The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs published on 25 July 2025:
The Finnish OSCE Chairpersonship will organise a conference on 31 July 2025 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. The conference will pay tribute to the legacy of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki in 1975 and highlight the role of civil society in advancing OSCE’s principles and commitments. Helsinki+50 Fund will be launched as part of the Conference to support the OSCE’s operational capacity.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act signed in 1975, and its content is now more topical than ever before. The Final Act was a turning point for Europe’s security. As a result, 35 states – including those on the opposing sides of the Cold War – committed to following common principles that laid the foundation for the European security architecture…
The event at Finlandia Hall will be opened by Minister Valtonen, and High-Level Keynotes will be delivered by President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb, OSCE Secretary-General Feridun H. Sinirlioğlu and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy will speak at the conference via remote connection. UN Secretary-General António Guterres will send a video message.
“The Helsinki Principles are a reminder of what we can achieve through cooperation and trust – and what is at stake if we fail to defend them. Now, more than ever, these principles need their defenders,” Minister for Foreign Affairs Valtonen says.
The Helsinki+50 Fund will be launched as part of the Conference. The fund aims to enhance the channelling of voluntary funding to support work in line with the OSCE’s principles and commitments, and to strengthen the link between donors andthe OSCE.The fund will supplement OSCE’s budget, not replace it.
Josef Benedict and Rajavelu Karunanithi published a piece in the Diplomat of 18 July 2025 describing how from Hong Kong to India, governments are passing and weaponizing new laws to pursue and jail whoever speaks up for human rights.
Four years ago, on the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, plain clothes police arrested human rights lawyer and pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-tung outside her office in Hong Kong. Her alleged crime? Publishing two social media posts advertising a public vigil to remember the notorious crackdown in Tiananmen Square. At the time, Chow was the vice-chair of the now defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement of China, the main organizer of annual Tiananmen vigils…
Sadly, such repression is not unique to Hong Kong. Across Asia, authoritarian and democratic governments alike are passing and weaponizing new laws – in clear violation of international law and standards – to pursue and jail whoever speaks up for human rights. Today, on Nelson Mandela International Day, we call for the release of Chow Hang-tang, who is part of CIVICUS’ Stand As My Witness campaign, as well as other human rights defenders unjustly locked up in Asia around the world.
The CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks civic space conditions across the world, now rates Hong Kong’s civic space as “closed,” the worst possible ranking. Hundreds remain behind bars as police systematically use the new laws to arrest and prosecute people on trumped-up charges. Often, the process itself becomes the punishment as activists spend years in detention before they are even tried…
Meanwhile, Hong Kong authorities are trying to take their repression international, by offering bounties for activists-in-exile charged under the National Security Law and by arresting the father of a prominent U.S.-based activist, Anna Kwok.
..Hong Kong’s National Security Laws have become something of a model for other Asian governments looking to stifle dissent.
Look no further than India, often called the world’s largest democracy, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government resorts to similar laws to consolidate power and silence his critics. Dozens of activists have been jailed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a draconian anti-terror law. Under the UAPA’s provisions, activists remain in pre-trial detention for long periods and are denied bail, including human rights defender Khurram Parvez, who was arrested in November 2021. His trial has yet to start, four years on. [see also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/81468931-79AA-24FF-58F7-10351638AFE3]
Meanwhile, Cambodia’s Han Manet regime has used “incitement” laws as their weapon of choice to silence activists, journalists, and members of the opposition.
With legal repression spreading across Asia, the international community must do more to push back and stand with these brave activists. Foreign governments must not only speak out when activists are convicted, but step in much earlier when these human rights defenders are arrested. Diplomats should visit wrongly arrested activists in detention, monitor their trials, and engage with their families. Foreign governments must also use international platforms like the United Nations Human Rights Council and bilateral meetings to highlight their cases and call for their release.
Activists-in-exile also need support and assistance, especially when they face transnational repression. The recent G-7 Leaders’ Statement on Transnational Repression was a good start, but strong rhetoric must now turn into serious action. Failure to undertake such actions will see a further regression of democracy and repression of civic freedoms in Asia and elsewhere.
The Philippines recorded the highest number of alleged abductions involving human rights defenders (HRDs) across Asia from 2023 to 2024, according to a biennial report released on 19 July 2025 by the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia).
The country topped the list of 24 nations with 15 documented abduction cases, surpassing Bangladesh with nine, and both Afghanistan and Pakistan with seven each. The report accounted for at least 32 Filipino victims, though it did not specify how many remain missing.
These incidents were compiled through the Asian Human Rights Defenders Portal, a publicly accessible database maintained by Forum-Asia using verified reports from civil society, media, and UN sources. Only cases with clear identification of victims and a link to their human rights work are recorded.
One cited case involved indigenous activists Job David, Peter del Monte Jr., and Alia Encela, who were reportedly abducted by military forces in Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro in September 2023. The Philippine Army denied the allegations, asserting that the three were members of the New People’s Army captured during an operation and are currently detained. However, Forum-Asia noted that the case mirrored earlier incidents where so-called “Red-tagging” was used to justify human rights violations.
Red-tagging, the practice of labeling activists as communist rebels or terrorists, has long been criticized for exposing individuals to threats, violence, and in some cases, fatal attacks.
The report also revealed that abduction is only one of many repressive methods used to target HRDs. Judicial harassment emerged as the most widespread, with 868 cases across Asia. This includes arbitrary arrests, the use of oppressive laws, and denial of fair trials.
Threats, intimidation, and censorship were also rampant, totaling 376 incidents. The Philippines accounted for 41 of these, with 18 cases of vilification—all allegedly perpetrated or backed by state actors.
Environmental, indigenous, land, and community-based defenders were among the most targeted groups, with 60 harassment cases documented in the Philippines—second only to Indonesia. The country also ranked second in attacks on labor rights defenders, tallying 16 cases.
Sixteen activists completed the 2025 Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme in Geneva to strengthen their advocacy skills. During the programme, they called for reforms to the UN human rights system, and helped secure the renewal of the expert mandate on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Held from 9 to 20 June 2025, the on-site part of HRDAP25 took place during the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council. The programme blended online learning with face-to-face sessions in Geneva. Defenders explored UN human rights mechanisms such as the Human Rights Council, Special Procedures, Universal Periodic Review, and Treaty Bodies. They practiced advocacy techniques, developed strategic roadmaps, and engaged directly with mechanisms to push for real change at home.
It was intensive but very good. The platform is so user friendly, everyone can learn and take time to revisit, consult, see examples, and ask questions. The possibility to have online sessions and work in groups was very useful for me. Elena Petrovska, LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey, North Macedonia
Participants came from a wide range of regions and contexts, including Colombia, Guatemala, Nigeria, Indonesia, Tunisia, Lebanon, Nepal, India, Uganda, Cameroon, Syria, North Macedonia, Tibet and Sierra Leone. Their work focuses on LGBTIQ+ rights, environmental justice, transitional justice, gender equality, protection of migrants, business and human rights, and the protection of communities at risk.
Each day was filled with learning opportunities, advocacy and reflection. In April and May, the group enjoyed online training and coaching sessions which were then built upon with a packed in-person programme that gave participants the background preparation needed to engage with the various mechanisms and relevant stakeholders while in Geneva. They applied and practiced the knowledge and skills gained in a few different ways, which included: an NGO breakfast with the High Commissioner for Human Rights, where participants could ask very detailed and pertinent questions about the current situation; a brown bag lunch with experts from the Committee on Civil and Political Rights, where the group received first person tips on how to submit information and engage with Treaty Bodies; and meetings with UN Special Procedures (Business and human rights, Climate Change, Enforced Disappearances, Extreme Poverty) and their staff, were participants could start personal relationships with those experts and share their advocacy journey and plans.
Photo: ISHR
Defenders also participated in a powerful public side event about the reform of the UN human rights system. They shared lived experiences and challenges with over 30 States, calling for deeper access, stronger accountability, and genuine inclusion in the ongoing UN80 reform process. Laura Restrepo from Colombia reflected: ‘The UN must look inward and acknowledge its own colonial legacies — in who speaks, who decides, and whose knowledge counts. It must shift power toward grassroots and frontline communities.’
Throughout the programme, defenders stood up for key causes. Several participants joined the global campaign to #RenewIESOGI, advocating for the continuation of the UN mandate on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Their voices contributed to a successful outcome: the Human Rights Council renewed the mandate for three more years, reaffirming its importance as a tool to combat discrimination and protect LGBTIQ+ communities.
Photo: ISHR
The sense of care and community ran deep. HRDAP helped participants’ work grounded in the values of solidarity and justice, and built their confidence to keep advocating at all levels. HRDAP25 not only provided skills and relevant exposure but also created a space for collaboration and resilience. Speaking during the public side event on UN reform, Pooja Patel, ISHR’s Deputy Executive Director, reminded States: ‘Human rights defenders are not only on the front lines of crises, they are on the front lines of solutions.’
No-one will have missed the recent media hype surrounding the opposite candidacies of US President Trump and UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. This blog with its focus on human rights defenders and their awards would be amiss in not taking note, even if the Nobel Prize is foremost a peace prize not necessarly a human rights award. [see also my piece of 2012 https://global.comminit.com/content/nobel-prize-peace-not-necessarily-human-rights]
So, it is not excluded that the ‘making peace at any cost’ considerations will prevail, but my bet is that the Peace Prize Committee will be careful in ignoring the massive support from the world’s human rights community who have massively come out against the Trump administration’s sanctions against Albanese. Human rights should trump ‘peace’ on this occasion.
Nominations for a Nobel Peace Prize for Francesca Albanese are gathering steam. See the links below:
On 3 July 2025, the undersigned 22 organizations, expressed their deep concern over the increasing use of criminal law without due process guarantees, the harassment, the stigmatization, and the persecution by Salvadoran authorities against human rights defenders, community leaders, environmental activists, university professors, lawyers, journalists, and other voices critical of the government.
Prominent journalists, activists, and lawyers, such as former prosecutor and defenderRuth López and professor and constitutional lawyerEnrique Anaya, have been arbitrarily detained in retaliation for their work documenting and denouncing corruption, human rights violations, and attacks on the rule of law in El Salvador. Both are in prolonged pretrial detention and face spurious and unfounded charges of embezzlement and money laundering, respectively. These detentions send an intimidating message to the rest of civil society and further erode public confidence in the impartiality and independence of the Salvadoran judicial system.
The Salvadoran state has intensified its attacks on civil society and the independent press through coordinated strategies in the legal, institutional, and media spheres to silence their work. It is extremely alarming that they are being persecuted under a prolonged state of exception that suspends fundamental rights and freedoms, a measure whose objective is to control organized crime gangs.
In a context of high concentration of power, the Foreign Agents Law was enacted, imposing severe restrictions on non-governmental organizations, including onerous registration requirements, a 30 percent tax on foreign funding, and broad powers to suspend their activities based on vague allegations of political activity. Together with the hostile rhetoric from senior officials led by President Bukele, these measures aim to delegitimize independent voices and restrict the legitimate activities of civil society organizations.
The persecution of defenders such as Ruth López and Enrique Anaya reflects a broader strategy to dismantle civic oversight and the rule of law, and to criminalize criticism and the defense of human rights. Other examples of criminalization include community leaders from La Floresta and the El Bosque cooperative, among them Fidel Zavala, Alejandro Henríquez, and Ángel Pérez, who have been detained during peaceful protests over land and evictions.
It is important to note that, throughout Nayib Bukele’s administration, dozens of human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, former public officials, members of the political opposition, and businesspeople have been forced into exile outside the country. This trend, which is worrying in itself, has significantly increased in the last month, reflecting a growing climate of repression and persecution that severely restricts civic and democratic space in El Salvador.
The repression of civic space in El Salvador is taking place within a broader context of erosion of democratic institutions and the rule of law. As a result of the state of exception, more than 85,000 people have been detained without respect for basic due process guarantees, including the presumption of innocence and access to a fair and impartial trial, and in inhumane conditions of deprivation of liberty. Local organizations have documented at least 400 deaths of people in custody since the beginning of the exception regime.
We therefore call on the Salvadoran State to:
Immediately release lawyers Ruth López and Enrique Anaya, as well as all human rights defenders and community leaders who have been arbitrarily detained for political reasons; and respect due process guarantees, including the right to a public trial, in any proceedings against them.
Refrain from using pretrial detention as a form of advance punishment against human rights defenders and others detained for political reasons, in clear violation of due process guarantees and international human rights standards.
Protect human rights defenders from reprisals, harassment, torture, and threats, and ensure accountability for abuses committed.
Restore conditions that allow freedom of expression, association, and assembly, and harmonize national laws with El Salvador’s international obligations, including by repealing the Foreign Agents Law.
End the misuse and abuse of emergency measures and, in all cases, guarantee the right to a fair trial.
We also call on the international community, including the Organization of American States and the United Nations, to:
Urge the government of El Salvador to immediately cease the instrumentalization of the criminal justice system against human rights defenders or those who express criticism of the government.
Take urgent action, through diplomatic channels, assistance, and conditional cooperation, among other means, to protect civic space, the rule of law, democracy, and human rights in El Salvador.
Abogadas y Abogados para la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos (México)
Alianza Regional por la Libre Expresión e Información
Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos -APRODEH, Perú
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS)
Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos “Segundo Montes Mozo SJ” (CSMM) / Ecuador
Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional (CEJIL)
Consultora Solidaria (Mexico)
Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento – CODHES (Colombia).
Convergencia por los Derechos Humanos (CDH), Guatemala
Comité de Familiares de Víctimas de los Sucesos de Febrero y Marzo de 1989 (COFAVIC), Venezuela.
Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF)
Equipo de Reflexión, Investigación y Comunicación (ERIC-SJ). Honduras
Global Strategic Litigation Council for Refugee Rights
Instituto de Defensa Legal (IDL), Peru
Latin America Working Group (LAWG)
Movimiento Autónomo de Mujeres
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Synergía, iniciativas para los derechos humanos
Tejiendo Redes Infancia en América Latina y el Caribe
On 1 July 2025 DAWN issued a response to reports of a new Israeli directive to ban employees of DAWN, along with other respected human rights and legal advocacy organizations including Al-Haq Europe, Law for Palestine, and Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR), from entering Israel, aiming to punish and suppress accountability efforts for war crimes, apartheid, and genocide, DAWN issues the following:
“Israel is now banning human rights organizations from even entering the country to expose and seek accountability for the atrocities and crimes it is committing,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director. “Israel’s ban against organizations seeking accountability for IDF abuses is only the latest indication of its growing isolation in the international community.”
“Israel’s decision to blacklist DAWN is a desperate attempt to block scrutiny of its crimes against the Palestinian people,” said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at DAWN. “We will not be intimidated by authoritarian tactics and will continue our work to expose Israel’s violations of international law until there is full accountability and justice.”
“It’s hard to imagine greater validation of DAWN’s work to hold accountable Israeli officials and soldiers than being banned from entering the country specifically because of that work,” said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director for Israel-Palestine at DAWN. “This is nevertheless a worrying harbinger of even greater Israeli repression of human rights defenders, be they Palestinian, Israeli, or American.”
Angélique is a Malagasy environmental and community rights defender who founded the Razany Vohibola Association in 2016. She represents over 3,000 villagers from four communities near the Vohibola Forest and leads efforts to preserve one of Madagascar’s last remaining primary forests.
Under her leadership, and in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment, villagers have formed patrols to monitor and protect the forest against illegal logging, poaching, and the growing impacts of climate change. Angélique and her community face ongoing threats, including direct intimidation and violence from the authorities. One of her colleagues, patrol officer Mick, was killed for speaking out against illegal land grabbing, yet his death remains unpunished by local authorities.
Despite these grave risks, Angélique continues to advocate for justice and environmental protection. She also calls for structural change, urging the Malagasy government to pass a law that protects human rights defenders and holds public officials accountable.
There is currently no law to protect human rights defenders in Madagascar. We need this law to pass. The army and the gendarmes must be trained to understand who we are so they can become our allies.
‘What we need first is peace. (…) The international community, the UN, has the ability to end what’s happening in eastern RDC – what is happening today in the East is truly alarming.’
Judith Maroy is a Congolese journalist and human rights defender from Bukavu, in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Judith began her advocacy work through LUCHA, a youth-led citizen movement demanding social justice, democratic governance, and equality. She later became a journalist with La Prunelle RDC and co-founded a local organisation advocating for the rights of women, youth, and Indigenous communities.
She is calling for a just, peaceful Congo where young people have opportunities, women’s voices are heard, and no one is displaced in their own country.
On 30 June 2025, ISHR launched its updated Reprisals Handbook in four languages (English, Simplified Chinese, Uyghur and Tibetan), an essential resource for all stakeholders concerned about intimidation and reprisals against those cooperating with international or regional human rights systems.
The UN as well as regional human rights bodies are often the last space where human rights defenders, rights holders, victims and witnesses can denounce violations and abuses. They must be free and safe to cooperate with and give evidence and testimony to these human rights bodies. They must be protected against any form of intimidation or reprisal in association with this engagement.
This handbook is aimed first and foremost at human rights defenders who engage with regional and international human rights systems. The focus is in particular on the United Nations (UN) human rights system, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The handbook highlights the risks that defenders can face from interacting with those systems, and suggests ways in which defenders can leverage the weight of the UN and regional human rights mechanisms to provide some degree of protection against those risks. In doing so, it does not aim to provide a fully comprehensive protection solution. In all cases, defenders should consider which option might be best, based on the context and particulars of a case.
ISHR also aims at diversifying the formats available for defenders to access relevant content, including by publishing a Reprisals Toolkit and a video in the languages mentioned above.
The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) seeks to ensure that national, international and regional human rights systems have the policies, mechanisms and protocols in place to prevent reprisals and ensure accountability where they occur. ISHR also brings cases of alleged intimidation and reprisals to the attention of relevant officials to press for effective preventative measures and responses, including through our #EndReprisals campaigns. ISHR also maintains the #EndReprisals database, which documents cases of reprisals reported by the UN Secretary-General.
For more information on how to use the UN bodies and mechanisms referred to throughout this handbook, visit the ISHR Academy, which provides free courses in English, Spanish and French.
