Nasrin makes a brief appearance in Jafar Panahi’s recent film “Taxi, which was awarded the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin international film festival 2015.
On 8 July FIDH published an update on the situation of Iranian human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh: “With A Defiant Smile – A Portrait of Nasrin Sotoudeh“. For more posts on her see: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/nasrin-sotoudeh/
Nasrin Sotoudeh is among the most prominent human rights lawyers in Iran (recipient of the 2012 Sakharov Prize, which she shared with the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, and the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award). Known for her work in defending women’s rights activists, minors on death row, journalists, Kurdish rights activists and other human rights lawyers, including the Nobel prize winner Shirin Ebadi, she is a national hero to many Iranians.
In January 2011, she was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of “propaganda against the system,” and “acting against national security“. Following persistent calls for her release from the UN, governments, and NGOs her sentence was reduced to six years, to be spent in the notorious Evin prison.
In 2013, after three years in prison, Sotoudeh was unexpectedly released, without explanation from the authorities. During her incarceration, she spent time in solitary confinement and went on several hunger strikes in protest of the inhumane prison conditions and the 2012 travel ban imposed on her husband and young daughter. One of the hunger strikes lasted 49 days and resulted in her losing 95 pounds. Upon her release, despite her weakened physical state, Sotoudeh got right back to work fighting for the respect for human rights in Iran.
Since then she has reactivated the Professional Women Lawyers Association and the Children’s Rights Committee, both of which she had helped found before her imprisonment. However, she has been spending much of her energy on a new campaign to abolish the death penalty in Iran, called Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty (LEGAM). The initiative focuses on amending Iranian legislation to gradually reduce and eventually abolish the use of the death penalty.
Until recently, her ability to push for legislative reforms remained greatly limited due to the Iran Bar Association’s October 2014 decision (under pressure from the Judiciary) to suspend her license to practice law for a period of three years. In protest, Sotoudeh staged daily sit-ins in front of the Bar Association’s offices in Tehran. Her perseverance and that of her supporters finally paid off when, on 23 June 2015, Sotoudeh was informed that the Bar Association had revised the ban and reduced it to a period of nine months [Sotoudeh declared that she would be applying to renew her license].
When asked how she became a human rights defender, Sotoudeh says that as a lawyer, she was forced to make a choice: “When a lawyer witnesses unfair trials, when a lawyer witnesses the execution of minors, either they must turn their back or they must face up to the problem they are witnessing. I think I entered the field of human rights on the day I decided not to avoid such issues.”
Sotoudeh seeks to change Iran from the inside, by arguing cases and convincing others that protecting human rights is necessary. As she said recently regarding the conflict with the Iran Bar Association: “The channel for negotiations should never be closed. However, there are prerequisites for negotiations. If they are fulfilled, we should welcome such negotiations. If not, we should not insist only on negotiations. We should use civil action to persuade the other party to engage in negotiations.”
In the brief appearance in Jafar Panahi’s recent film “Taxi,” (see above) Sotoudeh explains the trials and tribulations human rights defenders face in Iran all the time with a smile on her face, but a defiant smile!
OMCT and FIDH (within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) in cooperation with the ISHR organise on 16 June (16:00-17:30, room XXII, Palais des Nations – Geneva) a side event on Attacks and Reprisals against Human Rights Defenders, focusing on the issue of reprisalsand accountability. As readers know by now, I believe that this is the topic which the human rights movement HAS TO TAKE more serious lest all progress of the last decades will be lost. My blog contains quite a few posts on reprisals (https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/reprisals/), but the key one is: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/zero-tolerance-for-states-that-take-reprisals-against-hrds-lets-up-the-ante/.
It is encouraging to see the range of human rights actors that have taken to using the Baku Games, starting today, as an occasion to draw attention to the human rights record of Azerbaijan. One of the more creative is the FIDH‘s launch of “REAL BAKU 2015,” an online video game, to denounce the arbitrary imprisonment of dozens of human rights defenders:
Egypt’s Abdel Fattach El Sisi is due to meet German chancellor Wednesday 3 June
On the eve of the visit to Germany by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a number of leading international human rights organisations (AI, HRW, EMHRH, OMCT and Front Line) wrote an open letter to the German chancellor Ms Angela Merkel. It reads in essence: Read the rest of this entry »
Investigative journalist Rafael Marques de Moraisis due to appear in court today in Angola for sentencing. On 25 May the Public Prosecutor in his trial requested that the judge convict him of criminal defamation and sentence him to 30 days in prison, only four days after the announcement of the Lunda Provincial Tribunal that charges against Mr. Marques de Morais had been dropped!“ After more than two years of continuous judicial harassment, solely based on Mr. Marques de Morais human rights activities, this last decision makes yet another mockery of justice in Angola ”, said Karim Lahidji, FIDH President.
[Mr. Marques de Morais is a well-known Angolan journalist and editor of an Angolan anti-corruption website,who has been facing continuous judicial harassment since the publication in 2011, of his book, “Blood Diamonds : Corruption and Torture in Angola”, in which he documents and denounces the corruption, allegations of homicides, torture, forced eviction of civilian settlements and intimidation of inhabitants of the diamond-mining areas of Angola’s Lundas region by some state agents and business entrepreneurs.]
He is same Rafael Marques de Morais, who was quoted in my post of 19 December 2013 about Mariah Carey performing for the President that “the presidency was happy to cover the capital in posters of her performance, but on November 23 the presidential guards murdered an activist in custody for posting fliers. Those fliers were a peaceful protest of the murder of other activists disappeared by state police. How does Mariah Carey, the artist and humanist, who so often speaks about human rights, feel about that?…..The Angolan Red Cross gala raised $65,000. Mariah Carey’s transportation alone cost several times that number. It’s absolutely shameless,” added de Morais. [from https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/mariah-carey-needs-better-informed-staff-and-donate-her-1-million-fee-to-human-rights-defenders-in-angola/#more-4223] Read the rest of this entry »
Human rights defenders find it difficult to function with a fair and functioning legal regime for the creation and administration of associations (NGOs). In my post of yesterday on Russia I drew attention to the draft law declaring some NGOs ‘undesirable”. Today Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Kyrgyz lawmakers in the coming days not to follow Russia’s bad example of passing a Foreign Agents law [see also my earlier: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/kyrgyzstan-follows-bad-example-set-by-russia-foreign-agents/].
And also today Front Line and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a joint OMCT-FIDH programme) ask the Cambodian Government to withdraw its draft law on civil society which would create many uncertainties and restrictions. The NGOs trace the lack of consultation in the process of law- making (since 2010) and conclude that the draft law as it stands will be used arbitrarily to restrict the legitimate work of human rights organisations.
This is an interesting website by the International Federation for Human Rights(FIDH) which allows you to quickly contact decision makers and other persons with influence to help free at least some arbitrarily detained human rights defenders.
Colombia‘s Supreme Court sentenced the former head of the country’s secret police to 14 years in prison for spying on officials and journalists. Maria del Pilar Hurtado committed the offenses between 2007 and 2008, targeting political opponents of then-President Alvaro Uribe. UPI reports on 1 May 2015 that a number of human rights organizations, including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Oxfam Solidariteit, applauded the convictions, saying it “confirms the existence of a system of espionage, persecution, harassment and threats against opponents, judges, journalists and human rights defenders, designed and organized at the highest levels of Alvaro Uribe Velez’s government.”
[When the allegations surfaced in 2010, Hurtado sought asylum in Panama. Her asylum was later revoked and she turned herself in to Colombian authorities in January. Uribe’s former chief of staff, Bernardo Moreno, was also convicted for his role in the illegal wire taps and was sentenced to eight years of house arrest Uribe has denied any knowledge of the illegal acts. He announced via Twitter on Thursday that he would appear before the Supreme Court on May 5 to answer questions.]
Just when one thinks that Iran is going to change for the better, human rights defender Ms. Nargess Mohammadi is arrested (after years of continuous judicial harassment, including repeated summoning, interrogations and trials.)
Several NGOs, including the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH/OMCT) have strongly condemned the 5 May arrest of Nargess Mohammadi, who is the spokesperson and Vice-President of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC). Upon her arrest, the agents claimed that she was being taken “to serve her prison sentence”. [Mrs Mohammadi started to serve a 6-year prison sentence on 21 April 2012, but that she was released on bail on 31 July 2012 for medical reasons.]
On May 3, 2015, Ms. Mohammadi attended the first hearing of her trial based on three main charges against her:
“assembly and collusion against the national security” based on her activities in the DHRC and cooperation with “the [Nobel Laureate] Shirin Ebadi, counter-revolutionary and feminist groups”;
“spreading propaganda against the State” based on her “interviews with foreign and counter-revolutionary media participation in illegal gatherings, supporting sedition and anti-security inmates”; and
“membership of the illegal and anti-security LEGAM group”.
Following a meeting in 2014 with the then High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy, Ms. Catherine Ashton, the Iranian authorities banned Ms. Mohammadi from travelling abroad; she has received 10 summons and has been detained twice by the security agents.
The 2015 Press Kowtow award should probably go to the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) which – as reported by the equally sharp Bahrain News Agency(BNA) on 3 May 2015 – “saluted the national press strides over the past years“. It issued this statement as Bahrain joined other nations in marking the World Press Freedom Day, being held this year under the theme “Let Journalism Thrive! Towards Better Reporting, Gender Equality, and Media Safety in the Digital Age”. It lauded His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa and His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier for their support…..
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 