Archive for the 'Human Rights Defenders' Category
October 6, 2013
Foto: EPAFinally a tiny bit of good news from the Chinese front: After 2,5 years in jail the Chinese human rights defender Ni Yulan has been freed. In 2011 she won the Dutch Tulip for HRDs award. She has never been able to receive the award in person and even her daughter had not been allowed to leave the country for that purpose.
As reported by the ANP via Chinese mensenrechtenactiviste Ni weer vrij | nu.nl/buitenland | Het laatste nieuws het eerst op nu.nl.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Advocacy Organizations, China, forced evictions, harassment, Human Rights and Liberties, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Netherlands, Netherlands, Ni Yulan, prison, the Chinese human rights, Tulip award, woman human rights defender, Yulan
October 5, 2013
The 20th Ceremony of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders will take place on Tuesday 8 October and can be followed live on www.martinennalsaward.org as from 18h00 Central European (Geneva) time. The moment of the announcement of the laureate will be approximately 18:30.
As a reminder, the 3 Final Nominees are: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, MEA | 1 Comment »
Tags: broadcast, Chechnya, City of Geneva, Egypt, Final Nominees for the Martin Ennals Award 2013, Geneva, Haiti, human rights, human rights abuses, human rights activists, human rights awards, international community, internet, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Joint Mobile Group, Mario Joseph, Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, MEA, MEA ceremony, media, Micheline Calmy Rey, Mona Seif, Russia, streaming
October 5, 2013
14 September 2013 marked three years since renowned human rights defender David Ravelo Crespo, member of the director’s board of the Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights (CREDHOS) based in the city of Barrancabermeja, was detained. Over NGOs reiterated on that occasion their concerns regarding a series of irregularities that were reported throughout the proceedings which resulted in his conviction and sentencing to 220 months in prison. Reiterating their respect for the independence of the judiciary in Colombia, the NGO statement lists a series of irregularities (see statement in full). The NGOs stress that David Ravelo Crespo is an internationally renowned human rights defender. He has won several awards such as the San Pedro Claver Award from the Diocese of Barrancabermeja in 2009; was one of the finalists for the 2013 Front Line Defenders Award fand has been nominated for the National Human Rights Defenders Awards in Colombia . His NGO was nominated for the 2013 Human Rights Award for the city of Weimar (Germany).
Two weeks later Front Line reports that human rights defender and campesina leader Adelinda Gómez Gaviria was killed in Almaguer, Cauca region. Adelinda Gómez Gaviria worked with the Comité de Integración del Macizo Colombiano – CIMA. She played an active role in the Mining and Environmental Forum in Almaguer, which has 1,500 indigenous and farming members. On 30 September as Adelinda Gómez Gaviria was returning home after a meeting, she and her 16 year-old son were approached and shot at by two unidentified men. Adelinda Gómez Gaviria suffered five bullet wounds and was killed, whilst her son is in a critical state in the Clínica La Estancia in Popayán city. One month prior to her killing Adelinda Gómez Gaviria had received a threatening telephone call from strangers who warned her to: “Stop messing around with this miners’ thing. It’s risky and it’ll get you killed.” The Red por la Vida y los Derechos Humanos del Cauca (Cauca Network for Life and Human Rights) has registered the murders of fourteen women human rights defenders in Cauca so far this year, primarily from rural areas of Cauca. Twelve death threats against human rights defenders have been reported, with five of those against women.
Colombia: On the third anniversary of the detention of renowned Colombian human rights defender David Ravelo Crespo, International organisations express concern / September 13, 2013 / Urgent Interventions / Human rights defenders / OMCT.
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Adelinda Gómez Gaviria, Barrancabermeja, campesinos, Civil society, Colombia, David Ravelo Crespo, due process, environmental issues, fair trial, Front Line Defenders, Germany, Human right, human rights awards, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, killing, Mining, Non-governmental organization, Ravelo Crespo, social and economic rights, World Organisation Against Torture
October 4, 2013
Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou are continuing to hold human rights lawyer Yang Maodong, better known as Guo Feixiong, without criminal activists said on 3 October. He was criminally detained on 8 August on charges of “incitement to disturb public order,” after being involved in anti-censorship and anti-corruption protests. “The authorities have made one arrest after the other in recent months, and this is still going on,” said Beijing-based fellow activist and poet Wang Zang, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: arbitrary arrest, Beijing, Cao Shunli, China, Chinese Communist Party, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Front Line (NGO), Guangzhou, Guo Feixiong, human rights, Human Rights Campaign in China, illegal detention, Nuowei Senlin, repression, United Nations Human Rights Council, UPR, Wang Zang
October 4, 2013
Looking back at the 24th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council which came to an end last Friday, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies [CIHRS] is disappointed to see how timid the Council becomes when dealing with human rights in the Arab region. Indeed, the people of Syria, Sudan, Bahrain, Egypt, Palestine, and Yemen need all the support they can get to move their countries towards political stability and the rule of law. The Council should be a driving force in confronting cases of human rights violations and making recommendations to address them.
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Tags: Arab region, Bahrain, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, CIHRS, Civil society, Council, Egypt, foreign funding, Human right, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, human rights mechanisms, human rights violations, International Criminal Court, Non-governmental organization, reprisals, retaliation, Sudan, Syria, UN Resolution, UN Special Rapporteur, United Nations Human Rights Council, Yemen
October 3, 2013
On the morning of 19 September 2013, a group of unidentified women threatened and harassed the organisers of human rights film festival “Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan” (One World Kyrgyzstan) demanding that the documentary about imprisoned human rights defender Azimjan Askarov – produced by Freedom House –should not be projected. The film festival opened in Bishkek on 18 September 2013. The annual film festival is organised by human rights group Bir-Duino Kyrzystan, led by human rights defender Ms Tolekan Ismailova, the director of Human Rights Centre ‘Citizens Against Corruption’.
Azimjan Askarov is a human rights defender who spent 25 years documenting human rights abuses in Kyrgyzstan until his arrest in 2010. He is currently serving a life sentence after an unfair trial during which he was beaten in detention and denied access to his lawyer. The film festival organisers do not share the opinion of some politicians that he film could provoke inter-ethnic clashes
[On 28 September 2012, at previous festival edition, the organisers were banned from screening a documentary on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Islamic world, after a complaint was lodged by the Prosecutor’s Office, which considered the film to be “extremist, inciting religious hatred and aimed at dishonouring Muslims”. Following this decision, Tolekan Ismailova was targeted with a defamation campaign in the media and the Human Rights Centre ‘Citizens Against Corruption’ received threats. Front Line Defenders issued an urgent appeal on this case on 19 October 2012 http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/20249, and an update on 4 December 2012 http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/21003%5D
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Tags: Azimjan Askarov, Azimzhan Askarov, Bishkek, documentary, films, Freedom House, freedom of expression, Front Line Defenders, Human right, Human Rights Centre 'Citizens Against Corruption, human rights def, Human rights defender, human rights film festival, human rights film festivals, Kyrgyzstan, LGBT, One World Kyrgyzstan, Tolekan Ismailova
October 3, 2013
The Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in Bangladesh, a member of the Law Commission, and several rights activists and academics said on Saturday 28 september that the state should not treat human rights defenders as its enemy. They also expressed concern over the use of several laws against human rights defenders Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Advocacy Organizations, Bangladesh, Human right, human rights, Human Rights and Liberties, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, Law Commission, Mizanur Rahman, National Human Rights Commission, national human rights institutions, protection, repression, Shah Alam, United Nations
October 3, 2013
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), reports on 2 October 2013 on the ongoing judicial proceedings against the Anti-Discrimination Centre “Memorial” (ADC Memorial), which has now become the first NGO in Russia facing both administrative and civil proceedings for the same “offence” on the basis of the law on so-called “foreign agents”. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in FIDH, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OMCT | 1 Comment »
Tags: ADC Memorial, administrative rules, FIDH, Foreign agent, foreign funding, Gerald Staberock, Human Rights Defenders, International Federation for Human Rights, judicial harassment, Karim Lahidji, Memorial, Non-governmental organization, Observatory for the Protection of HRDs, OMCT, persecution, Prosecutor, Russia, United Nations, World Organisation Against Torture
October 2, 2013
In the context of reprisals here is a report from Panorama concerning Azerbaijan, admittedly from an Armenian news source: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Armenia, Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan, elections, Human right, Human Rights and Liberties, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, OSCE, Panorama, reprisals, September 2013, threats, Turkey, Vasif Talibov
October 1, 2013
On 27 September 2013, Karaganda’s regional court of Karaganda confirmed the decision of the Balkhash Court to approve the forced psychiatric confinement of human rights defender and lawyer Zinaida Mukhortova on which this blog reported earlier. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: forced psychiatric treatment, Front Line Defenders, human rights, Human Rights and Liberties, Human rights defender, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, lawyer, psychiatric confinement, Psychiatry, woman human rights defender, Zinaida Mukhortova
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 