Canada LRWC is a committee of Canadian lawyers and law professors who campaign internationally for advocacy rights and advocates in danger and on rule of law issues. The following is both an illustration of professional solidarity and giving information on a Sudanese woman human rights lawyer, Asma Ahmed: Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged ‘Amnesty International’
Yoga and Human Rights: stretching for human rights defenders
May 2, 2013Sometimes my eyes fall on more esoteric contributions to the protection of human rights defenders. Let me share with you Mark Laham’s blog post for the Huffington Times of the 1st of May 2013 which calls for a “borderless” one-hour live online yoga class in honour of Nasrin Sotoudeh, the Iranian lawyer in jail, recipient of the Sakharov Award and Nominee of the MEA 2012. Mark got inspired – through AI – by what he read about Nasrin’s struggle and other brave human rights defenders around the world. “How does Nasrin’s story make you feel?” he asks, ” Me, I…I feel the need to do something that will create positive change for this woman and countless others like her.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomorrow, 24 April, comes announcement of the Final Nominees of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders
April 23, 2013Tomorrow, 24 April, at 11hoo Geneva time, the three Final Nominees of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders 2013 will be announced. You can find the result here on this blog, of course, or on the site of the Martin Ennals Award: http://www.martinennalsaward.org. The following 10 NGOs on the Jury will also carry the news:
Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders
– Amnesty International,
– Human Rights Watch,
– Human Rights First,
– Int’l Federation for Human Rights,
– World Organisation Against Torture,
– Front Line Defenders
– International Commission of Jurists,
– German Diakonie,
– International Service for Human Rights
– HURIDOCS.
Campaigning helps: Cambodian HRD Mam Sonando speaks out after his liberation
April 19, 2013
(Cambodian human rights defender and journalist Mam Sonando a prisoner of conscience © TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP/Getty Images)
On 12 April 2013 Rupert Abbott, Amnesty International’s Researcher on Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam posted on Amnesty‘s Livewire an interesting account of his meeting with the just liberated Cambodian Human Rights Defender Mam Sonando. It is a impressive testimony to the resilience of human rights defenders and how campaigning can help them and therefore I reproduce it below:
It was hot – very hot – as I arrived last week at Mam Sonando’s home and radio station on a dusty street in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. He welcomed me at the front door. “Thank you,” he said. With a broad smile, he flashed his signature ‘V for victory’ sign with his right hand. After over eight months in prison, he was free and no longer facing 20 years behind bars.
Mam Sonando, 72, is a well-known and popular journalist. He owns Beehive Radio, one of Cambodia’s few independent radio stations. And he heads the Association of Democrats, which promotes human rights and democracy and helps poor communities. On 11 September 2012, his trial began at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. He had been arrested two months earlier after Cambodia’s Prime Minister accused him publicly of being behind a plot for a village in eastern Cambodia to secede – to break away from the country. In fact, the villagers there had been involved in a long-running land conflict with a powerful company, and the so-called secession plot was used as a pretext to forcibly evict them. Read the rest of this entry »
How to turn a mobile phone into an alert system for human rights defenders: AI’s Panic Button
April 17, 2013
Last week I reported on the Natalia bracelet and yesterday my eye fell on a lengthy piece posted on Amnesty International‘s Livewire by Technology and Human Rights Project Officer Tanya O’Carroll. It describes how emerging digital tools will help activists and human rights defenders. http://livewire.amnesty.org/2013/04/15/how-to-turn-a-mobile-phone-into-an-alert-system-for-activists/.
As a student activist speaking out against the government, Hassan is at constant threat of being arrested. The Sudanese government tracks and harasses members of the student movement he belongs to. Reports of his friends and contacts being detained, tortured and even killed by the authorities are frighteningly regular. But Hassan’s network is also well organized. His phone is always on him and he uses it to help organize demonstrations, to record and disseminate video of violent crackdowns against the students and to keep his network updated every minute – a network that stretches from Khartoum to the rest of the globe in the time it takes to send a tweet. If he is able to get word out that he’s been arrested, Hassan knows that his network’s response will be swift and structured. The problem is that he knows the first thing the authorities will seize is his mobile phone. And here’s the double danger of not getting word out: the authorities will use the phone book, call log, messages and any open apps – such as G-Mail or Facebook – to identify and track others. Without knowledge of the arrest, the whole network will be easily compromised. Read the rest of this entry »
Amnesty International seeks volunteers for International Secretariat to work for HRDs
April 10, 2013Voluntary work in one of the world’s leading human rights organisations can provide valuable experience and is a great opportunity to contribute to the international human rights movement. The voluntary work is unpaid, although travel and lunch expenses are provided. Amnesty International can also act as a sponsor to enable you to arrange your own right to be in the UK as a volunteer. Please note that volunteering does not lead directly to employment with Amnesty International.
The volunteers will work in the ‘Individuals at Risk’ team to ensure the development and coordination of a strategic, sustainable body of casework for effective action. The volunteers will work directly with the Individuals at Risk Research and Policy Advisor, under whose supervision the volunteers will contribute to work on human rights defenders protection, with a specific focus on women human rights defenders, as well as work related to relationship management and ethics policy of human rights engagement. The deadline is 17 April.
Criminal charges dropped against journalist Andrzej Poczobut in Belarus
March 29, 2013The second criminal case against journalist Andrzej Poczobut has been closed, and the charges of “libelling the President of Belarus” have been dropped, reports AI through Protection on Line. He had been targeted for his work as a journalist and for the legitimate exercise of his right to freedom of expression. On 15 March, criminal charges against Andrzej Poczobut were dropped by the Investigative Committee of the Hrodna region, Belarus, due to lack of evidence. The Investigative Committee reached the conclusion that there is no evidence of a crime by Andrzej Poczobut, as the experts fail to agree that he had libelled the President in his articles. Andrzej Poczobut was arrested on 21 June 2012 and released on 30 June under bail conditions. His bail conditions have now been lifted and he can now travel within Belarus. Andrzej Poczobut is a correspondent of the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a prominent activist for the Polish minority in Belarus. Andrzej Poczobut continues to serve a three-year suspended prison sentence – imposed on 5 July 2011 – on similar charges for other newspaper articles. Under this sentence he cannot leave Belarus and has to register with the police.
Cambodian radio journalist Mam Sonando in appeal gets slightly better deal
March 11, 2013
(800 people gathered in front of the Phnom Penh Court of Appeal to support Mam Sonando (c) Clothilde Le Coz)
Arrested on July 15th 2012, Beehive Radio journalist and director, Mam Sonando, was sentenced in the first instance to twenty years in prison in October 2012. He was charged with instigating villagers and peasants to protest against lands expropriation, in Kratie province. He was convicted and sentenced for “aggravating circumstances rebellion, unlawful interference in the performance of public functions, insurrection, inciting people to take arms against the state authority”. After spending already eight months in prison, his appeal started on 5 March 2013.
Zimbabwe: Human Rights Defenders hunted through the criminal process in run up to referendum
March 9, 2013
(Jestina Mukoko with letters from AI members © Amnesty International)
15 Zimbabwean Civil Society Organizations, on 9 March 2013 issued a joint statement condemning the sustained and escalating assault on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in civic education, human rights monitoring, public outreach and service provision by the State. The cite as the latest example the charging of Jestina Mukoko on which AI issued a separate alert on 8 March: “Prominent Zimbabwe human rights defender hunted down through the media”.
Colombian Human Rights Defender dies under controversial circumstances
March 4, 2013
For years Angélica Bello, a human rights defender from Colombia, rarely spent a day alone – that would have been, simply, too dangerous. A number of threats against her because of her job helping the many survivors of sexual violence – women caught up in Colombia’s long-running armed conflict – meant that it was too dangerous for the 45-year-old mother of four to travel alone. In 2000, two of her daughters were kidnapped and kept as sexual slaves by paramilitaries, and were only released after Angélica personally intervened. Read the rest of this entry »
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 