Archive for the 'human rights' Category

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UN human rights monitor on Iran has to rely on diaspora

November 29, 2011

The United Nations announced today that its Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, will launch a fact-finding mission to three European countries which host Iranian diaspora. He will visit France, Germany and Belgium from 30 November – 8 December 2011 to gather information about alleged human rights violations in Iran.  As reported in this blog earlier, serial cooperation refusnik Iran (7 July and 8 August 2011), the independent expert has made official requests to the Islamic Republic of Iran for a country visit, without obtaining a positive response from the authorities. “I will continue to make every possible effort to get the Iranian authorities’ support,” Mr. Shaheed said. “A country visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran would have allowed me to gain better understanding of the situation in the country, explore possible areas of cooperation, offer constructive dialogue with the authorities and produce report that reflect the views of all parties concerned, not the least the views of the Government.” … “ I will now study wide range of human rights issues by meeting activists within Iranian diaspora, alleged victims of human rights violations, intergovernmental and civil society organizations,” he explained. “The information collected in France, Germany and Belgium will help shape my report to the Human Rights Council in March 2012.”  The human rights expert will hold a press conference on Thursday 8 December 2011 at 10:30 at the United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) office in Brussels.

NB. The person the Iranian regime is refusing is Ahmed Shaheed, a Visiting Lecturer at the Maldives National University, a member of the presidential Commission Investigating Corruption and a former foreign policy advisor to the President of the Maldives. Mr Shaheed was Foreign Minister of the Maldives from 2005 to 2007 and from 2008 to 2010.

see also: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AsiaRegion/Pages/IRIndex.aspx

 

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French-Yugoslavian filmmaker Stanojevic pays tribute to Martin Ennals with short film

November 6, 2011

Back in 1983 the Yugoslav-born filmmaker Stacha Stanojevic made a human rights film under the title ‘Illustres Inconnus’ (Notorious Nobodies as the English language version would be called much later). One of the personalities in this multi-story film is a human rights activist, the inspiration for whom came from Martin Ennals who had then just left his post as Secretary General of Amnesty International and met Stacha several times. Now the filmmaker has drawn from his full-length film a short version focusing on the international human rights defender for whom, unknowingly, Martin Ennals stood as model. The scenes are mostly shot in Geneva and have the feel of this diplomatic city in the early 80s. The end is a bit of a surprise but highlights the essential human element  in the unending quest for human rights. Unfortunately only in French for now, but english-speakers can still get the gist of it. See   http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlt5bv_indignation-revolte-1983_shortfilms?start=0#from=embed

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Posted in Amnesty international, films, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
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Martin Ennals Award ceremony 2011 now on-line: martinennalsawrd.org

October 16, 2011

Last Thursday, 13 October, the ceremony for Kasha, the Ugandan 2011 laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, took place in Geneva, again in the beautiful Victoria Hall. There was a large audience of 600 people. Moreover, the 2010 MEA laureate, Muhannad al-Hassani from Syria, also made a surprise appearance. The True Heroes Foundation made a 8-minute summary of highlights of the ceremony and this overview gives an excellent impression of the whole evening. Please go to our newly designed website: http://www.martinennalsaward.org. 

Posted in Al-Hassani, films, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, THF | 2 Comments »
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As from Tuesday 11 October the Martin Ennals Award will have a new website

October 10, 2011

With a bit of delay, I am immensely glad to announce that at the eve of the ceremony for Kasha (on 13 October) the MEA has a completely re-designed website up and running as from tomorrow morning (Tuesday). This joomla-based site was designed for us – free of charge – by a team from Pacosoft (Paul, Ivo, Goice) with additional input from Nat Daudrich and I would like to thank them most warmly. Completely new are the biographies of all previous Laureates (in English, French and Spanish), while some other information was also re-written and translated. Some features (such as the Forum) are still under construction. Any comments or suggestions for improvement would be most welcome: please let me have your feedback: http://www.martinennalsaward.org.

Posted in human rights, MEA | 1 Comment »
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Belarus Side event during Human Rights Council in Geneve

October 6, 2011

While on the topic of Belarus I forgot to mention another event: on 20 September, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Oslo-based Human Rights House Foundation held a side event in Geneva on the prosecution of vice-president of the Federation and Chairman of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna”, Ales Bialiatski, who was arrested on 4 August 2011. The participants watched a short film about Ales Bialiatski. Later, vice-chairman of “Viasna” Valentin Stefanovich and Director of the Belarusian Human Rights House in Vilnius Anna Gerasimova made a speech.

Representatives of EU countries, the Head of EU mission to the UN Human Rights Council, Dimitris Iliopoulos, and NGOs such as AI all highlighted the political motivation of the criminal case against this prominent human rights defender and called upon the Belarusian authorities to immediately release Mr. .

Posted in FIDH, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
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Belarus: continued refusal to cooperate

October 6, 2011

In the ‘series’ crime pays, Belarus is one of the top contenders. On September 30th, 2011 one more HRD, Ukrainian civil society activist Volodymyr Senko, was prevented from crossing the Belarusian state border. He is a member of the All-Ukrainian Youth Public Association “Foundation of Regional Initiatives”. Volodymyr is the 12th representative of the Committee on International Control who has been banned entry to the territory of Belarus.

It should be noted that just the day before, on September 29th, 2011, at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw the Belarusian authorities were once again reminded of the necessity to fulfil the obligations in the field of freedom of movement that they undertook, particularly, not to prevent international human rights observers from entering the territory of Belarus for conducting monitoring of human rights observance. In response to that the representative of the Belarus official delegation de-facto admitted the existence of “black lists” of human rights defenders, who are banned entry to the country, as well as the absence of will of the Belarusian authorities to bring the situation in conformity with the international standards.

The International Observation Mission was created by the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, which brings together representatives of the human rights organisations from the OSCE participating states, as well as international civil society networks and organisations for carrying out monitoring of the general situation with observance of fundamental rights in the Republic of Belarus, as well as the issues of defending human rights defenders and ensuring their professional activities. for more information on this NGO with the rather convoluted name http://hrwatch-by.org/en

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Arbitrary arrest and detention of 31 human rights defenders in Turkey

October 4, 2011

Several important human rights NGOs, including AI and HRW, have in recent days expressed concern about the situation of human rights defenders in Turkey. I base myself here on the appeal issued on 28 September by 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). 

The Observatory has been informed by the reliable Human Rights Association (İnsan Haklari Derneği – İHD) about the arbitrary arrests of 31 members and executives of İHD Şanlıurfa Branch, the Education and Science Workers Trade Union (Egitim-Sen), the Health and Social Service Workers Trade Union (SES) as well as the searches by the police of the houses of the chairpersons and executives of the above mentioned organisations and their offices.

In the morning of September 27, law-enforcement officers raided İHD, Egitim-Sen and SES Şanlıurfa Branch offices as well as the houses of their chairpersons and executives and arrested 31 members of these organisations. The police was in possession of a warrant from the Şanlıurfa Chief Public Prosecution Office mentioning allegations of “propaganda for an illegal organisation” and “participating in activities in line with the action and aims of that organisation” and has denied to release information on the reasons of the raids and arrest, on the basis of legal provisions pertaining to the fight against terrorism.

Among those arrested were İHD Şanlıurfa Branch President Cemal Babaoğlu, İHD executivesMüslüm Kına and Müslüm Çiçek, Eğitim-Sen Branch President Halit Şahin, Eğitim-Sen former Branch President Sıtkı Dehşet and Eğitim-Sen executive Veysi Özbingöl.

The Observatory denounces the continuing policy of arbitrarily arresting human rights defenders in Turkey, and particularly İHD members and members of trade unions, which seems to merely aim at sanctioning their human rights activities. To that extent, the Observatory recalls that other İHD members are in pre-trial detention, notably Mr. Muharrem Erbey, İHD General Vice Chairperson and Chairperson of its Diyarbakir Province branch who had been detained since December 2009, Mr. Arslan Özdemir and Ms. Roza Erdede, İHD members in Diyarbakır, or that others remain in provisional release pending the outcome of criminal trials on alleged terrorism charges.

Accordingly, the Observatory calls upon the Turkish authorities to put an end to the continuing harassment against human rights defenders, including members of İHD, and urges the Turkish authorities.

for more detials and suggested actions you can take, see:

Arbitrary arrest and detention of 31 human rights defenders – TUR 001 / 0911 / OBS 114 – FIDH – Worldwide Human Rights Movement.

Posted in AI, FIDH, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OMCT | 2 Comments »
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email subscribers: please give feedback on appearance of my posts in your email

October 4, 2011

this is not a substantive post; several subscribers complained that the text of my last 3 or 4 posts was cut off on the right-hand side when read in your own browser. When going to the original in WORDPRESS there was no such problem. I am trying to see whether this was solved or not so please let me know. thanks Hans Thoolen

Posted in human rights | 6 Comments »

On-line Activism and the Real World: a blogger’s honest thinking

October 1, 2011

One of the winning blogs of the Communication Initiative, by Bhumika Ghimire, expresses the doubts that many of us feel when we read the hyperbole assessments of how the new media are going to  the  save the world and bring about the realisation of human rights. Some of the things Bhumika states:

Online Activism

“Are cyber campaigns comparable to the real world action?”

“What about online activists in repressive regimes like China, Burma, North Korea, Iran? These activists and their work in spreading the word, creating networks and keeping the fight alive is admirable and deserves recognition. In many countries, they face almost the same level of scrutiny from their governments as the real world activists. Do we cyber activists in the developed world face a similar level of threat or harassment? Certainly not.”

“The point is, we have to stop glamorizing all and every cyber activist and give credit where it is due. Recognizing the sacrifice of real heroes will add to the validity of online activism as a real force and help online campaigns be more effective.”

see the whole piece on: Online Activism and the Real World: Where Do We Meet? | Communication, Media, Policy.

Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
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Help make 9 December a special day for Human Rights Defenders!

October 1, 2011

 

 

 

 

I proposed some time ago to do something special for HRDs on 9 December see:  Human Rights Defenders Day // Bloggers Unite.

There are now 8 bloggers ‘participating’ which is a good start, but I think we need more persons and especially the ears and minds of the larger human rights NGOs. And then we need I new ideas……Please let me have yours..

What I wrote is the following:

10 December is International Human Rights Day but individual human rights defenders (HRDs) are so important that they deserve special and separate attention. On 9 December 1998 the UN adopted the ‘Declaration on the right and responsibility of individuals, groups and organs of society to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms’. It marks a historic achievement in the long struggle toward better protection of those at risk for carrying out legitimate human rights activities and is the first UN instrument that recognizes the importance and legitimacy of the work of human rights defenders, as well as their need for better protection. The UN Council for Human Rights also has a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. Most NGOs have some kind of mandate to come to the rescue of their colleagues in difficulty. It is not necessary to create another formal UN-sanctioned International Day for Human Rights Defenders, but more focus could be achieved on this special day. I am open to ideas from others. I could think of a common list HRDs in prison or killed, to be remembered the next day, human rights day.

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