Archive for the 'HRW' Category
September 30, 2014
Yesterday, 29 September 2014, human rights defender Pierre Claver Mbonimpa was conditionally released from prison on grounds of ill health in Burundi. [He was arrested on 16 Mat this year: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/alert-mea-laureate-2007-pierre-claver-mbonimpa-arrested-in-burundi/]
Pierre Claver Mbonimpa is the President of the Burundi Association for the Promotion of Human Rights and of Detained Persons (Association Burundaise pour la Promotion des Droits Humains et des Personnes Détenues – APRODH), one of the most active human rights organisations in Burundi. For several years, the human rights defender has documented torture and the poor conditions of detention in prisons, and has campaigned against extra-judicial killings in the country. Pierre Claver Mbonimpa was the MEA Laureate in 2007.
MEA Laureate Mbonimpa, Burundi
Only two weeks ago the High Court of Bujumbura had still rejected a request by his defense lawyers for his provisional release due to serious illness. However, the court had ordered the establishment of a medical commission to assess the health of the human rights defender (see http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/27199> . As conditions of his release, Pierre Claver Mbonimpa is not permitted to travel beyond the borders of Bujumbura city, nor is he permitted to be in the proximity of the airport, train station or ports without judicial authorisation. Moreover, the human rights defender must appear before the judge when required.
On 18 September the European Parliament adopted a resolution which condemned Mbonimpa’s detention and deemed it “representative of the mounting risks facing human rights defenders” in Burundi. The resolution also called on the EU High Representative and the 28 EU Member States to ensure “a clear and principled EU policy vis a vis Burundi that addresses the on-going serious human rights violations” in the country. http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/19/dispatches-european-parliament-stands-mbonimpa-burundi
To read more about the case of Pierre Claver Mbonimpa: http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/PierreClaverMbonimpa
Posted in Front Line, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: APRODH, Burundi, European Parliament, Front Line (NGO), Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, Mbonimpa, MEA, MEA Laureate 2007, medical, Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, release
September 8, 2014
During the current session of the Human Rights Council there will again many side events in Geneva. I will refer to some of them not only in the hope that you may able to attend, but also to illustrate the concerns of the NGO movement:
On Tuesday 9 September from 12.00 to 13.30 (Palais des Nations, Room XXI) there will be a side-event organised jointly by Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Human Rights Watch, FIDH, ISHR and the International Bar Association. Speakers are:
- Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
- Souhayr Belhassen, Honourary President, International Federation for Human Rights FIDH
- Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Program, Amnesty International
- Phillip Tahmindjis, Director, International Bar Association Human Rights Institute
- Moderator: Yves Magat, Journalist, Télévision Suisse Romande
Posted in Amnesty international, FIDH, HRW, human rights, ISHR | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Amnesty International, Civil society, Egypt, FIDH, Geneva, Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch, impunity, International Bar Association, International Bar Association Human Rights Institute Moderator, ISHR, Kenneth Roth, NGOs, Philip Luther, Phillip Tahmindjis, repression, side event, Souhayr Belhassen
August 29, 2014
On 21 August I reported on the travails of an Egyptian family of human rights defenders [
https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/an-exceptional-egyptian-family-of-human-rights-defenders/], a week later
Mona Seif’s father has died.
Ahmed Seif Al Islam was a veteran
Egyptian lawyer, activist and former political prisoner. Arrested and tortured by State Security Investigations officers in 1983 for his political activity, he served five years in prison. Founder of the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, which since 2008 has been providing legal assistance to protesters. The Hisham Mubarak Law Centre (HMLC ) monitored state violence during the 2011 protests, and became a gathering place for human rights activists during the revolution. Ahmed Seif was arrested by Military Intelligence with his staff at the height of the protests.
Seif, a human rights lawyer, was on the legal defense team in numerous high-profile trials of human rights, labor, and more broadly political activists in the Hosni Mubarak years, but he was above all an activist himself. The was more often than not the coordinating center for planning peaceful demonstrations and then, invariably, for deploying lawyers to various detention centers in response to the usual mass arrests that followed such events.In a conversation I had with Seif several years ago, in February 2007, he told me how he became engaged in human rights activism and lawyering:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Ahmed Seif Al Islam, detention, Egypt, Hisham Mubarak Law Centre (HMLC), Human rights defender, Human Rights Watch, in memoriam, legal assistance, military trials, Mona Seif, Seif Al Islam
August 22, 2014
Gulnara Karimova (pictured above), the glamorous daughter of Uzbekistan’s president, used to be one of the more powerful people in Central Asia. But now, in secret recordings obtained by the BBC, she says she and her teenaged daughter are being treated “worse than dogs” and need urgent medical help since she has fallen out with her dictator father President Islam Karimov. The BBC news correspondent Natalia Antelava on 21 August reports on this exceptional story. Natalia Antelava reports that in March 2014, she received and authenticated a handwritten letter from Karimova, in which she said she and her daughter had been placed under house arrest and now the short audio recordings were smuggled out of Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan has a history of human rights violations and Karimova has fully played her role in this sorry state of affairs (see e.g.
https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/daughter-of-uzbek-dictator-loses-defamation-case-in-paris/. Stroehlein of Human Rights Watch (which will publish next month a report on wrongfully imprisoned people in the country) is understandably cautious when it comes to Karimova’s recent concern for human rights in Uzbekistan, since it follows a decade-long period when the woman known as “
Googoosha” wielded immense power in the country. “
She almost certainly had top-level regime access to critical information regarding serious and systematic rights abuses in Uzbekistan, and she has had many opportunities to hand that information over to journalists and human rights groups,” he says .
“She hasn’t.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in HRW, human rights | 1 Comment »
Tags: BBC, dictatorship, Googoosha, Gulnara Karimova, House arrest, HRW, human rights groups, human rights in Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, Karimova, MEA Laureate 2008, Mutabar Tadjibayeva, Natalia Antelava, President Islam Karimov, Stroehlein, Uzbekistan
August 18, 2014
An array of international human rights organisations have over the last weeks focused on Azerbaijan. These four reports together give a shocking picture of the kind of repression that awaits human rights defenders: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Civil Rights Defenders (NGO), Front Line, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 4 Comments »
Tags: Abdul Abilov, Azerbaijan, blogger, Civil Rights Defenders – Civil Rights Defenders, corruption, Council of Europe, Emin Huseynov, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), foreign funding, freedom of association, Front Line (NGO), HRW, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights House Foundation, Intigam Aliyev, journalists, Leyla Yunus, Rasul Jafarov, resource extraction
May 31, 2014
I announced the HRW film festival in an earlier post [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/human-rights-watch-film-festival-celebrates-25th-anniversary-with-5-films-on-human-rights-defenders/] but now that the Huffington post of 31 May 2014 has listed the 10 films it says every human rights defender should see, I gladly share their pick:
1. Sepideh — Reaching for the Stars (Denmark/Iran/Germany/Norway/Sweden) The story of a teenage girl named Sepideh, living in a rural village outside of Tehran, who dreams of becoming a famous astronomer. The documentary tackles gender roles in Iran while showcasing one young woman’s ambition and strength in the face of her family’s discouragement, university pitfalls and societal expectations. Directed by Berit Madsen. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTzbIc6oiqs?wmode=opaque]
2. Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus (US/UK/Belarus) Made up of smuggled footage and uncensored interviews, this documentary gives audiences a glimpse into Belarus’ dissident movement as it takes the shape of stage performances and public activism. Directed by Madeleine Sackler. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGALySJ3O24?wmode=opaque]
3. Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story (US) A veteran shares her story moving from one identity, a former U.S. Navy Seal named Chris Beck, to another, a transgender woman named Kristen Beck. Directed by Sandrine Orabona. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r21OdLSTfQY?wmode=opaque]
4. A Quiet Inquisition (US) Here you’ll meet OBGYN Dr. Carla Cerrato, who must navigate the perilous territory of Nicaragua’s anti-abortion policies, which prohibit abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or when a woman’s life is at stake. Directed by Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrina Kahn.
5. Scheherazade’s Diary (Lebanon) This “tragicomic documentary” follows women inmates in Lebanon as they stage a theater/drama therapy project titled “Scheherazade in Baabda,” revealing personal stories of domestic violence, failed relationships and traumas associated with motherhood. Directed by Zeina Daccache. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VnZGmd6EMg?wmode=opaque]
6. Siddharth (Canada/India) One father’s desperate journey to locate his son, a 12-year-old boy who was sent to work in another province to support his family, but did not return and is feared to have been kidnapped or trafficked. Directed by Richie Mehta.
7. The Supreme Price (US) The film covers the evolution of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Nigeria and efforts to increase the participation of women in leadership roles. Directed by Joanna Lipper.
8. Private Violence (US) Questioning the accepted discourse on domestic violence, the documentary introduces audiences to two women survivors who advocate for justice while exploring “the fact that the most dangerous place for a woman is her home.” Directed by Cynthia Hill.
9. The Beekeeper (Switzerland) This is the touching story of Ibrahim Gezer, a Kurdish beekeeper from southeast Turkey who, robbed of his family, possessions and 500 bee colonies, moves to Switzerland to make a new life. Directed by Mano Khalil.
10. Abounaddara Collective Shorts from Syria (Syria) The Abounaddara Collective is a group of filmmakers who came together in 2010 to help provide an alternative image of Syrian society, one not seen in mainstream media. This portion of the festival will showcase 90 minutes of their short films.
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival will run from June 12 to June 22, 2014. See a complete schedule of screenings here.
10 Films Every Human Rights Advocate Should Watch.
Posted in films, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: awareness raising, Belarus, Documentary film, film festival, films, HRW, Huffington Post, Human Rights Defenders, human rights film festival, Human Rights Watch, images, New York, YouTube
May 27, 2014
On 27 May RIA Novosti picked up the press release by Human Rights Watch calling for four prominent human rights defenders allegedly in custody of an armed opposition group in Syria to be immediately released. HRW together with 45 co-signing organizations states that irregular armed opposition groups in Syria are threatening and harassing journalists and human rights defenders.“Abductions of human rights defenders by armed groups in Syria are an assault on the very freedoms the armed opposition groups claim to be fighting for”. Almost six months a group of armed men kidnapped human rights defenders Razan Zeitouneh [or Zaitouneh], Wael Hamada, Samira Khalil, and Nazem Hammadi in a city outside Damascus, then controlled by a number of armed opposition groups, but there has been no information on the status or whereabouts of Zeitouneh and her colleagues, and no group has claimed responsibility for their abduction.
See previous post with video message by Zaitouneh: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/human-rights-defender-razan-zaitouneh-still-missing-in-syria-after-one-month/
via HRW Demands Syrian Militants Release Rights Defenders Working to Expose Rebel Abuses | World | RIA Novosti.
Posted in films, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: disappearances, freedom of expression, HRW, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights Watch, journalists, kidnapping, Razan Zaitouneh, Razan Zeitouneh, rebel groups, reporting, RIA Novosti, Syria
May 22, 2014
On Tuesday 27 May 2014, will take place a Conference on the human rights situation in Belarus, from 14h00 –17h00 in the International Conference Centre in Geneva (room 3)
Speakers include:
- Florian Irminger, Human Rights House Foundation
- Tatsiana Reviaka, Human Rights Centre “Viasna” and Belarusian Human Rights House
- Aleh Hulak, Belarusian Helsinki Committee
- Anna Gerasimova, Belarusian Human Rights House
- Volodymyr Yavorskyy, Working group on the development of the Guidelines on Definition of Political Prisoner
- Andrzej Poczobut, journalist
- Nicolas Agostini, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
- Andrei Paluda, Human Rights Centre “Viasna”
- Pavel Levinau, Belarusian Helsinki Committee
- Natallia Pinchuk, wife of Belarus political prisoner Ales Bialaitski
- Marina Adamovich, wife of Belarus political prisoner Mikola Statkevich
For more information contact: anna.innocenti[at]humanrightshouse.org
The meeting is cosponsored by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, FIDH, Civicus, Belarusian Human Rights House and the Human Rights House Foundation.
Posted in AI, FIDH, HRW, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: AI, Ales Bialaitski, Anna Gerasimova, Belarus, Belarusian Human Rights House, CIVICUS, conference, FIDH, Geneva, HRW, Human Rights House Foundation, human rights situation, meeting, political prisoners, Viasna Human Rights Centre
May 18, 2014
In a 28-page report, Under Attack: Violence against health workers, patients and facilities, Human Rights Watch and the Coalition “Safeguarding Health in Conflict” highlight recent attacks in countries around the world. Major examples include the targeted killing of more than 70 polio vaccination workers in Pakistan and Nigeria; the arrests of health workers for providing care to protesters in Bahrain and Turkey; the bombing of hospitals and deaths of hundreds of patients and health workers in Syria; and attacks targeting health workers in South Sudan and Afghanistan. The report is released in advance of a meeting from 19-24 May 2014, of health ministers from around the world.
Posted in books, HRW, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Afghanistan, Bahrain, conflict, HRW, Human Rights Defenders, humanitarian workers, Nigeria, Pakistan, patients and facilities, polio vaccination, right to health, Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, South Sudan, Syria, Turkey, UN, Under Attack: Violence against health workers, war
May 18, 2014
In an excellent piece written for CNN, Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch, on 15 May gives an overview of the different measures that threaten human rights defenders in Russia. While attention is on Ukraine, a vicious crackdown on civil society in Russia itself also escalated with every week brings a new pernicious law or legislative proposal:
- The authorities have blocked or essentially took editorial control over a number of independent news portals and are pushing new laws to stifle freedom of expression.
- A week ago, President Vladimir Putin signed a law requiring Russian bloggers with significant followings to register with the authorities and comply with media regulations.
- The same law requires blogging services and social networks to store user activity for six months.
- Another legislative proposal would introduce administrative and criminal offenses for editors who publish “false anti-Russian” information or offer media support to “anti-Russian extremist and separatist forces.”
- Another new draft law introduces a ban on publishing negative information about the Russian government and military.
- Also, amendments presently under review by the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, would enable the authorities to throw people behind bars for up to five years for repeated participation in unauthorized public protests.
At the same time the infamous Russian law “on foreign agents”, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: ADC Memorial, bloggers, Civil society, foreign agent law, freedom of association, freedom of expression, Front Line (NGO), Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights Watch, judicial harassment, media, nationalist group, Russia, Tanya Lokshina, Women of the Don
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 