I have on earlier occasions tried to point out that there is a (big) difference between peace awards and human rights awards. This time it is Dan Murphy in the Christian Science Monitor, who points to another example. While it could be argued that Myanmar President U Thein Sein deserves to be praised for having made bold steps to move his country away from repression and conflict, he human rights record in the past and [as Human Rights Watch argues in a recent report) in the present would not be considered by many as a likely candidate for a human rights award.
The International Crisis Group’s plan to give its “In Pursuit of Peace” award to Myanmar President U Thein Sein later today and a new Human Rights Watch report on ethnic cleansing against ethnic Rohingya form such striking contrast, that Murphy wonders if Human Rights Watch timed the report to coincide with the gala party that the International Crisis Group (ICG) is planning to host for President Thein Sein later today at the swanky Pierre Hotel in New York City, and with a scheduled lifting of all but arms sanctions against Myanmar (also known as Burma) from the European Union.
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan’s highly repressive policies are coming up for rare international scrutiny as from today (22 and 24 April 2013), Human Rights Watch said today. United Nations member countries gathering at the Human Rights Council in Geneva under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedure should seize the opportunity to expose and denounce the ongoing repression in both countries and press for concrete steps to end abuses.
The governments of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan stand out as among the most repressive in the world, Human Rights Watch said. Both also stand out for their failure to heed recommendations made during their previous Human Rights Council reviews, in December 2008. “The extraordinarily high levels of repression in both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, coupled with their governments’ refusal to acknowledge problems, let alone to address them, underscores the need for a strong, unified message,” said Veronika Szente Goldston, Europe and Central Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
In submissions on Turkmenistan and on Uzbekistan Human Rights Watch highlighted key concerns with respect to both countries, and the steps needed to address them. One immediate step – and crucial if crime should not pay ! – is that both governments should be urged to end their longstanding denial of access for the UN’s own rights monitors. Ten UN rapporteurs have requested such access to Turkmenistan, while the number of UN rapporteurs barred from Uzbekistan has reached 11! Cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC is another pressing issue [On April 12, the ICRC took the unusual step of announcing publicly its decision to end prison visits to detainees in Uzbekistan].
Other key concerns in Turkmenistan include: The government’s longstanding use of imprisonment as a tool for political retaliation and draconian restrictions on freedom of expression and association, which authorities enforce by threatening, harassing, or imprisoning those who dare to question its policies, however modestly. The severe repression of civil society activism makes it impossible for independent human rights defenders and journalists to work openly.
Proceedings in this case, brought by a fruit processing company before the South Bangkok criminal court, are scheduled for today April 11, 2013. The charges stem from a defamation complaint filed on February 14 by the Natural Fruit Company Limited against Andy Hall for an investigative report about serious labor rights violations at the company’s factory in Prachaub Kirikhan province. If convicted, Hall faces up to two years in prison. He is also facing civil damages of 300 million baht (US$10 million).“Criminal charges against Andy Hall reflect an attempt to stifle serious reporting on alleged abuses by one of Thailand’s top fruit processors,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Freedom to investigate abuses by corporations is critical to ensure compliance and accountability under Thai law and human rights standards.” The Natural Fruit Company, using a workforce comprised primarily of migrant workers from Burma, asserted that Hall defamed and damaged the company by “broadcasting false statements to public media.”
Hall’s report, “Cheap has a high price: Responsibility problems relating to international private label products and food production in Thailand,” researched and written with the Finnish nongovernmental organization FinnWatch, investigated the production practices of private label juices and fruit sold in Finland, including by Natural Fruit Company Limited. The report alleged that Natural Fruit Company Limited had committed serious labor rights abuses, including poor working conditions, unlawfully low wages, confiscation of workers’ official documents, use of child labor, and excessive overtime. Human Rights Watch, along with an increasing number of states and international authorities, believes that criminal defamation laws should be abolished, as criminal penalties are always disproportionate punishments for reputational harm and infringe on free expression. Criminal defamation laws are open to easy abuse, resulting in very harsh consequences, including imprisonment. As repeal of criminal defamation laws in an increasing number of countries shows, such laws are not necessary for the purpose of protecting reputations. “The prosecution of Andy Hall strikes at the very core of efforts by human rights defenders to end pervasive abuses of workers in Thailand’s export industry,” Adams said. “International companies sourcing from Thailand should raise concerns with the government that using criminal charges to silence rights critics could adversely affect the overall reputation of Thailand’s major export sectors. The Thai government should welcome efforts to protect worker’s rights, not penalize them.”
While all attention understandably is on the death of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chaves, indigenous rights defender Mr Sabino Romero Izarra was shot and killed while travelling on a road in the Sierra de Perijá, Zulia State on 3 March 2013. His wife survived but sustained injuries as a result of the attack. Sabino Romero Izarra was a prominent defender of the rights of the indigenous Yukpa community, including peacefully campaigning and mobilising against the expansion of large-scale mining developments on indigenous lands. Prior to his killing the human rights defender was continuously subject to acts of harassment, threats and criminalisation, as a result of his work to promote and protect land and indigenous rights in Venezuela.
As a result of his work, Sabino Romero Izarra was continuously threatened, harassed and judicially persecuted. In 2012, the 109 year-old father of Sabino Romero Izarra, Mr José Manuel Romero, was killed as a result of being severely beaten. To date, no-one has been brought to justice for this killing, believed to have been perpetrated by the owner of a local ranch. In 2009, following the occupation of a ranch in Chaktapa, Zulia State, by two communities, including that of Sabino Romero Izarra, the human rights defender was detained for 18 months, accused of being responsible for the killing of three indigenous persons during the occupation. On 14 October 2009, during a national radio programme, Deputy Minister for the Environment Sergio Rodriguez reportedly accused Sabino Romero Izarra of stealing cattle, burning the houses of Yukpa families and using the land title struggle “for his own benefit”. In addition, the human rights defender received a number of death threats, while his home was reportedly raided on a number of occasions by army officers. Front Line (http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/) believes to be motivated by his legitimate and peaceful work as a land and indigenous rights defender and leader.
Thai authorities should immediately investigate the murder of Prajob Nao-opas, a prominent environmentalist in Chachoengsao province, Human Rights Watch said today, 27 February 2013.
The government’s measures to protect human rights defenders, including environmentalists, who stand up for their communities have consistently proved to be inadequate. On February 25, 2013, at around 2 p.m., a gunman shot 43-year-old Prajob four times at a garage on the Phanom Sarakham-Ban Sang road as he was waiting for mechanics to repair his pickup truck. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that Prajob was seriously wounded from the 11mm bullets and died while being rushed to the hospital by villagers at the shooting scene. The gunman escaped in a getaway car. “The cold-blooded killing of Prajob marks yet another example of the fundamental failure of Thai authorities to protect activists who risk their lives while defending their communities,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The government must undertake a serious investigation to bring those responsible for his death to justice, regardless of the status or political affiliation of the killers.”
Since February 2012, Prajob had led villagers in a campaign to expose the dumping of toxic waste in Chachoengsao province’s Phanom Sarakham and Plaeng Yao districts. Many ponds in the area have been filled with dangerous chemicals from industrial estates along Thailand’s eastern seaboard. The Thai government took little action until Prajob managed to get the issue into the national news headlines in August 2012. Only then did the Justice Ministry’s Department of Special Investigation DSI announce that it would treat the chemical waste disposal in Chachoengsao province as a special and urgent case under the DSI’s purview. In December 2012, Prajob told his family that he had received warnings from the Chachoengsao police that there might be an attempt on his life. Since then, he noticed and reported to the police that he was frequently followed and photographed by unidentified men on motorcycles. Despite these explicit threats, no one at either provincial or national level proposed any protective measures for Prajob. Read the rest of this entry »
Since 2003, the Geneva Human Rights Film Festival (with the more complicated French name and abbreviation: le Festival du film et forum international sur les droits humains – FIFDH) takes place in parallel to the UN Human Rights Council. Based on the concept “A film, a subject, a debate”, the FIFDH features documentary as well fiction, on themes linked to human rights such as: violence against women, poverty, torture, international justice and even climate change. During 10 days the public is invited to watch the films, meet film makers, actors, experts and victims of human rights violations. There are special screenings for students, and teachers are issued with thematic material. This year a total of 40 films will be screened. New this year is the competition for international fiction. The Jury includes filmmakers and human rights defenders such as: Ai Weiwei, Patrick Chapatte, Romain Goupil and Fadwa Suleiman, Syrian actress in exile. The longstanding festival director is Leo Kaneman: for the programme see: http://www.fifdh.org/
In the meantime, a big controversy has erupted about the showing of the documentary “No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka” in what is called in UN terminology a ‘side event’, organised by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the above-mentioned FIFDH, on the premises of the UN. As reported by AP on 25 February, the Sri Lankan Ambassador has sent a letter to the whole Human Rights Council denouncing the film as “discredited, uncorroborated and unsubstantiated” and warning that the Council would be violating its own rules if the film is screened March 1 in Geneva as planned.
The 90-minute documentary alleges government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels engaged in war crimes during the final stages of the conflict in 2009. The film shows interviews with eyewitnesses and original footage of alleged atrocities against civilians including summary execution, sexual violence and torture. The film director Callum Macrae denied that it distorted the facts: “We believe that our film contains very important evidence about the terrible events in the last few months of this war and we believe we have a duty to make that evidence available to the diplomats and country missions at the U.N. Human Rights Council who must make important decisions about how to ensure accountability and justice in Sri Lanka“. See: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/sri-lanka-opposes-screening-critical-film-18590958. The Sri Lankan Ambassador’s letter which certainly will help to attract a larger audience is to be found on: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/465065/Letter-to-the-President-Human-Rights-Council-2.pdf.
Human Rights Watch Uploaded on this video some time back on 20 April 2011, but I had missed it. Insiders will recognize the face and voice of Reed Brody, who has made chasing dictators (such as Baby Doc and Hissene Habré (see below) his life’s vocation.Read the rest of this entry »
Human Rights Watch issues a video and press release concerning a series of death threats made over the last four months to two lawyers who represent clients accused of homosexual conduct. Human Rights Watch on 13 February 2013 sent an open letter to President Paul Biya. Read the rest of this entry »
In a long but interesting blog post in the Huffington News of 4 February 2013 Malik Siraj Akbar, takes issue with Pakistan’s reaction to criticism on it human rights record by organisations such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW). “A pack of lies” is Pakistan army’s favorite defensive phrase whenever it is blamed for committing human rights abuses or covertly sponsoring Islamic extremist organizations. On December 13, 2012, the Pakistan army described an Amnesty International report, The Hands of Cruelty, as “a pack of lies”. On February 2nd, the Pakistan army once again used its favorite ‘a pack of lies” phrase to reject the Human Right Watch World Report 2013. The army says the report is “propaganda driven and totally biased” which is “yet another attempt to malign Pakistan and its institutions through fabricated and unverified reports, completely favouring an anti-Pakistan agenda.”
The author then goes on to explain the powerful position of the army and why it reacts so vehemently. The part that is of special interest for the protection of human rights defenders follows:
“ThePakistan military does not solely suffice with rebuttals. It oftentimes turns unimaginably nasty against those who question its authority. In this case, the H.R.W.’s Pakistan Director Ali Dayan Hasan, a widely respected human rights defender, has become the focus of a malicious and misleading campaign in the national media. The military has unleashed a media trial of Mr. Hasan with the help of Pakistan’s largest media group, the Jang, questioning his integrity and even patriotism to the extent that it now raises genuine concerns about his personal safety and that of his family.
The News International, an English language newspaper published by the Jang media group, has become a tool in the hands of the military in the extremely dangerous campaign against Mr. Hasan. Last year, the newspaper bullied the human rights activist so much that it even published his U.S., Pakistan and London U.K. telephone numbers. This was a clear violation of journalistic standards but the newspaper apparently did so in order to encourage Islamic fundamentalists to directly threaten him on the phone numbers printed in the newspaper.
Ahmed Noorani, a young, angry and highly opinionated journalist, has been bullying Mr. Hasan and his organization for more than one year in his dispatches which, whenever attacking the H.R.W., hardly undergo the routine process of fact-checking, language correction and copy editing which is essential to sift opinion from reporting.
On February 24, 2014, the Citizens for Free and Responsible Media, a group of professional Pakistani journalists, sent a letter to the publisher and top editors of the News International, to express “our dismay at the unethical and false reporting in your paper … that is not only inaccurate and based on lies, but also endangers the life and safety of a Pakistani citizen.” One year later, the newspaper still continues to publish unsubstantiated personal attacks against Mr. Hasan which seem to be caused by the reporter’s personal dislike for the H.R.W.’s Pakistan head.
The Pakistani military and sections of the media must stop harassing Mr. Hasan. Such childish and unprofessional behavior does not help Pakistan’s democracy. Reports issued by H.R.W. and other international think-tanks and human rights groups are professional analyses of different countries. It is absolutely irresponsible and unethical to respond to such criticism with personal attacks on individual professionals affiliated with these organizations. It amounts to shooting the messenger. In a countries like Pakistan Mr. Hasan is a rare breed of bravery and hope for millions of citizens who want their rights to be respected and protected by their government. Human rights activists and journalists in Pakistan risk their lives on a daily basis to speak up for the citizens’ democratic rights and Pakistan’s largest media outlet should appreciate courageous Pakistan rights activists, such as Mr. Hasan, instead of endangering their lives.”
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Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 