Archive for the 'organisations' Category
May 31, 2017
Lotte Leicht , director of Human Rights Watch’s Brussels office, wrote about “Five Names to Listen for at the EU-China Summit”. She writes that “under President Xi Jinping, whose senior officials arrive in Brussels this week for the European Union-China Summit, courageous human rights defenders, lawyers and academics in China have sustained an extraordinary body blow.”
Source: Five Names to Listen for at the EU-China Summit | Human Rights Watch
Posted in EU, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, EU, EU–China dialogue, Federica Mogherini, HRW, Human Rights Defenders, Ilham Tohti, Liu Xiaobo, Lotte Leicht, Su Changlan, Tashi Wangchuk, Wang Quanzhang
May 28, 2017
Saturday, 27 May 2017 jailed UAE lawyer Mohammed al-Roken was announced as the winner of the Ludovic Trarieux Award. This award is given by the Luxembourg-instigated European Bar Human Rights Institute (IDHAE), and is named after Trarieux, who in 1898 founded France’s Human Rights League. The annual award, worth 20,000 euros, recognises lawyers who have sought to defend human rights, often at great risk to themselves. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/06/07/detained-chinese-lawyer-wang-yu-wins-ludovic-trarieux-prize/]
The Emirates lawyer was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2013. Mohammed al-Roken was among 69 people jailed on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government following a mass trial criticised by rights groups. A former head of the UAE Jurists’ Association, Roken, 54, was arrested in July 2012, after taking on the defence of several government opponents, including seven islamists. According to Amnesty the trial “was marred by allegations of torture which were blatantly ignored, the rights of defence were flaunted, and independent observers were banned from the court room“. For more on the Emirates and human rights: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/united-arab-emirates/
In awarding the Jury said Roken had devoted two decades to defending fundamental freedoms. The jury lamented that Roken’s trial had gone ahead behind closed doors and demanded his immediate release.
Source: Jailed UAE lawyer awarded major human rights prize | Daily Mail Online
http://www.ludovictrarieux.org/uk-index.htm
Posted in AI, awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: AI, awards, Emirates, fair trial, human rights award, human rights lawyers, Ludovic Trarieux Prize, Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize, Mohammed al-Roken, UAE
May 27, 2017
ISHR‘s Human Rights Defenders Advocacy Programme begins on Monday 29 May, with 17 human rights defenders from around the globe travelling to Geneva to learn about strategic engagement with the UN mechanisms.
The programme equips defenders with the knowledge and skills to make strategic use of the international human rights system. It also provides an opportunity for participants to directly engage in lobbying and advocacy activities at the UN level to effect change on the ground back home. ISHR’s Training and Advocacy Support Manager, Helen Nolan, explains that this year’s HRDAP participants were selected from a pool of 380 applicants – the highest number yet.
‘We’re incredibly excited to be collaborating with 17 committed human rights defenders working on women’s rights, business and human rights, the rights of LGBTI persons, and human rights defender protection,’ said Nolan. ‘These defenders are travelling from around the globe – including Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, India, Nigeria, Peru, Russia and Sierra Leone – to spend two highly intense weeks gaining practical advocacy experience in Geneva.’
HRDAP coincides with the 35th Session of the Human Rights Council, and well as receiving training modules on all the UN human rights mechanisms from a range of experts, participants will have the opportunity to build networks in Geneva and around the world, carry out lobbying of UN member States and UN staff, and learn from peers from a range of regions working on a range of human rights issues.
‘Crucially, we know the programme works,’ said Nolan. ‘Last year, 100% of our participants were either very satisfied or satisfied with the programme, with 96% of them having at least partially achieved their key advocacy and learning objectives.’ In 2016, HRDAP enabled:
- corporate accountability activist Alexandra Montgomery to provide frst hand testimony to state representatives and experts about the violence faced by land rights defenders in Brazil
- Tehmina Zafar to sound the alarm in the UN Human Rights Council about proposed laws which could dramatically restrict the operation and independence of NGOs in Pakistan
- Karen Mejía to inform a UN expert body about the need to defend women’s rights activists and decriminalise abortion in Honduras.
- several participants to contribute substantially to the historic campaign to appoint the first ever UN expert on LGBTI rights
https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/11/12/ishr-2017-training-course-for-human-rights-defenders-now-open-for-applications/
http://www.ishr.ch/news/supporting-defenders-ishrs-human-rights-defender-advocacy-programme-kicks
Posted in Human Rights Council, Human Rights Defenders, ISHR | 3 Comments »
Tags: Advocacy, Geneva, Human Rights Defenders Advocacy Programme, International Service for Human Rights, ISHR, lobbying, training courses, UN Human Rights Council
May 27, 2017
Watch this video (made by the Universidad Francisco Marroquín film crew) if you missed the 2017 Oslo Freedom Forum from 22-24 May. Over the course of five days, ‘Spikersuppa square’ was filled with art, film, and presentations; explored innovations and ideas at the Tech Lab and Interactive Expo; heard from keynote speaker Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg; learned about human rights defenders and honored this year’s Havel Prize laureates. Next year’s forum (10-year anniversary) will take place on 28-30 May, 2018. For reservations: alex@oslofreedomforum.com.
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights Foundation | 1 Comment »
Tags: Human Rights Foundation, meeting, Norway, Oslo Freedom Forum, Tech Lab, video clip
May 26, 2017
Emil Kurbedinov said ‘Winning an acquittal for my clients is almost impossible – but what I can do is show them that, despite the risks, I will not abandon them’
Emil Kurbedinov was at the ceremony in Dublin’s City Hall this morning to receive the Human Rights Defender At Risk award for 2017. According to Front Line Defenders, which has its global headquarters in Blackrock in Dublin, defending human rights activists and political prisoners in Crimea is some of the most dangerous work that any lawyer can undertake. Despite those risks, Mr Kurbedinov has spent years providing emergency legal response for the Crimean Tartar minority, which it maintains has been persecuted by Russian authorities.
In January of this year, Mr Kurbedinov was detained by representatives of Crimea’s Centre for Counteracting Extremism while on his way to represent a client whose house had been raided by police. A district court later sentenced him to ten days in detention on a charge of “propagandising for extremist organisations“.
The Executive Director, Andrew Anderson, said: “In the midst of a global crackdown on human rights defenders, the five finalists demonstrate the will to persist in the face of severe, often life-threatening risks.”
Source: Lawyer wins human rights award for helping Tartars
Posted in awards, Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 3 Comments »
Tags: Andrew Anderson, awards, Crimea, Emil Kurbedinov, Front Line (NGO), Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, human rights award, human rights lawyer, Ireland, minorities, Russia, Tartars
May 16, 2017
Amnesty International said there an 80% rise in the number of human rights activists killed around the world in 2016. https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/brave/
Amnesty International said 281 people were killed in 2016 while working to defend human rights. The organisation said it is part of a growing trend of intimidation and persecution of activists. Amnesty also pointed out that oppressive measures are not just happening far afield – with abuses reported in countries like Hungary and Turkey. This is how the Executive Director of Amnesty International, Ireland Colm O’Gorman described it: “We’re seeing an unparallelled global assault on the work of human rights defenders, so laws that are brought in to inhibit human rights work, whether it be the foreign agent laws we’ve seen in Russia, bans of foreign funding for NGOs in Hungary and other countries or indeed mass surveillance techniques being used against human rights defenders.”
Colm O’Gorman.
see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/01/09/front-line-launches-its-2016-report-on-human-rights-defenders-at-risk/
Source: Amnesty report huge rise in number of human rights activists killed in 2016 | BreakingNews.ie
Posted in Amnesty international, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: AI, Amnesty International, annual report 2016, Colm O'Gorman, Human Rights Defenders, Ireland, killings, reprisals
May 16, 2017
Six times in two years. Human rights activist Karla Avelar has been forced to move home six times in the last two years after being physically threatened by individuals she believes are gang members and for her work as a human rights defender in El Salvador.
She’s a leading advocate for the human rights of LGBT people, founder and head of COMCAVIS TRANS, an organization known for its work for transgender people for nearly a decade. It’s dangerous, unpopular work, and Avelar is regularly targeted and threatened.
A couple of weeks ago she was forced to move home when people tried to extort from her possible prize money for the Martin Ennals Human Rights Defender Award, for which she is a finalist. The award’s winner will be decided and announced in October, but news of her nomination has prompted these latest threats.
It hasn’t been an easy life. She was shot in two separate incidents, spent five traumatic years in jail and has been a constant target of abuse for being a transgender woman. Avelar told my colleague Mariel Perez-Santiago at her office in San Salvador last year how she had been raped by more than a hundred men on her first day in prison, and that the attacks continued with the complicity of prison staff.
She became a formidable advocate for the rights of trans people in and out of prison, helping to win important reforms in the prison where she used to be an inmate. Thanks to her campaigning, transgender women are now separated from men in different wards, and human rights organizations are allowed access to the prisoners to educate them about their rights. She also represented El Salvador’s LGBT civil society at the country’s 2014 Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations in Geneva.
Her advocacy has led to international recognition including becoming a finalist for this year’s Martin Ennals Award. “Transgender persons, and the wider LGBT community, face widespread hostility and social rejection in El Salvador,” said the Martin Ennals organization in a statement. “Crimes against them are almost never brought to justice, which results in a climate of impunity. Sadly, this treatment of transgender people can be seen well beyond El Salvador. We aim to highlight Ms. Avelar’s bravery in continuing her work. We are encouraged that the authorities contacted her after the media coverage of the latest threats. This needs to be followed up with judicial proceedings against those responsible and, most importantly, effective protection for Karla Avelar.”
Her profile has meant that the threats against her are receiving attention, and the Attorney General’s office has been in touch with her to discuss issues of her safety. But for Avelar and others in El Salvador’s LGBT community the risks are daily and grave. She estimates around 600 cases of unsolved murders of LGBT people in the country over the last 25 years.
“Sadly, these most recent threats against me are not surprising and are part of a broader and systematic pattern of persecution of members of the LGBT community in El Salvador,” said Avelar. “I will not be silenced by these threats, but the Salvadoran government must guarantee my safety and that of all human rights defenders and activists, who work tirelessly to monitor and urge respect for the human rights of the most vulnerable.”
Forced to leave her home again and again, she’s asking for protection as well as international visibility. Making her more famous won’t guarantee her safety but we can try to help by sharing her story with whoever we know, by showing that we’re watching, and by saying that she should be protected and never be forced to move again.
Source: Karla Avelar’s Life Of Constant Threats | HuffPost
Posted in HRF, human rights, MEA, OHCHR | 3 Comments »
Tags: Brian Dooley, death threats, El Salvador, finalists MEA 2017, harassment, Huffington Post, Human Rights First, intimidation, Karla Avelar, killings, LGBTI, MEA, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Transgender
May 8, 2017
ProtectDefenders.eu is the EU Human Rights Defenders mechanism, established to protect Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) at high risk and facing the most difficult situations worldwide. The mechanism is implemented by a Consortium of 12 international NGOs with the support of the European Commission. The EU HRD mechanism began its operations on 1st October 2015 for a duration of 36 months. ProtectDefenders.eu is seeking to recruit an experienced manager (Head of Secretariat – HoS) to run the Secretariat of the mechanism in Brussels and to ensure coordination of the project implementation and all related financial and narrative reporting.
The mission of ProtectDefenders.eu is to:
- operate a permanent and rapid response mechanism to provide emergency support and material assistance to human rights defenders in danger;
- manage a support programme of temporary relocation for human rights defenders at risk to relocate inside their country, within their region or abroad in case of urgent threat;
- support and coordinate an exchange platform for organisations and stakeholders working on temporary relocation for human rights defenders including through the EU Temporary Relocation Platform;
- provide training, support and capacity-building to human rights defenders and local organizations;
- monitor the situation of human rights defenders and advocate for a protection agenda for Human Rights Defenders at local, regional and international level;
- promote coordination between organizations dedicated to support for human rights defenders, EU institutions and other relevant actors.
For earlier posts on this entity: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/protectdefenders-eu/ Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in EU, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Brussels, coalition, EU, Human Rights Defenders, job opportunity, manager, NGOs, posts, ProtectDefenders.eu, recruitment, vacancy
