Canadian-born Libyan activist Alaa Murabit speaking at 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum (26 May) shows how ongoing conflict has affected daily life in Libya. She stresses the importance of acknowledging and integrating local communities in peaceful solutions, and focuses on the key role women in particular should play in peacebuilding. Murabit shares how her organization, the Voice of Libyan Women, organized the largest grassroots campaign in the country to address security issues, the cycle of violence, and the rights of women. She emphasizes that by creating cohesive and cooperative societies, rather than ones divided into factions, Libya can achieve peace and stability.
Rayma Suprani, one of the few female cartoonists in Venezuela, spoke at the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum on 26 May about the role that humor plays in resisting tyranny, and how cartoons are the thermometers by which we measure freedom. She believes that critical drawings are crucial to testing the strengths of a democracy. Suprani worked at El Universal, one of Venezuela’s largest newspapers, for 19 years before she was fired last year after publishing a cartoon that mocked the legacy of Hugo Chávez and the state of the Venezuelan health care system. She remains defiant, and reminds us that humor is the key to ending repression: we should teach our children to wield pens, not guns.
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 »
At the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum on 26 May there was a clarifying talk by Twitter vice-president Colin Crowell about how online platforms, like Twitter, play a key role in connecting people and spreading ideas. Crowell describes how Twitter, which allows for anonymity through the use of pseudonyms, encourages freedom of expression. He cautions that governments also try to limit this expression and control the flow of information by requesting that certain tweets be removed – or even by blocking Twitter completely. Crowell highlights how Twitter has been used to start various online social movements, citing several successful case studies from around the world.
Wednesday 10 June, 2015 (p.m.) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Peace Brigades International, and Amnesty International USA organize a “Discussion with Colombian Human Rights Defender Berenice Celeita“. The event will feature Ms. Berenice Celeita, the founder of the Association for Investigation and Social Action (NOMADESC) and winner of the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Through NOMADESC, Ms. Celeita advises and accompanies social organizations and unions as well as civic, women’s, indigenous, afro-descendent, and family farmer organizations.
Ms. Celeita will discuss the current human rights situation in Colombia, including the most pressing issues faced by marginalized communities claiming their rights, and will speak about strategies for combating human rights abuses against these populations.
[For years, civil society activists in the Cauca and Valle del Cauca Departments of Colombia have endured incidences of intimidation, harassment, and persecution as a result of their work. While these incidences have recently intensified, they are not new and form part of a long pattern of threats and attacks against the work of human rights defenders and community leaders in Colombia. The internal armed conflict in Colombia generates internally-displaced populations and sexual violence against women, and further marginalizes impoverished populations. Indigenous and afro-descendent leaders who stand up for their rights and defend their lands are acutely at risk of death threats and other forms of intimidation. In this context – characterized by a lack of security and government accountability – the work of human rights defenders and civil society activists is paramount and must be safeguarded, as they serve as the voice and guardians for local populations facing evictions, violence, and persecution.]
At the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum on 26 May Chilean economist, Andrés Velasco, in highly personal account describes how political, economic, and social unrest led to the collapse of Chilean democracy in the 1970s. Growing up under Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship, Velasco is familiar with stories of political prisoners, torture, intimidation, and exile. Velasco argues that the extreme brutality of the military dictatorship became too difficult for most Chileans to face, allowing the violence to continue unhindered. As Velasco reminds us, however, Chilean civil society eventually united behind an incredibly creative political campaign, and succeeded in voting Pinochet out of power. Velasco ends his speech on an optimistic note, arguing that the common sense of Chileans will prevent another democratic collapse.
At the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum (26 May) Australian-Afghan media entrepreneur Saad Mohseni describes how in 2006 he returned to the country of his birth, where he and his brother started by setting up set up a radio station and then a television station in postwar Afghanistan. In a fascinating performance he argues that even after decades of unrest, the country can improve its human rights situation and build a more stable future. According to Mohseni, change has not come about through government or international action alone. Instead, media has played a transformative role in rebuilding Afghanistan. Mohseni tells us about the successes of soap operas in strengthening women’s rights, as well as televised football’s role in bringing citizens together and providing role models. Mohseni believes that Afghanistan has changed significantly due to radio, internet, and television, and that media will continue to play an important role in the future.
In short, he says that the Prime Minister now sees that doing this would be politically very difficult and that he has shelved the issue at least until next year. Instead the Government will do another consultation, and – according to Dunt- “lawyers will tell them what they have already been told: that the UK supreme court is already supreme, that we only have to ‘take account’ of Strasbourg rulings, that the Council of Europe will never tolerate an ‘advisory’ status, that the devolved assemblies will have to have a say on any changes, that the House of Lords will be within its rights to vote it down, that the Commons will probably defeat it and that even if it somehow got it through all those hurdles there’s a stream of legal recognition from Europe which could inject the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law anyway.”
The post contains a lot of interesting details on the inner-workings of the UK parliament and Cabinet and concludes that “in this case, it was a choice between his own inadequacy and the proper functioning of one of the greatest civilising missions in human history. So we should be grateful that, for now at least, his inadequacy won.”
On 26 May 2015, Nurul Izzah Anwar, Malaysian MP and daughter of imprisoned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum. In this video he describes how she was drawn into the opposition movement in Malaysia. She tells us about rampant government corruption, the country’s defunct judicial system, and how the government targets dissidents and attempts to limit change. Anwar explains how the lack of genuine parliamentary immunity prevents Malaysian politicians from speaking against the government. She reminds us that “Malaysia’s most wanted” are the activists that challenge the government, and expresses the hope that Malaysia’s future belongs to those seeking a more democratic and fair country.
Another speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) 2015 was Charlie Hebdo columnist, Zineb El Rhazoui, who paid tribute to her colleagues slain in the January 2015 attacks [she was at the time of the attack abroad] and describes her own experience facing thousands of death threats. In her passionate defense of free speech, El Rhazoui argues that criticism of religion should be encouraged, not avoided. The personal touch in her presentation is moving.
