International Human Rights Day is an occasion for many organizations to publish statements on human rights. For those who have not enough time to go through all of them, here a selection of four main statements that focus on human rights defenders: Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for the 'human rights' Category
Human Rights Day 2015: human rights defenders are main topic
December 10, 2015One of Azerbaijan’s key human rights defenders, Leyla Yunus, freed – now the others
December 10, 2015
Many NGOs have welcomed as a good Human Rights Day present the announcement of the freeing of Leyla Yunus in Azerbaijan. Here the views of the Deputy Director, Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, Rachel Denber:
Emma Bolshia helps Bolivian victims recover from torture and its second trauma, silence
December 9, 2015In the series “10 December, 10 Defenders” OMCT published on 4 December 2015 the profile of Emma Bolshia Bravo who helps Bolivian victims recover from torture and its second trauma, silence.
“Considering the magnitude of the psychological effects on the victim, the fear it generates within society, and the traumas transmitted to the following generations, torture causes irreparable damage,” says Emma Bolshia Bravo. “That’s why prevention of torture is crucial.” Read the rest of this entry »
Thailand returns recognized refugees to China (and falsely claims they did not know about their status)
December 8, 2015Anneliese Mcauliffe in Al Jazeera on 6 December 2015 reported that two Chinese human rights defenders recognised as UN refugees were forcibly deported from Thailand to China last month and have appeared on Chinese state-run television and confessed to human-trafficking offenses. CCTV reported that Jiang Yefei was arrested for “assisting others to illegally cross the national border”, and Dong Guangping was charged with using a trafficking network to flee China while awaiting trial on sedition charges. It was the first time the two men were seen since being taken from a detention centre in the Thai capital Bangkok in November and deported to China.
Norbert Fanou-Ako protects children in Benin’s cycle of violence
December 8, 2015In the series “10 December, 10 Defenders” [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/10-december-10-defenders-profiles-of-human-rights-defenders-against-torture/]the OMCT publishes today the case of “Benin: Meet Norbert: Better protecting children to break Benin’s cycle of violence“. “Violence is the first inheritance of a child born within a violent family,” says Norbert Fanou-Ako. As director of a non-governmental organization called Solidarity for Children in Africa and the World (ESAM) he is trying to break Benin’s vicious cycle of violence. The violence deeply engrained in this country starts at home and in school with commonplace whipping, caning, slapping and other uses of ill-treatment against children and then extends to regular beatings to force confessions out of suspected juvenile delinquents at police stations. Read the rest of this entry »
Salah Abu Shazam keeps hope for redress amid civil war in Libya
December 7, 2015“Torture is certainly practised in all societies, but the problem in Libya is the frequency of its occurrence,” explains Salah Abu Khazam, who founded and heads the Libyan Network for Legal Aid. “That’s because the Government is only concerned with its own security.” This comes from OMCT’s profile “Libya: Meet Salah: Keeping hope for redress in the absence of a State, amid a civil war“.
Salah doesn’t have it easy. He works in a country with two governments, non-existent police force, a defunct judicial system and no rule of law, where human rights defenders like him, prime targets of scores of armed groups, regularly get kidnapped or killed. Two volunteer human rights lawyers working for his organization were directly threatened, and chances are he himself is on the black list for promoting democratic ideals, gender equality, or any value opposed to those upheld by Islamist armed groups. Yet, he still gets up every morning thinking that Libya is going to become a better place: “The day will come when the culprits will be held accountable for their crimes and victims will receive reparation,”.
While most of his peers are in exile, Salah, 31, holds onto his country. He is proud to say he has rescued two people from death under torture, and a third one from a death sentence for having stolen a military vehicle. He is convinced no one can enjoy any wellbeing or lead a proper life while such violations are tolerated by the social and political system, until the universal values of human rights are enforced in Libya. One has to say, though, that the light at the end of the tunnel still seems very far at this stage.
After the 2011 attacks and uprising that led to the downfall of the Qadhafi regime after 24 years of dictatorship, many Libyan intellectuals and lawyers such as Salah engaged in the defence of human rights. With the backing of international NGOs including OMCT, Amnesty International, and the Red Cross a number of local networks and civil society organizations sprung up to better protect citizens from routine human rights violations. Yet this hopeful period of building up democratic institutions and restoring civil rights was short-lived as another wave of widespread violence overtook the country, home to the world’s 10th-largest oil-reserves, as numerous belligerents fuelled political, racial, ethnic, religious and interregional conflicts.
The country has been divided since June 2014, when a number of factions refused to accept the legislative election results and the establishment of a new Parliament, leaving Libya with two Governments: one recognized by the international community based in al-Bayda, and another loyal to the former General National Congress based in Tripoli. To make things worse, many regions have ties to Islamist groups while other areas are self-governing, and rival armed groups have spread across the territory, creating additional lines of fracture.
The result was complete chaos, with a collapse of state institutions and deteriorating economic, social and health conditions, which forced the European Union and United Nations Support Mission to Libya to leave the country. The escalation of violence since in August 2014 – when Islamist militias took over Tripoli and its civilian airport – was so ferocious that the UN Security Council called for the application of sanctions against violators of humanitarian and human rights law. The violence also led to at least 400,000 internally displaced Libyans and to hundreds of thousands migrant workers fleeing the country.
It is in this improbable context that Salah’s organization, founded in 2014 with OMCT’s help, has documented 90 torture cases, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and abuses. It has filed 15 complaints with local courts for torture, detention and extra-judiciary executions. It is working with other partners on how to use international mechanisms to seek redress for victims of torture in the face of an incompetent national judicial system. Society must free itself from passivity and dependence and participate collectively to demand the respect of its rights,” explains Salah.
– By Lori Brumat in Geneva
Vilma Núñez de Escorcia, 77, still not ready to stop fighting against torture in Nicaragua
December 7, 2015In the series Human Rights Defenders against Torture, OMCT published on 7 December “Nicaragua: Meet Vilma: Still not ready to stop fighting against torture in Nicaragua”. Vilma Núñez de Escorcia , 77, has been heading the Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (CENIDH) for the past quarter of a century, assisting civil society’s underprivileged populations and building the capacity to protect and promote human rights. The first female magistrate in Nicaragua appointed Vice-President of the Supreme Court from 1979 to 1987, Vilma pegs her commitment to fighting for justice to the fact that she was born outside marriage - a terrible thing at that time, which meant that she was barred from the best religious secondary school and could not inherit as much as each of her “legitimate” siblings. She is now thankful for what she then considered as a “misfortune” as it made her realize how the legal system treated people differently. This realization made her want to train as a lawyer specializing in human rights and penal law. “I didn’t’ want anyone else to suffer discrimination so I chose to become a lawyer, to understand and stop it,” she explains.
She remembers her first encounter with torture Read the rest of this entry »
Short report by EEAS on the 17th EU-NGO Human Rights Forum, 3-4 December 2015
December 5, 2015The 17th EU-NGO Human Rights Forum took place in Brussels on 3 and 4 December 2015, bringing together hundreds of civil society organisations from across the globe, representatives from international and regional human rights mechanisms and from the EU institutions and Member States. The Forum is a joint venture between the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Commission, and the Human Rights & Democracy Network [http://www.hrdn.eu/index.php?menu_selected=122&language=US&sub_menu_selected=768].
The overarching theme for this year’s Forum is Protecting and Promoting Civil society Space. In her address to the Forum, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, stated: I believe that the civil society has a crucial role to play in any policy and in our foreign policy. It is not only a key player, but a main driver for change in all societies, in terms of democracy, good governance, resilience, cohesion, promotion of fundamental human rights. Freedom of expression is one of the most powerful weapons against radicalisation and terrorism. To better protect our citizens we need above all to build strong democratic institutions and a healthy democratic dialogue. I am very often asked whether security should not be the main focus, more than human rights. But there is no security without human rights”.
She also called for renewed efforts to fight attempts to control the work of civil society in many countries around the world: “During the last years, the space for civil society has shrunk in many countries”. “These trends demand a redoubling of our efforts in the human rights sphere. The European Union, the institutions and myself personally, will do all we can to protect civil society organisations fighting for human rights and protect human rights defender on an individual basis.”
The theme of this year’s NGO Forum – Protecting and Promoting Civil Society Space – reflects the EU’s strong commitment to put Freedom of Association and Freedom of Expression at the heart of the EU’s human rights policy as essential foundations for democracy, rule of law, peace, stability, sustainable inclusive development and participation in public affairs.
This year’s event saw contributions from the current UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Association, Maina Kiai; the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders, Michel Forst; Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights, MEP Barbara Lochbihler; the Secretary General of the Community of Democracies, Amb. Maria Leissner; Sakharov Prize recipient Memorial, represented by Oleg Orlov; alongside many representatives from civil society, Human Rights Defenders, NGOs, the EU Institutions and many representatives from EU member states.
The forum looked at the recent EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders and the EU Guidelines on Freedom of Expression, as key tools enabling the EU to promote and protect freedom of opinion and expression and to counter the clear and disturbing trend over the last few years towards an increasingly restricted space for independent civil society as well as outright threats, intimidation and violence that civil society organisations and representatives, journalists, media actors and other individuals face in many countries across the world because of the exercise of their rights.
Given the scale of the problem and its constantly changing manifestations, urgent action is required not just to understand the scale and evolving nature of the threats, but particularly to identify ways to achieve effective and concerted policy responses and counter actions.
The EU is committed, as indicated in the EU strategy on human rights and democracy and its Action Plan (2015-2019), to address threats to civil society space, through actions that support laws and policies to protect human rights defenders; report on and counter threats to civil society space; and oppose unjustified restrictions to freedoms of assembly and association.
Engagement with civil society is essential for the ongoing work the EU is undertaking to help realise human rights, indivisible and universal for all people. The Forum discussions provided a significant opportunity for an interactive dialogue among representatives from the EU member states, the European Institutions (European Parliament, Council, European External Action Service, European Commission) and global civil society and human rights defenders from all over the world, working on the promotion and protection of human rights. The outcome of the Forum will be an important stepping stone for ensuring effective EU action and future policy developments in this field.
Andrew Clapham: master and futurologist of human rights
December 4, 2015
At the occasion of the publication of the second (revised and updated) edition of Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Clapham, Professor of Public International Law (Oxford University Press), the Graduate Institute interviewed him, on 2 December, about the climate and long-term outlook for human rights. Andrew Clapham will be teaching a Spring 2016 course on The International Framework for the Protection of Human Rights as part of the Graduate Institute’s Master and PhD programmes in International Law. The book has an accompanying website which links to the main texts discussed.
How should we understand the concept of “human rights”?
Andrew Clapham: I have heard serious people in Geneva refer to human rights as ‘aspirations’ and I have heard it said that human rights are a ‘soft subject’. Both these misconceptions should be knocked on their heads. Human rights belong to all individuals and not to some future utopia. If those rights are violated, it represents a violation of the law, not the disruption of a dream. Human rights treaties and customary law are as ‘hard’ as trade or investment law. There are courts and prosecutors. Those convicted of genocide or torture go to prison. States found in violation of human right pay out millions in compensation. Of course there are violations of the law but that does not make the rights themselves imaginary.
Where are the main failures in the protection of human rights in 2015, and what can be done about them?
Clearly there are egregious violations of human rights today. The right to life is being viciously violated in Syria; torture remains widespread in multiple countries; discrimination is everywhere; rights to food, education, health care and adequate housing are being denied around the world; but the human rights framework is used to frame the complaints about such issues and to design policies which prevent future violations. The failure to end the suffering in Syria sits with leaders who have the capacity to change things. The enforcement of human rights can play a role in prosecuting those who have committed crimes under human rights law and ensuring that everyone has the right to seek asylum. The human rights framework can also be used to try to build a more stable and respectful society after the conflict
When is it justifiable for states to curtail or limit human rights?
Some rights, such as the right not to be tortured or the right not to be held in slavery can never be curtailed or limited; other rights related, say, to freedom of expression may have to be limited to protect the rights of others. Inciting racial violence is not protected by an absolute right to freedom of expression. Today, it is obvious that the right to privacy in one’s email correspondence is not absolute; it may have to be limited to protect others from threats to their lives through terrorist attacks. The discussion is over what procedures are necessary to limit such a right; should it be authorized by a judge, by the police, by a government minister?
Will we have a very different conception of human rights in 2065?
I doubt that any of the rights now included in the international texts will disappear, but their scope may be reduced or expanded. For example, there may be different expectations of privacy in 2065 – the right to be forgotten on the internet is only just emerging. In recent years we have seen new catalogues of rights for persons with disabilities and for indigenous peoples. I am confident that new rights for the elderly will be developed by 2065, and there will surely be developments along the lines of the right to a healthy environment. I suppose that eventually, some of the rights reasoning will be applied to sentient animals and the concept of animal rights will be more commonplace and less ‘aspirational’, but that is perhaps still quite a long way away.
International cooperative consortium ‘Protect the Defenders’ launched on 2 December
December 4, 2015
On 2 December 2015 a Consortium of organizations was launched in Brussels dedicated to coordinating support for the security and protection of human rights defenders under threat. The Consortium, called “Protect the Defenders,” is comprised of 12 organizations that work collectively to implement the EU Mechanism for Human Right Defenders.
The partners include Frontline Defenders (leader of the Consortium), FIDH, OMCT, Forum-ASIA, the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP), ESCR-net, Euro-Mediterranean Foundation of Support to Human Rights Defenders (EMHRF), International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), Peace Brigades International, Protection International, Reporters without Borders and the Urgent Action Fund for Women.
Source: Protecting the Defenders through enhanced international collaboration | ESCR-Net
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 