1. Sepideh — Reaching for the Stars (Denmark/Iran/Germany/Norway/Sweden) The story of a teenage girl named Sepideh, living in a rural village outside of Tehran, who dreams of becoming a famous astronomer. The documentary tackles gender roles in Iran while showcasing one young woman’s ambition and strength in the face of her family’s discouragement, university pitfalls and societal expectations. Directed by Berit Madsen. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTzbIc6oiqs?wmode=opaque]
2. Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus (US/UK/Belarus) Made up of smuggled footage and uncensored interviews, this documentary gives audiences a glimpse into Belarus’ dissident movement as it takes the shape of stage performances and public activism. Directed by Madeleine Sackler. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGALySJ3O24?wmode=opaque]
3. Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story (US) A veteran shares her story moving from one identity, a former U.S. Navy Seal named Chris Beck, to another, a transgender woman named Kristen Beck. Directed by Sandrine Orabona. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r21OdLSTfQY?wmode=opaque]
4. A Quiet Inquisition (US)Here you’ll meet OBGYN Dr. Carla Cerrato, who must navigate the perilous territory of Nicaragua’s anti-abortion policies, which prohibit abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or when a woman’s life is at stake. Directed by Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrina Kahn.
5. Scheherazade’s Diary (Lebanon) This “tragicomic documentary” follows women inmates in Lebanon as they stage a theater/drama therapy project titled “Scheherazade in Baabda,” revealing personal stories of domestic violence, failed relationships and traumas associated with motherhood. Directed by Zeina Daccache. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VnZGmd6EMg?wmode=opaque]
6. Siddharth (Canada/India) One father’s desperate journey to locate his son, a 12-year-old boy who was sent to work in another province to support his family, but did not return and is feared to have been kidnapped or trafficked. Directed by Richie Mehta.
7. The Supreme Price (US) The film covers the evolution of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Nigeria and efforts to increase the participation of women in leadership roles. Directed by Joanna Lipper.
8. Private Violence (US) Questioning the accepted discourse on domestic violence, the documentary introduces audiences to two women survivors who advocate for justice while exploring “the fact that the most dangerous place for a woman is her home.” Directed by Cynthia Hill.
9. The Beekeeper (Switzerland) This is the touching story of Ibrahim Gezer, a Kurdish beekeeper from southeast Turkey who, robbed of his family, possessions and 500 bee colonies, moves to Switzerland to make a new life. Directed by Mano Khalil.
10. Abounaddara Collective Shorts from Syria (Syria) The Abounaddara Collective is a group of filmmakers who came together in 2010 to help provide an alternative image of Syrian society, one not seen in mainstream media. This portion of the festival will showcase 90 minutes of their short films.
The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, organised an expert meeting on The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age‘ (hosted by the Permanent Missions of Austria, Brazil, Germany, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Norway, and Switzerland) in Geneva on 24-25 February 2014. The right to privacy is of great practical importance to human rights defenders who are often in the firing line of (mass) surveillance. The report is short and very readable and makes an excellent long read for the weekend. To help those pressed for time, here is the Summary of conclusions: Read the rest of this entry »
The Democratic Republic of Congo remains a terrible place for human rights defenders. These two recent events reported by Front Line make it abundantly clear:
1. Attempted murder of human rights defender Mr Leonard Lusimba
On 22 May 2014, human rights defender Mr Leonard Lusimba was shot in an attempted killing by a member of the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo – FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo). He underwent surgery on 25 May, and a second operation will be necessary in the coming days. Leonard Lusimba is the regional representative of Collectif d’Actions pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme– CADDHOM, an organisation which, since the 1990s, has worked to promote human rights and peace education in different regions of the DRC, in particular in the Eastern provinces of the country where a number of armed groups are still active.
[Over recent years, numerous Congolese human rights defenders have been killed as a result of targeted attacks. In the rare cases where serious investigations have been undertaken, they have often failed to lead to results, favouring impunity.]
2. Closure of the office of human rights organisation Solidarity for Social Advancement and Peace
On 21 May 2014, the Congolese human rights organisation Solidarité pour la Promotion Sociale et la Paix – SOPROP (Solidarity for Social Development and Peace) was closed by the Direction Générale des Impôts – DGI in relation to an investigation into allegations of tax fraud. The DGI declared that it needed time to reach a compromise with SOPROP, and proposed a settlement to SOPROP of 20% of the amount it allegedly owed in unpaid taxes. SOPROP rejected the proposal on the grounds that there was no basis for the amount originally demanded. The same day, SOPROP brought a complaint to the local Prosecutor’s Office, which identified irregularities in the procedure and ordered that the medical centre be reopened. The office, however, remains sealed, and it is unknown when it will be reopened
[SOPROP is an organisation which, since its foundation in 1994, has supported victims of torture and other violence through medical, social and legal assistance. The organisation is also known for its activities in human rights education, particularly in schools, as well as for its investigations into human rights violations and corruption. In 2011, SOPROP had published a report on the corrupt practices of state companies in Kinshasa, which highlighted agencies of the DGI, amongst others.]
The Guardian reports that eight people have been jailed in Iran on charges including blasphemy and insulting the country’s supreme leader on Facebook. The opposition website Kaleme reported that two of the eight, identified as Roya Saberinejad Nobakht, 47, from Stockport (Iranian/UK national), and Amir Golestani, each received 20 years in prison and the remaining six – Masoud Ghasemkhani, Fariborz Kardarfar, Seyed Masoud Seyed Talebi, Amin Akramipour, Mehdi Reyshahri and Naghmeh Shahisavandi Shirazi – between seven and 19 years. They were variously found guilty of blasphemy, propaganda against the ruling system, spreading lies and insulting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
[The relevant backdrop is that there is a growing row between President Hassan Rouhani’s administration, which favours internet freedom, and hardliners wary of relaxing online censorship. Last week, Iran’s national TV paraded six young Iranians arrested for performing a version of Pharrell William’s hit song Happy and posting a video of it on the internet. The arrests caused global outrage and prompted Rouhani to react in their support. The performers were soon released, but the video’s director, Sassan Soleimani, remains in jail. The arrests highlighted the challenges Rouhani faces in delivering his promise of allowing people greater access to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which remain blocked in Iran….In recent weeks Rouhani has stepped up his rhetoric in support of internet freedom. “The era of the one-sided pulpit is over,” he said recently at a conference in Tehran, endorsing social networks and asking his communications minister to improve bandwidth in the country. He intervened when the authorities blocked access to the mobile messaging service WhatsApp, ordering the ban to be lifted. Iran’s judiciary, which is a political institution independent of the government, has since moved to challenge Rouhani’s intervention and orderered WhatsApp to be banned. Until two years ago, Iran’s ministry of information and communications technology was in charge of policing the country’s online community, but in 2012 Khamenei ordered officials to set up the supreme council of virtual space, a body that is closer to the supreme leader than to the government. This means Rouhani is not the sole decision-maker in the future of Iranian web. With help from Iran’s cyberpolice, the judiciary and the Revolutionary Guards have identified and arrested Iranians because of web-related issues, including several employees of the Iranian gadget news website Narenji, who have been in jail since December.]
New Tactics is going to have a on-line conversation on the safe & effective use of documentation tools from 9 to 13 June 2014. They are looking to recruit 10 to 12 human rights practitioners to join Daniel D’Esposito of HURIDOCSand Enrique Piracés of Benetech to help lead the upcoming conversation on Working Safely and Effectively with Documentation Tools Documentation is a crucial aspect of the quest for justice, accountability and transparency.
The Treaty Body that oversees the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, composed of independent experts, recently completed its review of China‘s compliance. In its conclusions (called ‘Concluding Observations’), the UN committee expressed serious concern about ‘instances where labour and human rights activists, and their lawyers, have been victims of repression and reprisals while taking up cases of violations of economic, social and cultural rights’ and said that China is obliged under international law ‘to protect human rights and labour activists, as well as their lawyers, against any form of intimidation, threat and retaliation‘.
[TheISHR had briefed the treaty body experts on the case of Chinese human rights defender, Cao Shunli, on of the 3 Final Nominees of the MEA 2014, who died in detention after being denied access to adequate health care. In its briefing, ISHR also expressed concern at ongoing intimidation and reprisals against other human rights defenders, saying, ‘The Chinese Government again restricted human rights defenders from travelling to Geneva to attend this session, a pattern which is widespread. We call on the Committee to recommend that the government immediately cease its harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders, and that it guarantee the right of everyone to safely access and communicate with international bodies, such as this Committee. Further, we request that the Committee remain vigilant about reprisals, and that it recommend that the Government investigate all cases of alleged reprisals, and hold perpetrators to account.’] [http://www.ishr.ch/news/china-un-committee-demands-respect-human-rights-activists-and-end-reprisals]
Two days earlier, 26 May, the NGO Chinese Human Rights Defenders reported that Chinese authorities have detained a top rights lawyer and questioned dozens of activists and family members of victims of the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement after they held a seminar to mark the sensitive 25th anniversary.
On14 May 2014 Amnesty International published a new campaign video on torture.It is specially interesting as a very short summary – in images – of the history of the anti-torture campaigns started by AI under the leadership of Martin Ennals more than 40 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
On 27 May RIA Novosti picked up the press release by Human Rights Watch calling for four prominent human rights defenders allegedly in custody of an armed opposition group in Syria to be immediately released. HRW together with 45 co-signing organizations states that irregular armed opposition groups in Syria are threatening and harassing journalists and human rights defenders.“Abductions of human rights defenders by armed groups in Syria are an assault on the very freedoms the armed opposition groups claim to be fighting for”. Almost six months a group of armed men kidnapped human rights defenders Razan Zeitouneh [or Zaitouneh], Wael Hamada, Samira Khalil, and Nazem Hammadi in a city outside Damascus, then controlled by a number of armed opposition groups, but there has been no information on the status or whereabouts of Zeitouneh and her colleagues, and no group has claimed responsibility for their abduction.
(Picture taken May 25 shows the domestic and foreign passports of Russian rights defender Andrei Mironov, reportedly killed near Ukrainian town of Slavyansk. AFP POOL-/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
“It’s hard for me to believe that Andrei Mironovis dead” writes Olivia Ward, Foreign Affairs Reporter of the Toronto Star on 25 May 2014. Indeed a terrible shock. I met him for the first time in 2004 when he accompanied the MEA Laureate Lida Yusupova of Memorial to the ceremony in Geneva. According to an Agence France- Presse report from Slavyansk, Ukraine, the veteran Russian human rights defender and sometime war zone fixer, used up the last of his nine lives on Sunday. He was acting as a translator for Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli, who was also killed. According to a French photographer who escaped with leg wounds, the two men were hit by shrapnel from mortar shells as government troops and pro-Russian separatists continued to battle for territory in eastern Ukraine.
Olivia Ward describes Andrei as a “slight, self-effacing man of 60, with a puckish sense of humour, he belied his frail appearance with an iron will to do good in the world. In 1986, that got him a year in a Soviet labour camp as an “anti Soviet dissident” – a time he used to channel his talent for languages, including French and Italian. Nor did he let up on government abuses after the fall of the Soviet Union. As a human rights campaigner linked with the venerable rights organization Memorial , he snapped at the heels of Boris Yeltsin’s and Vladimir Putin’s governments, especially during the two bloody wars when Russian troops battled Chechen separatist fighters…..“You don’t understand,” he rasped. “I have to go and witness what is happening. If I don’t, who will?”
“Andrei dodged so many bullets in his decades of battling impunity that it is hard to believe he is gone. It would be harder still if the truth were buried along with him” concludes Olivia Ward, who covered the former Soviet Union as bureau chief and correspondent from 1992 to 2002. For the full story see: Death in Ukraine: bitter end for Russian human rights hero | Toronto Star.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 