The next thematic report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, to the General Assembly in October 2013 will focus on the links between large-scale development projects and a safe and enabling
environment for human rights defenders, with a particular emphasis on the challenges of the human rights-based approach to development and the role of human rights defenders. This is indeed – as also shown in this blog – a growing area of concern with many HRDs working on e.g. land grabbing, forced evictions, environmental issues or the protection of indigenous minorities under constant threats and many having been killed .
To this end, the Special Rapporteur is requesting Member States, national human rights institutions, non-governmental organizations and regional human rights mechanisms to answer a questionnaire. If you would like to contribute to this exercise, kindly complete the questionnaire and send it to defenders@ohchr.org. Deadline: 24 June 2013!. Should you have any question, please send an e-mail to the same address. Questionnaire to be found via Questionnaire on large-scale development.
On 10 June 2013 the Gulf Centre for Human Rights Centre (GCHR) issued a report alleging a widespread pattern of attacks on human rights defenders and journalists in Yemen.
Since Yemen has been engaged in a process of transition to full democracy, the security services have intimidated journalists, allowed the judicial system to be used as a means of attack against them, and failed to investigate violence against human rights defenders. The GCHR has documented multiple cases of attacks, some by the state security forces, but with many being perpetrated by non-state actors. The GCHR calls for an end to the harassment.
Prior to the overwhelmingly peaceful revolution in 2011, attacks were commonplace but easily identified as emanating from the oppressive government of former President Saleh, says the GCHR report. The present pattern of attacks is more unpredictable and their source much harder to identify. “This gives rise to the requirement of even greater vigilance by the authorities to investigate, prevent and punish this wrongdoing, yet the authorities in Yemen have failed to act to investigate the widespread pattern of attacks in the transitional period,” comments GCHR Advisory Board member Melanie Gingell, a British lawyer who carried out a mission to Yemen in April.
– Mohamed Al-Absi is a blogger and journalist who specialises in publishing the documents leaked to him from government departments about corrupt practices. He is now on trial on defamation charges and faces many years in jail if convicted. He has exposed corruption at the highest levels over the years and there are now well-founded concerns for his well-being should he be convicted.
– Judge Ahmed Saif Hashid, currently a member of parliament, has fought for social justice in Yemen but was recently the victim of a brutal beating by security forces when he joined a protest of injured people campaigning for their rights outside parliament. There has been no investigation of this attack.
– A Yemen based organisation, Freedom Foundation, has catalogued 109 attacks on journalists by mid-April 2013, including an attempt to bomb the offices of a newspaper, an attempt to assassinate a local journalist in the south of the country, shots fired at the car of a journalist working for the Times newspaper, and threats to cut out the tongue of a local newspaper editor.
– The journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye remains in prison following his arrest and conviction in relation to an article he wrote exposing the aftermath of an US cluster bomb attack on a suspected Al-Qaeda target, thereby discrediting the previous claim of responsibility for that attack by the government of former President Saleh.
Yesterday I referred to the difficulty of defining human rights defenders in relation to a Nigerian politician, and here comes another, maybe more difficult one:
As the United States Justice Department prepare charges against Edward Snowden, former federal government contractor who revealed the NSA’s secret surveillance program rights violation, as ABC News reported, Russia said Tuesday 11 June that it would consider a request from him for safe haven and The Guardian reported tuesday that Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says any appeal from whistleblower Edward Snowden for asylum will be looked at ‘according to facts,’
Aleksey Pushkov, chair of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, said Snowden is a “human rights activist.” Referring to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Pushkov said, “In this sense, Snowden — like Assange — is a human-rights activist.”
“I’m willing to sacrifice all that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people all around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,” Snowden himself told The Guardian.
The US State Department announces today, 12 June 2013, the winners of its annual human rights awards: The Human Rights Defenders Award is given to individuals or non-governmental organizations that have shown exceptional valor and leadership in advocating for the protection of human rights and democracy in the face of government repression: Syrian human rights activist Hanadi Zahlout organized peaceful protests in the beginning of the Syrian revolution and continues to work for a peaceful democratic transition. The second recipient of this award, Iraqi NGO Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, has fearlessly advocated for human rights and was critical in concrete achievements in the protection of female detainees, as well as taken on critical work on curriculum reform to promote religious freedom.
At the same time the State Department announced as the winner of the Diplomacy for Human Rights Award its Ambassador, John Tefft, in the Ukraine. And for the Human Rights and Democracy Achievement Award (which honors a U.S. Department of State employee who has implemented creative strategies to support human rights and democracy) Erin Webster-Main from the Embassy Rangoon, Burma.
In the series Storytellers, Deutsche Welle gives the floor to Tanya Lokshina of HRW who has worked for 15 years in of the most difficult regions: Russia itself and conflict-ridden volatile areas like Chechnya and Dagestan as well as South Ossetia.
At first glance, Tanya Lokshina may not be the kind of person you would expect to travel to some of Russia’s most dangerous areas on a regular basis. But Read the rest of this entry »
On 3 June 2013, an email was sent to Colonel Julián González, Chief of Police for Sucre, Colombia, informing him of a plan to kill human rights defender Juan David Díaz Chamorro, his wife Malena Martínez, and one other person closely linked to the family. Several other human rights defenders were copied in the email. Juan David Díaz Chamorro is the leader of the Sucre branch of the Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado – MOVICE (National Movement of Victims of State Crimes) and the son of Eudaldo Díaz, assassinated Mayor of El Roble, Sucre. Read the rest of this entry »
On 6 June 2013 five unknown assailants wielding hammers forced entry into the Harare offices of human rights organisation Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ). GALZ is an association founded in 1990 that advocates social tolerance for sexual minorities and the repeal of homophobic legislation in Zimbabwe. On the morning of the raid, the assailants gained entry by disguising one of their group as a mentally challenged person and driving in whilst this member threatened the security personnel at the gate with a hammer. Upon entry, the assailants forced all staff present into the Guard Room and locked them there whilst they ransacked the offices, gathering laptops, mobile phones and bags which contain sensitive information about the work of the organisation and individual members. It is believed that the incident was not a normal robbery, but an attack carried out under orders, as the assailants frequently made contact over the phone with an unknown person called ‘Machacha‘ from an unknown ‘security wing’. In a statement, GALZ said “GALZ is not taking this incident as a random act of attempted robbery but that of deliberate attack by the youth militia, acting on the orders of someone superior.” [President Robert Mugabe has in the past made some extremely homophobic comments]
Perhaps surprisingly but mercifully, the police arrived swiftly and arrested the assailants, who have now been taken for further questioning at Harare Central Police Station. No members of staff were injured during the raid, and most of the equipment which the assailants had gathered has been returned to GALZ.
Front Line Defenders welcomes the swift action of the Zimbabwean police, but remains concerned about the motives behind the raid, which are possibly related to the peaceful and legitimate work that GALZ carries out in defence of human rights, particularly LGBTI rights, in Zimbabwe.
Twenty Members of Congress are urging Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa to reconsider his decision to postpone indefinitely the visit of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, who has twice been denied access to the Kingdom Read the rest of this entry »
On 28 May 2013, the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan upheld the five-year prison sentence of human rights defender Roza Tuletaeva, Read the rest of this entry »
Roza Tuletaeva
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 