share information on human rights defenders, with special focus on human rights awards and laureates
Note in your diary that you can join:
for a discussion about supporting human rights defenders and civil society. The event will be live-streamed on 15 December 2011 at 8:00AM (EST) and available through the CO.NX Portal: https://statedept.connectsolutions.com/hr
Ahmed Khaleel, an Iraqi citizen who is taking a PhD at York University, gave a talk about Arab poets as human-rights defenders for the Scarborough group of Amnesty International. Dr Jay Prosser, reader in humanities at Leeds University, spoke about his recent co-authored book, Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis. Royalties from his book sales are being donated to Amnesty.
The seminar, at Hull University’s Scarborough campus, was attended by more than 40 people including the deputy mayor, Helen Mallory, who said: “The work Amnesty is doing now is as valuable as it’s always been but possibly more so because there are more human-rights violations taking place around the world. Their work will be neverending because, sadly, atrocities will always be committed. I’m quite humbled by the work they do.”
Not world-shocking news perhaps but a fine example of the day to day work for HRDs that local groups can do…
source: Amnesty seminar on human rights – News – Scarborough Evening News.
Human Rights First recently returned from an assessment trip to Jakarta where they met with activists to learn from them whether the Indonesian government has prioritized human rights through its treatment of human rights defenders. They had the following to say, which will be included in an alternative report to the Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia slated for next summer before the UN Human Rights Council:
President Yudhoyono should make clear that past and future attacks against human rights defenders will not go unpunished and publicly support a renewed independent investigation into Munir’s death that would lead to recommendations for prosecution and a case review of past criminal proceedings. The Government should repeal or amend legislation that criminalizes the work of human rights defenders, including journalists.
for more info see: Indonesia on the Right Path, But Still Has a Long Way To Go | Human Rights First.
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On 29 November 29, 2011 Israeli authorities turned West Bank resident Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, back at the Allenby Bridge crossing with Jordan, citing a travel ban. Several NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem, said that the Israeli authorities violated Jabarin’s rights in imposing the ban and have not produced any evidence that would justify continuing to restrict him from travel.
The travel ban would seem to be clearly linked to his human rights work as Jabarin was stopped since 2006, when he became director of Al-Haq, a leading human rights organization in the West Bank, while Israel had allowed him to travel abroad eight times in the previous seven years. The Israeli military previously claimed in court that Jabarin was an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which Israel considers a terrorist organization, and that his travel abroad for even a limited period would endanger Israel’s security. However, Israeli authorities have not charged Jabarin with any crime or given him an opportunity to confront the allegations against him. The Israeli High Court of Justice has upheld Jabarin’s travel ban on security grounds, but did so based on secret information that Jabarin and his lawyer were not allowed to see or challenge. “It is hard to believe any claim that Jabarin’s travel to Denmark to receive a human rights award would harm Israeli security, the more so when any evidence is kept secret,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “While civil society groups recognize Jabarin’s courageous work, Israel is punishing him with a travel ban.”
The ban has prevented Jabarin from leaving the West Bank to receive a human rights prize from the Danish PL Foundation (Poul Lauritzen), participate in a European Union forum on human rights, and attend a Human Rights Watch meeting in New York City. “The ban preventing Shawan Jabarin from traveling abroad to receive an award is emblematic of the arbitrary restrictions placed on Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society activists,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s MENA Programme Director. “It must be lifted, and the Israeli authorities must stop using unspecified security concerns to obstruct the work of Palestinian human rights activists.” Nina Atallah, the head of Al-Haq’s monitoring and documentation department, will try to travel to the prize ceremony.
It is a pity that Israel,in this respect, is emulating Iran, which is the only country until now to prevent the MEA Laureate Emad Baghi to travel to his ceremony in 2009.
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Back in 1983 the Yugoslav-born filmmaker Stacha Stanojevic made a human rights film under the title ‘Illustres Inconnus’ (Notorious Nobodies as the English language version would be called much later). One of the personalities in this multi-story film is a human rights activist, the inspiration for whom came from Martin Ennals who had then just left his post as Secretary General of Amnesty International and met Stacha several times. Now the filmmaker has drawn from his full-length film a short version focusing on the international human rights defender for whom, unknowingly, Martin Ennals stood as model. The scenes are mostly shot in Geneva and have the feel of this diplomatic city in the early 80s. The end is a bit of a surprise but highlights the essential human element in the unending quest for human rights. Unfortunately only in French for now, but english-speakers can still get the gist of it. See http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlt5bv_indignation-revolte-1983_shortfilms?start=0#from=embed
IPS reported that on Monday 24 October a symbolic empty chair was at the launch of a report on the repression of human rights defenders, a physical reminder that its would-be occupant – Ales Bialiatski, president of Human Rights Centre Viasna in Belarus – has been languishing in prison since August. Bialiatski is charged with tax evasion, but supporters say it is clear that the charges are in retaliation for his long and distinguished career of human rights activism in the country. The chair was also empty for the hundreds of other human rights defenders across the world who have been deprived of their freedom and fundamental rights, leaving a void in the communities they worked to protect.
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT), published its 600-page report on individual human rights defenders and organisations that faced repression between January 2010 and April 2011. It covers 70 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, The Americas and Europe. The abuses cited include the ‘usual’ harassment, threats and arrests, arbitrary detention, defamation campaigns, and restrictions in terms of freedoms of association and expression, but also notes Antoine Bernard, of FIDH, a trend to the criminalise social protests. “That is a very universal trend, to use the law not as a protecting tool, that is supposed to be its role, but law as a repressive tool to arbitrarily provide the legal basis for silencing human rights defenders”, he said to InterPress Service (IPS). “A threat to a human rights defender very often transcends beyond the individual case, it carries a shadow to society at large,” concluded Gerald Staberock, secreterary-general of OMCT.
The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation for human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggaya, underscored the importance of implementing the Declaration for Human Rights Defenders that the General Assembly adopted back in 1998, and the importance of disseminating information about it. “It is still an instrument that is not sufficiently known, either to those who should shoulder the main responsibility for its implementation, namely states, or to those whose rights it sets out to protect, human rights defenders,” Sekaggaya said.
At the luncheon in honor of MEA Laureates of the MEA Kasha J. Nabagesera and Muhanad Al-Hassani on 13 October in Geneva, Robert Fulghum, well-known author and Patron of the MEA, asked me to read what he would have said if he could have come to the event. I think it is so beautiful and pertinent to human rights defenders and their supporters worldwide that I share it with you here. I am sure Robert Fulghum would have no problem with anybody using it as long as credit is given:
Nominations for the 2012 MARTIN ENNALS AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS (MEA) can be made on the new website of the MEA: http://www.martinennalsaward.org where forms can be filled out electronically (in English, French and Spanish). Deadline is 9 December. Please pass this on to all who need to know, thanks
With a bit of delay, I am immensely glad to announce that at the eve of the ceremony for Kasha (on 13 October) the MEA has a completely re-designed website up and running as from tomorrow morning (Tuesday). This joomla-based site was designed for us – free of charge – by a team from Pacosoft (Paul, Ivo, Goice) with additional input from Nat Daudrich and I would like to thank them most warmly. Completely new are the biographies of all previous Laureates (in English, French and Spanish), while some other information was also re-written and translated. Some features (such as the Forum) are still under construction. Any comments or suggestions for improvement would be most welcome: please let me have your feedback: http://www.martinennalsaward.org.
Posters of MEA Laureate 2011 Kasha at the entrance of Geneva university
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 