The document goes on to link the human rights defender to a number of recent violent clashes between the military and local populations in which members of the military were injured, and implies that Claudia Samayoa and others were responsible for these events through “incitement”. The last part of the document is a direct call on state authorities and the armed forces alike to ensure that all those it deems complicit in “political trials” against the military be held responsible and forced to pay for having attempted to change history. During the week of 12 November 2012, both Claudia Samayoa and a member of the Human Rights office of the Archbishop of Guatemala received warnings of an attack being prepared on their lives. Threats have been issued against UDEFEGUA in the past and on one occasion in February 2010, Claudia Samayoa’s car was tampered with in an attempt to cause an accident. Front Line Defenders issued an urgent appeal on the threats against the organisation on 10 March 2010 . As a result of the threats, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights considered it necessary to provide Claudia Samayoa and other members of UDEFEGUA with protection measures.
Archive for the 'human rights' Category
Guatemalan human rights defender Claudia Samayoa threatened
November 21, 2012The ‘Kuchu” Chronicles: a must see
November 17, 2012The Economist in its print edition of Nov 10th 2012 carries an interesting review of a new documentary on David Kato (pictured here with caption: “His death was not in vain”
In 2009 David Bahati, a backbench member of Parliament in deeply conservative Uganda, drew up a bill that proposed the death penalty for HIV-positive gay men and prison for anyone failing to turn in homosexuals. His proposals have been watered down, but not before prompting a surge in the homophobia and vigilantism that lie at the heart of an affecting new documentary, “Call Me Kuchu”.When the film begins, a local tabloid newspaper, Rolling Stone, has printed the names and addresses of 100 kuchus (gay and transgender people) under such headlines as “Homo terror! We name and shame top gays in the city”. It is here that the viewer first meets David Kato (pictured), a sweet but resilient activist and Uganda’s first openly gay man. He is suing the newspaper. “If we keep on hiding,” he says, “they will say we’re not here.” Kato is joined by fellow kuchus: Stosh, who endured a “corrective” rape, and Naome, his best friend. Theirs is the human story behind the headlines. Meanwhile, the smarmy newspaper editor is almost unwatchable in his eagerness to harness the growing bigotry.
In exploring how much of this debate has been driven by religious leaders, the film-makers, Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, maintain a careful balance: footage of a visiting American evangelical group battling the “homosexual agenda” is interspersed with that of a staunch gay-rights supporter, a controversial Ugandan bishop, Christopher Senyonjo. Ubiquitous billboards quoting the Bible appear alternately ominous and benign. But it is Kato’s brutal murder, a year after the film started being made, that breaks the mood of polite even-handedness. Officially, his death is recorded as a burglary gone wrong. No one really believes that.
“Call Me Kuchu” is too raw and urgent to be called artful film-making. But its message rings loud and clear. Life for gay people in Uganda—as in much of Africa—is not just dangerous; it is deadly.
In the film on Kasha (MEA laureate 2011: http://www.martinennalsaward.org) there are also moving images of Kasha visiting David’s mother and his grave.
Related articles
- Hamptons Film Fest: Revelatory ‘Call Me Kuchu’ Explores Violent Persecution of Uganda’s LGBTs (hollywood.com)
- Call Me Kuchu (2012) Documentary Trailer (phdavies.wordpress.com)
UAE should do more than donate money to earn a seat on the Human Rights Council
November 17, 2012
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The United Arab Emirates should swiftly end the arbitrary detention and harassment of its critics in line with its obligations as a recently elected member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, say a number of NGOs In an open letter to UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Al Nahyan, Human Rights Watch, the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and the West African Human Rights Defenders Network urge the UAE to make reforms in the following key areas.
- Cease arbitrary detentions and respect the right to fair trial
- Respect the right to freedom of expression and opinion
- End the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in detention
- Implement key recommendations of treaty bodies
- Respect the fundamental rights of migrant workers and stateless.
The UAE secured its position on the Human Rights Council on November 12, 2012, after standing unopposed for one of the five vacant seats reserved for Asian states. The UAE’s election to the council coincides with a rapidly deteriorating human rights situation domestically, which led to the European Parliament expressing “great concern” in a resolution adopted on October 26. “Now that the UAE has been elected to the Human Rights Council, it’s high time for real improvements in the human rights situation in the country,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The UAE should mark its election by ending arbitrary detention of 63 political detainees and taking steps to protect the rights of migrant workers.”
Indeed it is good that the NGOs remind the UAE’s rulers that a commitment to human rights entails a commitment to take concrete steps, legislative and otherwise, to uphold the principles and standards of human rights law. These steps should clearly be more than the donations recently made (reported on 16 November) to the United Nations including:
– $10,000 for the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture;
– $30,000 for the United Nations Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of slavery; and….
– $50,000 for the Trust Fund to Support the Activities of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights!
Related articles
- UAE: Make Good on Human Rights Commitments (hrw.org)
- UAE elected to UN Human Rights Council (gulfnews.com)
Wished I was there when Chen Guangcheng embraced Christian Bale
November 17, 2012Elisa Massimino, President and CEO of New York based Human Rights First describes the scene as follows:
It was the most striking moment of our annual Human Rights Dinner, one that was shown on TV and across the Internet: Chen Guangcheng, in tears, embracing actor Christian Bale. Last year when Chen was under house arrest in China, authorities rebuffed Bale when he tried to visit the “barefoot lawyer.” The two met for the first time—with a hug—when Bale presented Chen with our Human Rights Award.
What gave this moment its power was Chen’s story: his teaching himself the law so that he could help others; his courage in the face of repeated persecution; his heroic journey from house arrest to the American embassy.
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His story is ongoing. We gave him the award—and he accepted it—to highlight the need to help public interest lawyers and other persecuted Chinese citizens. They include his nephew, Chen Kegui, who—after defending himself and his family when government thugs broke into their home—was charged with a crime and imprisoned. “This award,” Chen said in his speech, “for me and for my colleagues, is an example of the waves building and gathering power. Together, we are the rising tide of kindness, decency and respect for the rule of law.”
While the dinner is an occasion for us to honor activists and others who have contributed to the struggle for human rights, it is also a chance for our organization to renew our commitment to challenging the United States to live up to its ideals. As Chen said, “My hope is that all of us, as we go forward, will make human rights a priority.”
I think it shows the power of awards
Related articles
- Christian Bale Honors Chinese Dissident With Human Rights Award (sfluxe.com)
- Christian Bale: Human Rights Award Dinner! (justjared.com)
Environmental HRDs in the Philippines pay heavy price for their activism
November 16, 2012An excellent post in Davao Today by MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN highlights the life-threatening dangers to those who oppose land grabbing or destruction of the environment as well as the quasi-total impunity for the perpetrators.
She relates how Stella Matutina, a nun leading Mindanao’s environmentalists, demonstrates that trying to stop giant mining firms has become deadlier. Speaking during a public hearing initiated by Philippine legislators last week, Matutina rattled off glaring statistics to present what she termed as “the most salient and gravest trends” in human rights abuses under the Aquino government.
The numbers of slain victims were punishing: 32 leaders killed in two years, 24 of them indigenous peoples who opposed land grabbing in their ancestral domains. The numbers of victims sued by courts were deplorable: 159 individuals who face pending warrants of arrests, subpoenas, and other forms of “legal harassment and intimidation.” The numbers of displaced residents were glaring: about 1,017 families with 5,275 individuals, particularly in the regions of Caraga, Northern and Southern Mindanao, dislocated due to military encampments and operations. In all these, Matuina, convenor of the coalition, Panalipdan (English translation: Defend) Mindanao, lamented that “the state of impunity continues to this day.”
The “state of impunity” was coined by rights activists following the carnage notoriously known as Ampatuan massacre involving the murder of 58 individuals, 34 of them media practitioners in Maguindanao province three years ago. Impunity, the activists say, because perpetrators remain scot-free, if not, unpunished. Matutina added that extrajudicial killings, particularly of indigenous leaders and environment advocates in Mindanao, escalated “at a faster pace, compared to the same period under (former President Gloria) Arroyo.” A human rights victim herself, Matutina said her experience from the hands of the military was “of no consequence compared to the fate that befell other victims of human rights violations across Mindanao.” Three years ago, Matutina, dead-tired from a day of environment seminar with residents, was rudely woken from sleep and detained for several hours by soldiers belonging to the Philippine Army’s 67th Infantry Battalion in a far-flung village in Cateel town, Davao Oriental. Soldiers tagged her as a New People’s Army rebel, an accusation which Matutina brushed off as part of her “determined advocacy” in protecting communities and the environment.
for the full story see: http://davaotoday.com/main/2012/11/16/for-love-of-environment-advocates-pay-dearly/
Related articles
Sotoudeh finally allowed brief visit by family
November 16, 2012According to Iranian blogger Arseh Sevom writing today the young children of detained lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, nominee of the 2012 MEA, were finally allowed to visit their mother in prison on Monday 12 November with security forces present. Referring to her mother’s health conditions as a result of the continuous hunger strike, Mehraveh said: “She has lost weight and is taken to the infirmary on occasion.”
Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan wrote [in farsi]: “Today, right after he stepped out of the jail’s gate, Nima [their son] took away the kiss from his cheek and put it on mine saying that mom said keep this kiss and give it to daddy when you see him”. Two days before the visit, Khandan and his two children waited for three and a half hours to visit their wife and mother, but were denied access
Related articles
Cuba, a difficult place for human rights defenders: Antonio González Rodiles
November 15, 2012On 14 November 2012, the family of human rights defender Mr Antonio González Rodiles were informed that the human rights defender is to be charged with ‘resistance to authority‘, as he remains in provisional detention. The human rights defender was arrested in Havana in a wave of police beatings and arrests of human rights defenders on 7 and 8 November 2012. Antonio González Rodiles is the head of Estado de SATS, an independent project that aims to create a space for participation and debate through panel discussions, forums and other events that are filmed and broadcast on the Internet. On 7 November 2012, another human rights defender Ms Yaremis Flores was arrested in connection with news articles in which she was critical of the Government’s response to Hurricane Sandy, as well reporting on deaths of prisoners in detention. As human rights defenders gathered at the police station to protest her detention, a number of others were also beaten up and arrested, including Antonio González Rodiles and Ms Laritza Diversent, lawyer and blogger. On 8 November 2012, blogger Ms Yoani Sanchez, blogger and writer Mr Ángel Santiesteban Prats, Mr Angel Moya Acosta, Mr Julio Aleaga, Mr Librado Linares, Mr Félix Navarro, Mr Iván Hernández Carrillo, Mr Eduardo Díaz Fleites and Mr Guillermo Fariñas Hernández were all arrested as they called for the release of those arrested on the previous day. In Camagüey, four more human rights defenders were detained and six further individuals arrested when they made their way to the police station to demand their release. After several days in detention, they were released, as were all of the human rights defenders held in Havana. However, Antonio González Rodiles remains in detention and members of his family were informed that the Public Prosecutor has requested that he be held in provisional detention on charges of resistance to authority, a charge that carries a sentence of between three months and one year in prison.
Many of those arrested are members of the “Demanda ciudadana por otra Cuba” (Citizens’ Demand for Another Cuba) campaign. A meeting of the group was to be held in Antonio González Rodiles’ home. The campaign is calling on the Cuban Government to immediately put into practice the legal and political guarantees endorsed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, through the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which the Cuban authorities signed in February 2008. In August 2012 the document “Demanda ciudadana por otra Cuba” was signed by hundreds of Cubans around the island and the diaspora, and then delivered to the headquarters of the National Assembly.
The NGO Front Line Defenders believes that the arrests of the aforementioned human rights defenders and the continued detention of Antonio González Rodiles are directly related to their legitimate and peaceful work in defence of human rights. The regular prevention of peaceful gatherings by police, who block off access to the venues on the date of planned events, constitutes a clear denial of the right to freedom of assembly in Cuba. In addition, human rights defenders continue to face harassment and physical attacks from police around the island.
Related articles
- Prominent Cuban dissidents face charges (caribbean360.com)
Burma frees 450 prisoners before Obama’s visit but what about the real HRDs?
November 15, 2012
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Human rights campaigners say no dissidents are among prisoners to be released in ‘goodwill gesture’ reports Jason Burke in Delhi (guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 November 2012)
The Guardian and many other newspapers have announced that the Burmese authorities have freed more than 450 detainees in a goodwill gesture before a historic visit by the US president Obama but local and international human rights campaigners said the list of released prisoners did not include any political dissidents.
Announcing the amnesty – the latest in a series that have coincided with high-profile visits of foreign dignitaries or trips by senior Burmese leaders overseas – state media said late on Wednesday that its aim was “to help promote goodwill and the bilateral relationship”. A home ministry official told Reuters that a certain number of the remaining 300 political prisoners would be released. However Bo Kyi, of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), said no prisoners of conscience had been freed so far. “All are common criminals or foreign nationals …… We know of no political prisoners among the 452 freed today,” he said.
However the Wall Street Journal (15 Nov) just reported that U Myint Aye, a 61-year-old human rights activists and one of the most high-profile dissidents currently detained, held at Loikaw, was included.
No word on Aung Naing either (see my post of 24 September this year).
Let’s wait and see whether President Obama is willing to press for a more substantive release.
Related articles
- Burma frees more than 450 prisoners before Barack Obama’s visit (guardian.co.uk)
- Burma announces prisoner amnesty (bbc.co.uk)
- No Political Prisoners Released in Amnesty (irrawaddy.org)
Three Zimbabwean Human Rights Defenders in difficulty
November 12, 2012On 8 November 2012 Amnesty International and other organizations (including Protection International) report on the situation of three Zimbabwean human rights defenders (HRDs), who have been detained without charge since Monday 5 November. On 7 November, they were illegally transferred from Harare to Bulawayo, taking them far from their support networks and raising fears for their safety. They are prisoners of conscience.
Fidelis Mudimu, Zachariah Godi and Tafadzwa Geza are senior staff members of the Counselling Services Unit (CSU) a registered medical clinic which provides medical and counselling services to victims of organized violence and torture. They were arbitrarily arrested by police following a raid on the organisation’s office in Harare on Monday 5 November.
At around 11h30 on Monday 5 November about a dozen police officers arrived at the office of the CSU, without a search warrant. Around two hours later they were joined by a truck-load of anti-riot police who threatened to fire tear gas into the clinic, risking the lives of patients, staff and others in the building. Police later produced a search warrant stating that they were there to recover “offensive and subversive material” which “defaces any house, building, wall, fence, lamp-post, gate or elevator without the consent of the owner or occupier thereof”. Police entered the premises and conducted a search and illegally seized confidential medical records, a computer and documents which were not covered by the search warrant. The three HRDs were then arrested.
On Wednesday 7 November Fidelis Mudimu, Zachariah Godi and Tafadzwa Geza were illegally transferred more than 400km from Harare to Bulawayo, in an open pick up truck without protection from the sun, despite temperatures exceeding 30°C. Harare police handed them over to Bulawayo police in the town of Kwekwe, where they were immediately handcuffed. On arrival in Bulawayo they were immediately placed in detention without being interviewed. It is illegal to detain someone without charge for over 48 hours in Zimbabwe.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The CSU is a highly respected organisation because of its work to support thousands of survivors of human right violations. Amnesty International believes that the arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention and illegal transfer of the three human rights defender is part of systematic harassment and intimidation of civil society in Zimbabwe as the country is heading for another election in 2013.
This is the second raid on the office of an NGO in Harare in less than three months. In August the office of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was raided by police twice and members were arrested and detained.
ATTACK ON HRD OKIYA OMTATAH SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED IMPARTIALLY
November 11, 2012Reports indicate that Mr. Okiya Okoiti Omtatah was attacked in the evening on 8 November 2012 by unknown assailants at Nairobi’s Central Business District. He suffered broken teeth and a deep cut on the head. He was taken to hospital in Nairobi for medical examination. Mr. Omtatah is a known human rights defender who has been at the forefront of condemning human rights violations in Kenya, corruption and abuse of offices by state officials. Mr Omtatah has recently publicly raised concern regarding the Biometric Voter Registration Kits’ procurement process in Kenya.
The Government of Kenya should ensure that thorough and impartial investigations are carried out into the attack on Mr. Omtatah the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders in Kenya said on 9 November.
This incident has taken place at a period when Human rights defenders in Kenya, including journalists have reported increasing threats, physical attacks and arbitrary arrest in the past few months.
The National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders condemns this incident and ongoing threats and targeting of human rights defenders as they conduct their legitimate work. We call upon the government, particularly the police to assure citizens of safety and protection of all people particularly as the country head towards elections in March 2013.
The National Coalition of HRDs further urges the Government of Kenya to fight impunity by ensuring that impartial, thorough and timely investigations are carried out into this and other incidents, and that the perpetrators are held to account in prosecutions that meet international fair trial standards.
For inquiries, please contact Kamau Ngugi, Coordinator, NCHRD on info@nchrdk.org
Related articles
- Activist Omtatah attacked on Nairobi street (capitalfm.co.ke)
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 