Emily Pontecorvo a reporter for GRIST published on 6 April 2022 a piece about a new report by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre which states that the renewable energy sector is unprepared for the protection of land rights defenders.
In April of last year, José de Jesús Robledo Cruz and his wife Maria de Jesús Gomez Vega were found dead in the desert in Sonora, Mexico. In July, Fernando Vela, a doctor in Coqueta, Columbia, was shot to death by two men on a motorcycle while he was in his truck. In September, Juan Macababbad, an attorney in the Philippines was shot dead outside his home.
“Our data shows almost the tip of the iceberg,” Christen Dobson, senior program manager for the BHRRC and an author of the new report. “Many attacks are not publicly reported. And so we know the problem is much more severe than these figures indicate.”
According to the report, human rights defenders who spoke out against mining projects consistently experienced the greatest number of attacks over the past seven years. The authors say this is especially concerning considering the expansion of mineral production required by a transition to clean energy. All those batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines are going to require a lot of cobalt, nickel, zinc, lithium, and other minerals.
“We’re already seeing this level of attack, and we’re not seeing major producers of transition minerals have strong policies or practices in place about protecting defenders,” said Dobson. “There’s a real risk there and I think it’s an area that we’re very concerned about.”
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The report urges investors to publish a human rights policy and require that companies begin disclosing human rights and environmental-related risks. But Dobson said that voluntary actions from companies and investors was not enough. She said there was some momentum building behind mandating that companies report on measures they are taking to respect human rights, including legislation proposed in the European Union and Canada.
“It is concerning to see a vast majority of companies and investors, including major renewable energy companies, do not have policies expressing zero-tolerance against reprisals in their operations, supply chains and business relationships,” said Dobson in a statement. “It’s time for companies and investors to recognise the energy transition cannot be effective if it is not also rights-respecting.”
On 28 February, 2022 the Chinese foreign Minister urged “sound development of global human rights” Wang issued his call at the high-level segment of the 49th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which he attended via video link.
Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a speech calling on the international community to uphold equity and justice to promote the sound development of the global human rights cause.
He said that ensuring the full enjoyment of human rights by all is an unremitting pursuit of humanity, while protecting human rights is the shared cause of all countries.
China believes that all parties should act as true practitioners of human rights, staunch guardians of people’s interests, positive contributors to common development, and firm defenders of equity and justice, said Wang.
Wang noted that respecting and protecting human rights is the unremitting pursuit of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and China will continue to steadfastly pursue a human rights development path that meets the trend of the times and suits its national conditions.
“We will continue to uphold a human rights philosophy that puts people front and center, develop the whole-process people’s democracy, promote common prosperity for all, and safeguard the human rights of the Chinese people at a higher level,” said Wang.
China will continue to take an active part in UN human rights endeavours by making China’s voice heard and contributing China’s part to this worthy cause, he added.
Wang refuted false information about the affairs of China’s Xinjiang and Hong Kong, saying they had been hyped up with ulterior motives, and adding that China is ready to engage in human rights exchanges and cooperation with all countries on the basis of equality and mutual respect.
“We do not accept self-styled ‘lecturers’ on human rights and reject stoking bloc confrontation in the name of human rights,” said the foreign minister.
South Africa in the special position to have its own human rights day, not on 10 December but on 21 March, historically linked with 21 March 1960 and the events of Sharpeville. In a Maverick Citizen panel discussion on Monday 21 March, representatives of a range of civil society movements explored what it means to be an activist. The panellists discussed their own experiences of activism: the world needs activists, who in turn need commonality for success and survival
The current times — filled as they are with uncertainty and suffering — require all or most people to be active rather than passive. Though those involved in activism will become weary, they should not step back from the struggle, according to Delani Majola, communications officer for the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. The need for activism in today’s world is far more urgent than it ever was before.
“It means that we need to… find linkages with one another, we need to recharge each other. I think we will not achieve anything — so whether it’s small victories, small gains — but we will not achieve anything if we sit back and become passive and give in to defeat,” said Majola.
Among the speakers involved in the discussion were also Nkateko Blessing Muyimane, a medical student who recently fled Ukraine and started the non-governmental organisation, SA Safe Corridor for Students; Jennifer Matibi, founding member of Nirvana, an initiative that assists young women of the Johannesburg inner city to create spaces in which they can grow; Thandeka Gqubule-Mbeki, former SABC economics editor and current PhD student at the University of Johannesburg; Siyabonga Ndlangamandla, board member at Makers Valley Partnership; and Shaeera Kalla, board member of Section27 and member of the #PayTheGrants campaign. Nkateko Blessing Muyimane, a medical student who recently fled Ukraine and began an NGO, SA Safe Corridor for Students, to assist those students still trapped in the country.
The discussion was facilitated by Maverick Citizen editor Mark Heywood and journalist Zukiswa Pikoli. Zukiswa Pikoli, journalist with Maverick Citizen.
Spaces for activism have become smaller in recent years, according to Kalla. This not only calls for more voices and action in these spaces but also cooperation and support among the different groups within civil society. There are, she emphasised, links between the various causes for which people advocate — from basic income and food sovereignty to free media and mental health.
“Being a good activist is really about also building relationships, and I think those spaces that one creates are filled with those relationships,” said Kalla. “[T]hat’s how you sustain momentum and that’s how you figure out how to take one idea and create an intersectional… spectrum, a spectrum of issues that support it, and they take it to the next level.”
She added that the “typical image” of an activist should not override the everyday struggles that people face in society. While activism is a choice for some, for others it is a lived reality; a state of fighting a system that was built against them.
Activism should come from a place of compassion, according to Muyimane. He defines activists as those who want to make an environment a better place. The decision of a person to throw themselves into a course of action is often very personal, said Gqubule-Mbeki. It can be rooted in their worldview, an innate sense of justice or outrage at something they have witnessed or experienced.
Gqubule-Mbeki’s own journey as an activist began with her experience of forced removals under apartheid. She saw both her grandparents and her parents lose their homes to this unjust policy. Thandeka Gqubule-Mbeki, PhD student and part-time lecturer at the University of Johannesburg addressing the audience. Johannesburg, 21 March 2022. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)
“So, [activism is] partly personal, partly a decision to make your beliefs publicly relevant and to impact policy and how human beings relate to each other, and how societies are constructed,” she said.
Over and above the “imagination” it takes to stand up for something, Kalla believes activism is about sustaining human beings, creating a political culture and ensuring that people feel safe. In this way, separate causes are united by their common drive to see people live with dignity.
“It’s about making sure people feel seen, feel safe and feel cherished, whether or not you’re personally affected, in a direct sense,” she said. “[T]he fact that you are a human being, and you can have empathy and you can see an unjust system and want to do something about it, is enough to start trying to understand what it is that you can contribute to, in whatever form.”
There is currently a large pushback against democracy defenders by capital, corporations and institutions, according to Gqubule-Mbeki. If the victimisation of human rights activists is to be addressed, there is a need for an examination and improvement of certain laws, including the Protected Disclosures Act and Witness Protection Act.
“We must ratchet up the consequences of acting against activists, vulnerable human beings, women, and so on. So, I think that’s one of the challenges that we tend to have going forward,” said Gqubule-Mbeki.
Another challenge related to activism is the toll it can take on people’s mental health. Kalla recalled a period in her time as an activist when she struggled to eat and live healthily, saying that it taught her about creating sustainable spaces within movements. ..It is important to address the issue of “toxic behaviour” within movements, should it arise, she continued. “A lesson that I’ve learned is that you have to be tender. So, tenderness is fundamental, but firmness is equally fundamental, so that you don’t create an unhealthy space, then it collapses.”
Being a young woman whose activism has brought her into meetings dominated by older, more experienced people, Matibi has sometimes questioned her own standards and achievements. She manages these uncertainties by building supportive networks within civil society. Jennifer Matibi, founding member of Nirvana, an initiative that assists young women of the Johannesburg inner city to create spaces in which they can grow.
“Being involved with other activists, being involved with other people that are doing the work that you’re currently doing, …I have people that I can reach out to who are actually in the space and doing the kind of work that I’m doing,” said Matibi.
As an activist, it is important to guard against the potential for hubris, said Gqubule-Mbeki. This can be done through supporting other activists and offering solidarity to those who are struggling for change. However, it also requires a keen awareness of those representatives of commercial and state interests who might try and “sidle up” to a cause.
“So, when you read vested interests, then you are able not to [sell out] to money, because money – once it comes into your cause and is not properly governed – it becomes toxic and [those providing the money] can go to communities and you can give them a disproportionate power,” said Gqubule-Mbeki. “And then when the state sidles up to you, you have to be equally weary, but also conscious that this is the state’s job. The state is the collective people.” Siyabonga Ndlangamandla, board Member at Makers Valley Partnership as he listens to other panelists talk. Johannesburg, 21 March 2022. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)
Activism is not an exclusive or an elite phenomenon, according to Majola. It can take the form of signing a petition, joining a demonstration or simply participating and engaging as part of an audience.
“[W]e shouldn’t sanctify or glorify activists, because ultimately, we’re still human,” he said. “So, I think anybody can get into activism, and those who are already in, I think it’s important to base and ground your movements in fact and truth.”
IFEX Deputy Executive Director Rachael Kay delivered a presentation on the situation of human rights defenders, journalists, and media organisations to the Canadian House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights.
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…Like everyone, we see the expansion of authoritarianism in all its forms. Information is being weaponized in ways that has a profound impact on people and is creating a kind of information chaos. In our network alone, we’ve seen how misuse of access to information legislation, internet shutdowns, misinformation, attacks on media and of course the murder of journalists is becoming routine. When those targeted directly with online disinformation and smear campaigns are women, the form the attacks take is usually gendered and often results in self-censorship.
The aim is to silence these voices, and it is doing just that.
We can see this played out in the current context. Immediate action is required in the most urgent situations, Ukraine/Russia, Afghanistan, Belarus, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nicaragua and Sudan, just to name a few. It is imperative that coordinated systems of emergency support for journalists at risk and their families are created, something where we see Canada is already moving in the right direction. But we must continue to increase our effectiveness.
And to be effective, these systems should include providing emergency visas that have simple and secure methods of submission and, in the absence of such, they must expedite the processing of visas for journalists and their families, as well as ensure safe passage. Key to the success of any intervention is effective coordination with local and international civil society organisations working to protect and evacuate journalists.
We see that media freedom has never been more crucial. Democracies cannot survive and flourish without free, independent and pluralistic media. We need to reverse engineer the current branding of the media as fake news and the enemy of the people as normal. It has been the lexicon adopted around the world – language mimicked and acted upon that includes continued verbal and physical attacks on the media with total impunity. This has had a profound impact on press freedom and journalists in particular. And be sure, no country, including Canada, is exempt from this trend.
The narrative needs to be countered forcefully with words and actions. Outside of intervening in urgent situations, the government must play a significant, ongoing role in reinforcing the need for press freedom and respect for journalists in its own national context.
There is also the need for accountability. The criminalisation of journalism and abuse of law by state actors has to end and we call on multilateral relationships and institutions to ensure that those who attack the media face real consequences for their actions – otherwise attacks against the press will continue to escalate and any standards championed by Canada will remain empty.
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At IFEX our network of over 100 member organisations in more than 70 countries actively advocate for freedom of expression and information as a fundamental human right – many do so in very dangerous circumstances. The targeted repression of press freedom advocates and journalists, and attacks on communities and institutions, see accepted norms being increasingly undermined and weakened.
We have been called on to do more direct support for our members, across all regions, who find themselves increasingly under attack by authoritarian states focused on shutting down the voices of civil society and threatening dissent at any price.
Organisations whose offices and staff are targeted and harassed with no other aim but closure and erasure need to be supported, funded and engaged with – because these are the voices that call for accountability and if these voices are shuttered it will leave a vacuum for democracy.
We know these issues are complex. IFEX’s members and allies around the world have been working on them, doing grassroots advocacy, publishing reports, indexes and offering solutions and campaigning for years. They are a rich pool of knowledge that could inform Canada’s policies and discussions with nuance and a national and global perspective. As part of your efforts in focusing on press freedom we would welcome being a conduit to these sources.
Governments and civil society groups need to continue to find ways to collaborate, to be at the table together.
For many years, veteran Russian human rights defender Oleg Orlov thought his country’s darkest days were behind it. Not anymore. “I don’t think I have ever seen a darker period,” says Orlov, 68, who began a lifetime of activism in the early 1980s handing out leaflets against the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
“What is happening now cannot be compared with anything that happened before in Russia, maybe anywhere in the world… when a country that left totalitarianism behind went back.”
For Orlov and other activists of his generation, the conflict in Ukraine has marked the definite end of a hopeful time that started with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in the 1980s. Nearly 40 years later, Russian troops are again fighting and dying abroad, Kremlin opponents are in jail, independent media have been shut down and thousands of Russians have decided to flee the country.
“The hopes we had did not come true, there have been terrible disappointments,” says Svetlana Gannushkina, 80, one of Russia’s most prominent post-Soviet rights activists. “Today we have a country that can no longer be called authoritarian, this is already a totalitarian regime.“
Orlov and Gannushkina are two of the last few critical voices still at work in Russia, and in interviews with AFP in Moscow this week both said they had no plans to quit or to leave. Orlov was in the offices of Memorial, which was shut down last year after decades as Russia’s most prominent rights group, where bookcases sat empty, desks had been cleared and packing boxes were piled on the floor. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/12/29/russias-supreme-court-orders-closure-emblematic-memorial/]
“I don’t see myself outside Russia. I… have always wanted to live and die in this country,” says Orlov.
A biologist by training, Orlov joined Memorial in the late 1980s when the group was set up to document Soviet-era crimes. He went on to record rights abuses in a series of post-Soviet conflicts, especially in Russia’s two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s. In 1995 he was part of a group who swapped themselves for hostages taken by Chechen fighters and were eventually released, and in 2007 he was abducted, beaten and threatened with execution by a group of masked gunmen in Ingushetia next to Chechnya. After serving two years in the mid-2000s on Russia’s presidential human rights council, Orlov has since been active in opposing President Vladimir Putin. He was arrested at a March 6 protest against the military action in Ukraine, and returned home one day this week to find his front door painted over with the letter “Z” — a symbol used to show support for Russia in the conflict — and a sign reading “collaborator.”
The harsh new political climate and impact of severe sanctions have prompted thousands of Russians to leave in recent weeks, including many of the country’s young, opposition-minded liberals. Gannushkina has seen it at her Civic Assistance Committee, the group she founded in 1990 to help refugees and migrants in an often-hostile environment. “Unfortunately, our wonderful young people, who followed their hearts to our organization, are leaving,” she says…These young people, who we had so much hope for, feel in danger and helpless, so they leave. And we are left here with this insanity...”
The former mathematics professor set up the Civic Assistance Committee to help the thousands displaced by conflicts as the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. From its modest Moscow offices, it provides legal assistance and help with finding jobs and housing, as well as campaigning for the rights of marginalized groups. Gannushkina also worked with Memorial and like Orlov served on the presidential human rights council before resigning in 2012. A letter of thanks for her service signed by Putin still hangs on her office wall. She remains very active, taking the time to meet individually with people seeking help. [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/215E5731-7786-434A-9C20-923168E65F44]
“No, I don’t think about leaving,” Gannushkina says, though she admits she is glad her children and grandchildren live abroad. I am happy they are not here, because it gives me the chance to say what I think, to everyone and everywhere.”
“We had a chance to create a normal federation, which would be governed in the way other federations are governed in democratic regimes. We missed that chance,” she says. All she can do now, Gannushkina says, is “hope that time will pass and we will get another chance. “But most likely I won’t be here to see it.”
Also on 31 March 2022 The Washington Post had an editorial: A generation of independent Russian journalists meets its grim end:
In his lecture accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10, the editor of the Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, declared that “journalism in Russia is going through a dark valley.” He said more than 100 journalists, media outlets, human rights defenders and nongovernmental organizations have been branded “foreign agents,” a label equivalent to “enemies of the people.” Many journalists lost their jobs and fled the country. [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/bdbb2312-8b7a-4e44-bb4c-1864474daec7]
Now Novaya Gazeta itself has suspended publication, threatened by the government for failing to label a group as a “foreign agent” and because of an onerous new law that makes it a crime with penalties up to 15 years in prison to “discredit” the armed forces — including use of the words “war,” “invasion” or “attack” to describe President Vladimir Putin’s onslaught against Ukraine. A day after the invasion, Novaya Gazeta expressed outrage with a front-page three-word banner headline against a black background: “Russia. Bombs. Ukraine.” The paper continued to report, including from a correspondent in Ukraine, until it could no longer. The decision to suspend was portrayed by Mr. Muratov as temporary, but the future for all independent media in Russia appears grim.
This is a tombstone moment for a generation of independent journalists. In the final years of Soviet glasnost and in the unbridled and exuberant first years of Russia’s democracy, they threw off the straitjacket of censors and state-dominated media outlets to create newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television broadcasts and digital and social media that drew large and information-hungry audiences. To be sure, the audiences often were liberal, elite and urban, but at the very least, Russians benefited from information sources outside state control. Even in the authoritarian years of Mr. Putin’s rise, some were permitted to function. Novaya Gazeta distinguished itself with hard-hitting investigations, as Mr. Muratov noted in his lecture, fearlessly exposing money-laundering and the exploitation of Siberian forests, among other topics. Six of the paper’s reporters have been killed over the years.
But now it seems that Russia is moving from authoritarianism to totalitarianism, where the state can no longer tolerate any independent outlets. Echo Moskvy, a bastion of open discussion on radio and online, has been silenced and closed. TV Dozhd, founded in 2010, has suspended operations, and some of its journalists have fled. The popular news website Znak.com has also closed. A similar trend has swept independent media in Russia’s regions.
Mr. Putin completely missed the ferment and exhilaration of the late-1980s glasnost years — he was serving in the KGB in East Germany — and in his two decades in power, he has shown little patience for free speech. Lately, dozens of people have been arrested for expressing anti-war sentiments. Vera Bashmakova, the editor of a popular science magazine, was detained for several hours when she showed up at preschool to pick up her daughter with a “No to war!” sign in her car window. She was charged with “discrediting the army.” This is indeed a “dark valley” for Russia, and it is growing darker by the day.
On 30 March 2022, Statewatch along with 13 other human rights organisations condemned the deportation from Spain to Algeria of Mohamed Benhalima, a human rights activist who faces a serious risk of torture and other ill-treatment in the North African state.
The organisations strongly condemn the deportation by Spain of Algerian activist Mohamed Benhalima, in the evening of 24 March 2022, despite the risks of torture and serious human rights violations he faces in Algeria, and therefore in blatant violation of Spain’s international obligations on non-refoulement. The authorities had been made aware, through civil society and legal appeals, that Mr Benhalima faces a high risk of torture, arbitrary detention and unfair trial in Algeria, where such violations are increasingly common against prisoners of opinion and peaceful activists.
Mohamed Benhalima is an Algerian citizen and a former Army corporal turned whistleblower, who exposed corruption among Algeria’s high-ranking military officials in 2019. He left Algeria after receiving information that his name was on a list of wanted military officials at risk of detention by the Algerian army for their participation in the Hirak, a mass pro-democracy protest movement.
He sought asylum in Spain on 18 February 2020 and again on 18 March 2022; Spain refused him asylum both times. On 14 March 2022, authorities opened an administrative file of expulsion for infringement of Art. 54.1.a. of Immigration Law 4/2000, alleging that Mr. Benhalima took part in “activities contrary to public security or which may be harmful for Spanish relationships with foreign states”.
Spanish authorities justified the opening of an expulsion file based on Mr. Benhalima’s alleged association with political opposition group Rachad, which was listed as a terrorist group by Algeria on 6 February 2022. Spanish authorities claimed that Rachad’s objective was to infiltrate radical youth into Algerian society to protest against the Algerian government, and concluded that the activist was a member of a terrorist group.
Authorities did not provide any proof of violent action or speech or any other action taken by the activist that would fall under a definition of terrorism in accordance with the definition proposed by the UN Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism. Authorities also do not appear to have considered a context in which Algerian authorities have been increasingly levelling bogus terrorism and state security charges against peaceful activists, human rights defenders and journalists since April 2021. On 27 December 2021, UN Special Procedures warned that the definition of terrorism in the Algerian Penal Code was too imprecise and undermined fundamental rights. They stated that the procedure for registration on the national terrorist list did not comply with international human rights standards and expressed concern that it could give rise to abuse.
On 24 March around 7pm, Mr. Benhalima’s lawyers were notified of the resolution of expulsion and promptly filed a request for an interim suspensive measure at the National Court of Spain, which was rejected; however, it was revealed later that the activist was already on his way to Algeria at the time.
On 21 March 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) submitted a non-public report to the Spanish government stating that Mr. Benhalima’s asylum request should be studied thoroughly in a regular procedure and not rejected expediently, arguing that the fear of torture was credible and that Algeria’s criminalisation of peaceful opposition was internationally recognised.
On 27 March, Benhalima appeared in a video broadcasted on Ennahar TV, in which he “confesses” to the crimes of conspiracy against the state, and states that he was not treated badly in custody. However, the undersigned organisations call into question the reliability of such statements which might be the result of duress. In addition, Benhalima had himself released a video from the retention centre in Valencia, before his deportation to Algeria, in which he warns that such videos would not be genuine and would show that he “was subjected to severe torture at the hands of intelligence services.”
In January and March 2021, in Algeria, Mohamed Benhalima was sentenced in absentia to a total of 20 years in prison for charges including “participation in a terrorist group” (Article 87bis 3 of the Penal Code) and “publishing fake news undermining national unity” (Art.196 bis) among other charges. The overly broad formulation of both articles has been used by Algeria repeatedly to criminalise fundamental freedoms. In one of the verdicts, issued on 9 March 2021, the judge sentenced Benhalima to 10 years in prison for his online publications, including videos exposing corruption in the army, a form of peaceful expression, which is protected under the right to freedom of expression.
Spanish authorities additionally motivated the expulsion based on Mr. Benhalima’s close relationship with Mohamed Abdellah, another Algerian whistleblower and former member of the military, who also sought refuge in Spain in April 2019 and was forcibly returned on 21 August 2021 using Art. 54.1.a. of Law 4/2000, in similar circumstances and for the same motives.
Mohamed Abdellah, currently detained in the military prison of Blida, stated in court on 2 January 2022 that he had been subjected to various forms of torture and ill-treatment upon his return to Algeria, including prolonged solitary confinement in a cell with no light and physical abuse, according to a witness who attended the hearing. He was also deprived of access to a lawyer.
Despite the strong similarities between both cases providing a compelling precedent about the actual risk of torture and ill treatment of activists and whistleblowers, notably former members of the military, in Algeria, the Spanish government showed its determination to forcibly return someone where their physical and psychological integrity was not guaranteed. In doing so, Spain flouted critical international law obligations under which nobody should be returned to a country where they would be in danger of suffering torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Signatures
MENA Rights Group
Justitia Center for legal protection of human rights in Algeria
Indigenous leaders said Jair Bolsonaro had spent three years promoting legislation that would open their territories to commercial development. Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters
Tom Phillips on 17 March 2022 reported how the Brazilian Government honours a president who activists accuse of undermining Indigenous protections.
Brazilian activists are outraged after Jair Bolsonaro – who has been accused of spearheading a cataclysmic attack on Indigenous rights – was honoured by his own government for his supposedly “altruistic” efforts to protect Indigenous lives.
Bolsonaro was granted the Medal of Indigenous Merit on Wednesday in recognition of what the justice ministry called his attempts to defend Indigenous communities in the South American country.
The same honour was bestowed upon key Bolsonaro allies, including his health, defence and agriculture ministers and the hardline institutional security chief, Augusto Heleno, who has accused Indigenous activists of committing crimes against the state by criticising the government’s policies overseas.
Indigenous leaders reacted to the award with disbelief and exasperation, noting how Brazil’s far-right president had spent three years undermining its Indigenous and environmental protection agencies, Funai and Ibama, and promoting legislation that would open Indigenous territories to commercial development.
The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil criticised the government’s “contemptuous gesture”. “They want to destroy us at all costs and, as if that wasn’t enough, they now want to pay tribute to themselves in our name?” the group said, claiming Bolsonaro deserved only “the medal of Indigenous genocide”.
“Now he wants to use the Ukraine war [as justification] for allowing mining, oil and gas exploration, hydroelectric dams and soy plantations on Indigenous lands,” Korap added, in reference to recent moves to fast-track draft legislation allowing such activities.
Alessandro Molon, the lower house leader of Brazil’s opposition, urged Congress to strip Bolsonaro of the medal. “It’s a mockery that the same government that is trying to legalise mining on Indigenous lands – endangering the existence of these utterly persecuted and mistreated people – has the nerve to award itself medals of ‘merit’ for all of the harm it has caused over the past three years,” Molon told the magazine Veja.
“If Congress doesn’t overrule this absurdity it will be associating itself with this unprecedented assault on Indigenous people,” Molon said.
DefendDefenders’ regulary chooses a Defender of the Month. Here an example:
Fadia Khalaf was not meant to be an activist. By her own admission, she was born into a conservative Muslim family – the first of six siblings. In Saudi Arabia where she was born and raised, the ruling ideology in the Kingdom was wahabbism – a puritanical version of Islam in which women are strictly expected to stay in the background and not play any public role. Yet even in that conservative setting, she managed to nurture a political consciousness:
“I think reading at young age helped build my awareness on concepts like justice and rights in general. I was exposed to concepts around human freedom, and that nurtured the rebel in me,” she says. Fadia Khalaf Tweet
Now aged 25, Fadia is the Co-founder of Missing Initiative, a volunteer, youth organization dedicated to documenting all persons that are reported missing during Sudan’s ongoing political crisis. The initiative was started in the aftermath of the Khartoum massacre, when armed forces of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council attacked a protest outside the country’s military headquarters, killing at least 127 people.
“From the start of protests to remove Bashir (Sudan’s long-serving President deposed in April 2019), we would always report people who we would realize never returned home after the protests. This was our way of looking out for each other. But after 3 June 2021 (the day of the Khartoum massacre), the situation was terrible. People were killed, women were raped, while many others were disappeared. All of a sudden, because of our past work, I started getting tens of phone-calls of people letting me know that their persons were missing, asking me to do something about it. I had to post all these missing cases on my social media platforms(Twitter & Instagram via @SlayKaiii) in addition to reporting to police, to try to find them. It was from that crisis that I and five other friends decided to start Missing initiative to continue searching for these people,” Fadia Khalaf Tweet
The initiative helps document persons announced missing, liaises with the police to conduct a search process, follows up on those in police detention to ensure the progress of their cases and helps some of those arrested find legal representation. To date, Missing Initiative has documented over 100 cases of missing persons, and helped locate about 60, from prisons to hospitals. Among these, at least five were found dead in city morgues.
“It’s horrifying, the conditions in which we find some of these people, if we find them at all. Some are in urgent need of medical attention from all forms of torture, others are imprisoned without charge. Others, we find, have died. But at least, it gives closure to their families,” she says. Fadia Khalaf Tweet
As a result of their work, Fadia says that Sudanese now recognise forced disappearances as a state crime, and have gradually developed a consciousness and vigilance to look out for each other against state-inspired violence.
These efforts have not been without consequences. Fadia says she and her colleagues have been threatened together with their families, and that she continues to be randomly followed and her phones tapped. She says as women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in a deeply patriarchal society, they’re even more endangered because the society does not believe they should have any rights at all, much less a voice.
“The day women rise in Sudan, patriarchy will fall because it thrives on subjugating women. And that’s why those like us are harassed because the system fears that we will awaken and empower other women to rise up and refuse to be dominated,” she says. Fadia Khalaf Tweet
Nonetheless, Fadia is optimistic, the growing women and youth agitation is unstoppable: “This spirit and desire for change, I have never seen it before. Young people are willing to die for a better country every day! It is inspiring. All they need is to be empowered more,” she notes.
The English Premier League should immediately adopt and implement human rights policies that would prohibit governments implicated in grave human rights abuses from securing stakes in Premier League clubs to whitewash their reputations, Human Rights Watch said 0n 23 March 2022. The ban should be extended to state entities that they control, abusive state leaders, and individuals funding or otherwise assisting in serious abuses. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/08/07/human-rights-compliance-test-for-football-clubs/
On March 14, 2022, mediareported that a consortium led by a Saudi media group closely connected to the Saudi government had expressed interest in purchasing Chelsea Football Club. This reinforces the urgent need for the Premier League to adopt policies to protect clubs and their supporters, before any sale takes place, from being implicated in efforts to whitewash rights abuses. The Premier League’s approval of the sale of Newcastle United to a business consortium led by the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), a government-controlled entity implicated in serious human rights abuses, was conducted in an opaque manner and without any human rights policy in place. The Premier League should reconsider the approval of the Newcastle United sale. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/01/30/newcastles-takeover-bid-from-saudi-arabia-welcomed-by-many-fans-but-it-remains-sportswashing/]
“Allowing Newcastle United to be sold to a business consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, an institution chaired by a state leader linked to human rights abuses, has exposed the farcical inadequacies of the Premier League’s Owners and Directors Test,” said Yasmine Ahmed, UK advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “As another consortium with Saudi government links eyes acquiring Chelsea, the Premier League should move fast to protect the league and its clubs from being a fast-track option for dictators and kleptocrats to whitewash their reputations.”
Human Rights Watch wrote to the Premier League CEO, Richard Masters, on March 15, to express concerns over the Newcastle United decision and to raise further concerns about the involvement of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in facilitating human rights abuses.
The October 7, 2021 Premier League statement announcing the sale said that the league had “received legally binding assurances that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not control Newcastle United Football Club.” The league did not disclose what these assurances were, nor explain how they would be legally binding. Instead, the Premier League appears to have acquiesced to the notion that the Public Investment Fund is separate from the Saudi state, even though its chairman is the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, its board members are nearly all currently serving ministers and other high-level officials, and it is a sovereign wealth fund that reports to the government’s Council of Economic and Development Affairs…
Human Rights Watch has significant concerns around the role of the investment fund itself in facilitating human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch wrote to the fund’s governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, who, according to a LinkedIn page attributed to al-Rumayyan and various media reports, was managing director of the fund between 2015 and 2019, on December 21, 2021, and again on March 15 requesting his response to allegations of serious human rights violations associated with the fund. He has not responded. Al-Rumayyan is also Newcastle United’s new nonexecutive chairman.
Human Rights Watch has reviewed internal Saudi government documents submitted to a Canadian court as part of an ongoing legal claim filed by a group of Saudi companies against a former intelligence official. The documents showed that in 2017, one of Mohammed bin Salman’s advisers ordered al-Rumayyan, then the fund’s “supervisor,” to transfer 20 companies into the fund as part of an anti-corruption campaign. There is a risk that these companies were “transferred” from their owners without due process.
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The Premier League has a responsibility to respect human rights throughout all its operations. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights sets out these responsibilities, including the expectation that businesses will adopt specific policies and conduct due diligence to identify any risks of contributing to human rights harm. Such harm may include conferring reputational benefits that help cover up human rights abuses. The Premier League’s handbook does not include human rights under its “owners and directors test,” even though ownership of prominent football clubs by state entities or individuals close to state leaders is on the rise throughout Europe. This gap has allowed Saudi Arabia to employ its “sportswashing” strategy in the Premier League.
On March 3, the Premier League said it was considering adding a human rights component to its owners’ and directors’ test as it reviews its governance and regulations, and Masters told the Financial Times that this had come under “a lot of scrutiny” and league officials were looking to see if “we need to be more transparent and whether those decisions should be approved by an independent body.” The Premier League should also investigate the allegations of involvement of the fund’s and al-Rumayyan’s involvement in abuses, including Khashoggi’s murder, and publish its findings.
Potential purchase of Chelsea FC by Saudi-led consortium The Saudi-led consortium that has reportedly made a £2.7bn bid to purchase Chelsea is being spearheaded by the Saudi Research and Media Group (SRMG), one of the largest publishing companies in Middle East, headed by a prominent Saudi media executive, Mohammed al Khereiji. The company owns more than 30 media outlets including Asharq Al-Awsat, Asharq News, and Arab News – media outlets with an apparently pro-Saudi government bias – and has its headquarters in Saudi Arabia where there are almost no independent media. Al- Khereiji is the only name mentioned in any reports regarding the Chelsea bid, and it is unclear who else is involved in the consortium.
In 2020, Al-Khereiji who holds several high-level positions, was appointed board chairman of MBC Media Solutions, a commercial advertising and sales unit created in partnership between MBC Group, a media conglomerate owned by the Saudi government, and Engineer Holding Group (EGH), the media company’s parent company which al-Khereiji also heads.
Given how closely connected the media company is to Saudi state-controlled entities, how little independence the Saudi-based media outlets under its control have, and how much influence it wields – it claims it has a combined monthly reach of 165 million people – it contributes heavily to promoting the image of the Saudi government.
“The Saudi government has gone all-out in the past years to bury its human rights abuses under public spectacles and sporting events,” Ahmed said. “Until there is real accountability for these abuses by the Saudi leadership, those silently benefiting from the kingdom’s largess risk being an accomplice in whitewashing their crimes.”
It is rare to come across a piece that makes such a strong case that there is a causal link between sanctions and human rights improvement…..
Azad Majumder in Online News of 20 March, 2022 reports “No Bangladesh ‘gunfight’ deaths in 100 days after US sanctions”
Bangladesh passed a rare 100 days on Sunday without any extrajudicial killing in the name of “gunfight” or “shootout” between law enforcers and suspected criminals. The unexpected pause in the frequent “shootout” incidents came after the United States on 10 December imposed sanctions on the country’s elite security force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and seven of its current and former officials, including police chief Benazir Ahmed for alleged human rights abuses.
Human rights defenders said the pause in killings in the so-called gunfights after the US sanctions showed law-enforcing enforcing agencies staged these incidents and provided false narratives.
A similar halt took place in 2020 after the killing of a retired army major in southern Cox’s Bazar district. The alleged murder sparked tension between the military force and police. The “shootout” or “gunfight” resumed slowly, causing the death of 51 people in 2021, said Bangladeshi rights group Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK).
The last such death was reported hours before the imposition of the US sanctions when a suspected “robber” was killed in a “gunfight” between RAB and “a gang of robbers” in southwest Barguna district.
“It has also proven that these incidents were neither spontaneous nor sporadic, instead it was a well-coordinated tactic of the law enforcement agencies, presumably backed by a policy decision,” Ali Riaz, a professor at Illinois State University and non-resident senior fellow of Atlantic Council, told EFE.
Riaz led a research project for the non-profit Center for Governance Studies in Bangladesh, which analyzed 591 incidents of extrajudicial killings in the country between 2019 to 2021. The research, published on Mar.12, found “gunfights” constituted 86.63 percent of such killings.
At least 4,140 people were killed in Bangladesh between 2001 and 2021 in extrajudicial killings by security forces, said human rights group Odhikar.
Riaz said US sanctions had drawn international attention to the human rights records of Bangladesh. But he feared the current pause was unlikely to sustain for long.
“There are three reasons that make it likely to resume. No punitive measures are attached to the sanctions, the US focus is likely to be shifted, and the institutional arrangements of impunity to the law enforcement agencies is not being addressed,” he said.
In the wake of UN sanctions on RAB, Bangladesh appointed a lobbyist firm in the US for a monthly fee of $20,000 with a target to remove the sanctions, deputy minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam told media in February.
Rights defenders criticized the move. They said appointing a lobbyist or public relations firm for a rosy picture of the human rights situation was not the way. “It is unfortunate that the government seems more focused on its reputation than to address the root problem robustly,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told EFE.
“The government should be committed to the protection of the rights of Bangladeshis to not be arbitrarily detained, tortured, forcibly disappeared, or killed,” she said.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 