The spate of human rights violations featured in the film is the reaction of the government to quell the legitimate dissent of the lumads against the entry of agro-industrial corporations in their ancestral domain. Somogod said the dissent of the lumads and farmers is legitimate. Their demands are to protect their ancestral domain against the encroachment of foreign corporations in the hinterlands. “Instead of seeds, bullets. Instead of food, bombs. Instead of peace, forcible evacuation. Instead of life, death,” Somogod said, adding this is what the ordinary lumads and farmers get for protecting the land of promise.
In the words of the author Anjo Bacarisas, in Sunstar of 25 January: at the end of the film one asks: How should we stop this appalling cruelty against the lumads and farmers?
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cagayan-de-oro/feature/2015/01/25/underbelly-land-promise-388461
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, L4L | Leave a Comment »
Tags: agro-business, corporate accountability, Dalena, Documentary film, Echo of Bullets, extrajudicial killings, From the Dark Depths, harassment, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyers, impunity, Independence of Lawyers, Indigenous People, Lawyers for Lawyers, Lumad community, Maria Famita Somogod, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, Philippines, repression
January 24, 2015
On 16 February 2015, the York Press carried a feature story by Stephen Lewis about 5 human rights defenders in the temporary shelter programme at York University. The aim of the placements is to give those fighting for human rights around the world a breather, as well as the chance to forge contacts with other human rights workers and organisations around the world.
Valdênia grew up in the slums – or favelas – of Sao Paolo, Brazil’s biggest city. Home for her mother, father, three brothers, two sisters and herself was a small house with a tin roof. Her mother took in sewing. Her father worked in a factory until, in his mid-40s, he became ill. Because of poverty, many children end up on the streets, where they’re at risk of violence, abuse, disease and hunger. They have little chance of an education – and many girls end up in prostitution, Valdênia says.
When she was 14, Valdênia helped open a ‘safe’ house for young girls who worked as prostitutes. The police didn’t approve. “Who controls prostitution?” she says. “The policemen, and the men who have money.”
Valdênia Paulino Lanfranchi
She lived with the girls for ten years, then helped open two human rights centres to help families in the favelas. She went to university, and got degrees in education and law. Eventually, after suffering repeated attacks and threats, she and her husband Renato, also a human rights worker, moved to Paraiba, in north-eastern Brazil. There Valdênia, now 47, joined the Oscar Romero human rights centre, working to protect the rights of local ‘indigenous’ people.
She also, in 2011, became Police Ombudsman for Paraiba – the first woman to hold the post. It brought her into conflicts with ‘those in power’. “I was then a victim of everything from raids on the headquarters of our organisations to sexual violence and death threats.” Brazil is supposed to be one of the world’s emerging democracies. “But we have more than 100 human rights defenders threatened with death,” she says. “We have inequality, poverty, hunger. Why? What has happened?”
5 human rights defenders in York tell their incredible stories (From York Press).
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Brazil, Centre for Applied Human Rights at York University, indigenous peoples, Ombudsman, Oscar Romero human rights centre, poverty, rights of women, Valdênia Paulino Lanfranchi, woman human rights defender, York Press
January 23, 2015
On 16 February 2015, the York Press carried a feature story by Stephen Lewis about 5 human rights defenders in the temporary shelter programme at York University. The aim of the placements is to give those fighting for human rights around the world a breather, as well as the chance to forge contacts with other human rights workers and organisations around the world.
Ahmed Al-Kolaibi grew up in a mountain village in Dhamar in rural Yemen where the law counts for little, and what matters is tradition and custom. For more than 30 years, there have been ‘revenge’ wars between neighbouring villages. When he was seven, Ahmed lost his own father in one of these revenge killings. An uncle was also badly hurt As he grew older, Ahmed, now 27, began trying to persuade other young men in his village that the killings were senseless. The village elders, incensed that he didn’t want to fight for the ‘honour’ of his village, decided to make an example of him.
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Ahmed Al-Kolaibi
“They punished me. They took my house, they took my land, because they wanted me to be an example,” he says. He went to Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, where he began to work for a peace-keeping organisation, the Dar Al-Salam Organisation. He works as a mediator in the warring villages, trying to arrange truces between rival sheikhs. He has helped train 360 other mediators – and has even secured the release of abducted foreigners. But being a mediator is very dangerous. “We have lost 15 people,” he says quietly.
It can also be deeply frustrating. Once, trying to negotiate a peace between two villages, he was told that 25 people had been killed in one, and ‘only’ 23 people in the other. Before the fighting could be resolved, he was told, ‘we have to kill two people from that village so it is 25/25′.
5 human rights defenders in York tell their incredible stories (From York Press).
Posted in Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Ahmed Al-Kolaibi, Centre for Applied Human Rights at York University, conflict and peace, Human rights defender, mediation, risk, social custom, Yemen, York Press
January 23, 2015
Lawyers for Lawyers, the Law Society of England and Wales, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, Privacy International, Fair Trial Watch and Media Legal Defence Initiative organise a panel discussion on the “Persecution of Lawyers and Journalists in Turkey” on Tuesday, 27 January, in Geneva, Immediately after the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Turkey,
At this event fundamental rights of lawyers and journalists that are regularly being violated will be discussed, including freedom of expression, privacy, confidentiality between lawyers and their clients and the protection of sources by journalists. This event comes at a time when the rule of law in Turkey is under serious threat.
[Turkey has adopted new laws and judicial reform packages, allowing for even more internet censorship, data collection, surveillance and the censoring of critical views on the pretence of protecting national security, which are directly undermining the freedom of expression, but also other fundamental rights such as privacy. In particular, journalists and lawyers are negatively impacted. They are subject to surveillance and legal harassment. The last couple of years large groups of lawyers and journalists have been arrested on the suspicion of terrorism related offences. Lawyers face stigmatisation by being continuously identified with their clients’ causes. Journalists are accused of not being independent. For both groups it is hard, if not impossible, to work freely, independently and securely.]
Speakers:
Ayse Bingol – Lawyer from Turkey
Tayfun Ertan – Journalist from Turkey
Marietje Schaake (by Skype) – Member European Parliament
Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion – Privacy International
Tony Fisher – The Law Society of England and Whales
Moderator: Irma van den Berg – Turkey expert of Lawyers for Lawyers
The event takes place from 12h45 – 14h30 in Room XXIII, Palais des Nations. Those wishing to attend, send email – before 23 January – to : bp[at]lawyersforlawyers.nl
Turkey 27 January in Geneva; side-event Persecution of Lawyers and Journalists in Turkey Lawyers for Lawyers.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, L4L | 1 Comment »
Tags: Ayse Bingol, censorship, digital security, electronic surveillance, freedom of expression, Geneva, Independence of Lawyers, journalists, L4L, lawyers, Lawyers for Lawyers, Marietje Schaake, MEP, persecution, Privacy International, side event, Tayfun Ertan, Turkey, UPR
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 