Archive for the 'human rights' Category
January 17, 2012
Norma Cruz is a human rights defender who received 47 death threats via text messages sent to her mobile phone. As the leader of women’s rights organization Survivors’ Foundation (Fundación Sobrevivientes) in Guatemala she receives repeated threats for simply doing her work to support victims of violence against women and for pursuing prosecutions against those responsible for committing the crimes.
Sauro Scarpelli, Campaign Manager of the Individuals at Risk team, Amnesty International explains “At Amnesty International we are celebrating our 50th birthday and since our inception, we have been fighting for freedom of expression. It was our first campaign and unfortunately 50 years later, despite a very different world, those defending human rights continue to be silenced, imprisoned and threatened with violence in new and different forms.”
Thousands letters to the Attorney General in Guatemala asking for the start of a full and impartial investigation on the threats Norma received had an impact and in September 2011 one of the people who made death threats against Norma Cruz was convicted. The global pressure is working locally! That’s why Amnesty International is kicking off the year with a new action for freedom of expression on 23 January 2012.
picture: Guatemalan human rights defender Norma Cruz (c) Amnesty International
Go to: http://livewire.amnesty.org/2012/01/17/stop-the-death-threats-join-our-campaign-for-freedom-of-expression/
Posted in AI, Amnesty international, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Amnesty International, death threats, freedom of expression, Guatemala, HRDs, Human rights defender, Norma Cruz, Survivors’ Foundation
January 16, 2012
Image via Wikipedia
Alex Fitzpatrick sat down with Nancy Groves, social media manager at UN headquarters in New York. Groves is part of the Secretariat, the UN body charged with carrying out the day-to-day work of the organization. She maintains an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr and other networks.
Interesting enough she mentions in the interview that the ‘Be a Human Rights Defender’ campaign was in fact the UN’s most successful social effort to date. Under the “Be a Human Rights Defender” campaign, created to celebrate Human Rights Day, Groves’s team pushed out 30 different articles on human rights, each centered around one article in the Declaration of Human Rights. People that shared the articles were titled “Human Rights Defenders.” Groves said it was an excellent way to spread knowledge about rights that a lot of people aren’t aware they have.
from: http://mashable.com/2012/01/14/united-nations/
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: google, Human Rights Day, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, nancy groves
January 16, 2012
Aurel Braun and David Matas recently wrote an article for OpEdNews that puts strongly the case for seeing Havel foremost as a HRD. The article starts with a well-worded call to support HRDs abroad: “One reason we should stand up in Canada for human rights abroad is that we are safe in doing this. Human rights defenders in repressive states are not.In spite of those risks, there are people of extraordinary courage and unrelenting commitment even in the most repressive states who at great personal risk to themselves and their families, respect human rights, call for others to do so and decry violations. These human rights defenders give us yet another reason to raise our voices. If they can risk so much, we who have nothing to lose should do our part.” ………”Havel was one of the co -‘writers of Charter 77, which in 1977 challenged the totalitarian Czechoslovak government to abide by the 1975 Helsinki Accords that had stipulated the protection of human rights. Fewer than 300 people signed the Charter, and the reaction of the Prague regime was to imprison many of the signatories, including Havel. He never retracted, he never stopped advocating, and repeated imprisonment never deterred him.”
Though very ill towards the end of his life, Vaclav Havel continued to fight for principles and wrote to HRDs in Belarus “I will continue to use every opportunity in the future, with my friends, to draw the international community’s attention to the violations of human rights in Belarus“.
Havel, who lived to see freedom and democracy come to Eastern Europe despite all the might of the Soviet superpower, and who played such a central role in that historic victory for human rights, proved that principles can and do prevail over power.
for the full article see: OpEdNews – Article: Defending Human Rights: The Havel Example.
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Tags: Belarus, Canada, Czeck Republic, Havel, Human rights defender
January 13, 2012
Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr
The European Union Guidelines on human rights defenders were created to help staff in the embassies of EU member states to protect threatened human rights defenders (HRDs). In short they tell EU diplomatic missions to:
- Produce periodic reports outlining the broad human rights situation, noting specific cases of concern.
- Take urgent local action when needed and make recommendations for further EU involvement.
- Prepare local strategies in co-ordination with HRDs, with special attention given to the protection of women defenders.
- Organise regular meetings between HRDs and missions diplomats
- Maintain contact with HRDs through receiving them in the missions and visiting their areas of work.
- Publicly recognise HRDs and their work through use of traditional and new-media methods of communication.
- Visit, where appropriate, HRDs in custody or under house arrest and attend trials as observers.
- Raise specific cases with third country governments.
- Involve HRDs in the preparation, follow-up and assessment of human rights discussions with third country governments.
- Provide measures for swift assistance of HRDs in danger, including the issuing of emergency visas and the offer of temporary shelter in EU member states.
- Provide access to financial support where necessary.
Urgent local action can be organised through “local working groups”, of which HRDs should be members.Integral to the Guidelines is a duty to “proactively” support human rights defenders on the world stage through political dialogue and promotion of the UN Human Rights Council and its Special Rapporteurs. When, for example, the EU President, High Representative for Foreign Affairs or other relevant official visits a country with human rights issues they should seek to meet with HRDs wherever possible and reflect any concerns in their discussions with third country governments.
This is not news but at the beginning of the new year it is good to have a reminder AND REMIND THE EU DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES of all this laid down in 20 short paragraphs; for full text see: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/GuidelinesDefenders.pdf
Posted in EU, human rights | 4 Comments »
Tags: country governments, diplomatic action, emergency visas, EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders, eu member states, European Union, guidelines, Human rights defender
December 19, 2011
On Sunday 18 December 2011, five local human rights groups accused the Egyptian military of systematically targeting female political activists.
The 5 NGOs (Nazra for Feminist Studies, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center and the Women and Memory Association) accuse in a joint statement the military rulers of exercising “unprecedented violence against protesters, with the targeting of female activists being a distinctive feature of the proceedings to disperse sit-ins, as depicted in pictures and video clips showing protesters being arrested, beaten, dragged and stripped of their clothes.”
Female protesters systematically targeted, say rights watchdogs | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Todays News from Egypt.
Posted in films, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: arab awakening, demonstrations, Egypt, HRDs, military, women
December 19, 2011
Only a few days ago, 12 December, I reported on a new database on the Independence of Lawyers launched by Lawyers for Lawyers. And here Bahrain comes with a great illustration of the need to strengthen this concept. On December 18, 2011 the Bahrain Center for Human Rights explains how the Ministry of Human Rights [SIC!] and Social development on 7 December overruled the recent election of the Board of the Bahrain Lawyers Society and reappointed the old one. This step appears to have been taken because most the elected members are seen to be from the ‘opposition’. Whatever the truth in this charge, the election seems to have been fully legal and representing the will of the majority of the members.
Fatima Al-Blooshi, minister of human rights and social development, is clearly acting as a government stooge and basing herself on a law written in 1989 for the purpose of controlling the activities of the institutions of civil society, known as the law of Societies. This law has been repeatedly criticized by local and international organizations for violating freedom of assembly. The report of the Bahrain Centre of Human Rights gives many details of how this law was abused in the past including its own dissolution in 2004.
for details see: http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/4910
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Tags: Bahrain, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Fatima Al-Blooshi, Independence of Lawyers, Law Society, lawyers, Lawyers for Lawyers
December 15, 2011
Front Line reports that on 4 December Four human rights defenders were acquitted, while charges against three others were downgraded by the Khartoum North District Court.
Abdelrahman Mohamed Al-GasimThe seven human rights defenders had initially been arrested in October and November 2010 for alleged involvement with
Radio Dabanga. In June 2011, they were charged with, inter alia, conspiracy against the state and espionage, crimes which are punishable by the death penalty or life imprisonment, for allegedly carrying out illegal broadcasts from a studio in Khartoum. On 4 December 2011, the charges against Messrs Zakaria Yacoub, Abdelrahman Mohamed Al-Gasim (pictured), Khalid Ishaq, and Adam al Nur Adam were dismissed. However, three defenders, namely Messrs Abdelrahman Adam Abdelrahman, Jaafar Alsabki Ibrahim, and Kwather Abdel Haj, remain charged with the lesser crimes of “undermining security and public order” and “spreading lies”, which are punishable by up to three years in prison. Front Line reiterates its call on the Sudanese authorities to immediately drop all charges against all of the aforenamed human rights defenders as Front Line believes they are solely motivated by their legitimate human rights work.
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Front Line, human rights, Human rights defender, Khartoum, Sudan
Norma Cruz is a human rights defender who received 47 death threats via text messages sent to her mobile phone. As the leader of women’s rights organization Survivors’ Foundation (Fundación Sobrevivientes) in Guatemala she receives repeated threats for simply doing her work to support victims of violence against women and for pursuing prosecutions against those responsible for committing the crimes.
Abdelrahman Mohamed Al-Gasim
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 