Award-winning singer/songwriter John Legend joined Amnesty International USA as part of its annual Write for Rights campaign. For Human Rights Day 2014 the Write for Rights cases included Chelsea Manning, victims of gun violence in the USA and Brazil, and women and girls of El Salvador impacted by the country’s abortion ban.
JOHN LEGEND:
Writing is a transformative experience.
I write songs to express myself.
I write songs to give hope.
I write songs to heal the hurt.
I write because living free from violence is a human right.
I write because I refuse to accept this is ‘just the way it is.’
I write because leaders who let their police forces jail, beat and kill people who are simply, peacefully trying to express themselves need to know the world is watching.
I write because I take injustice personally. Because there are no throwaway lives.
I write because silence feeds violence.
I write because lyrics change music, but letters change lives.
(From left to right — Charles Harper, Estela Barnes de Carlotto, Ambassador Alberto D’Alotto and Bishop-emeritus Aldo Etchegoyen. Photo: Argentinian mission in Geneva)
A former World Council of Churches (WCC) official from Brazil, Rev. Charles Harper, has been honoured with the Order Comendador de Mayo, a high decoration of the Argentine government for his emblematic legacy of struggles for human rights in the ecumenical movement. Harper, was WCC’s director of the Human Rights Resource Office for Latin America from 1973 to 1992. He received this honour in a ceremony held on 16 September in Geneva, Switzerland. Harper, born to an American missionary father working in Brazil, joined the anti-colonial struggle through the Committee for Assistance to Evacuees (CIMADE). At CIMADE, he worked with young people and Algerian immigrants in Marseille, France, in the early 1960s. With CIMADE and later as director of the John Knox International Reformed Centre, Harper supported church leaders persecuted in Mozambique, Angola and Cape Verde. Many of those become key actors in the independence struggles of their countries. At the WCC, Harper coördinated a number of systematic international initiatives denouncing human rights violations in Latin America. He created strong networks to protect the persecuted, imprisoned and tortured people in the region.
Accompanying human rights movements in the 1970s, the WCCwas able to respond to the calls for solidarity at regional and global levels. Harper’s work at the WCC was initiated by the WCC member churches in Latin America, following a dialogue held with the WCC’s Commission on International Affairs, chaired then by the renowned jurist Dr Theo van Boven, who also received an honour from the Argentine government in 2012.
In his speech Harper pointed out the current global challenges that a new generation of human rights advocates has to deal with. “Thirty years later – today – the challenges facing the world community of nations, both as international and ecumenical family, not only persist but become more intense: The World Council of Churches, an instrument of unity and service to humanity, strives to accompany churches and groups related to them in critical situations to defend human rights and human dignity, fighting impunity, demanding punitive justice, and building just and peaceful societies.”
At the ceremony, Ambassador Alberto D’Alotto said, “Protestant churches have played an important role in defending human rights and in starting movements for human rights in my country. They helped in founding human rights organizations and sponsored their consolidation, and managed international financing much needed in the beginning…..The churches helped to find ways to overcome the information blockade imposed by the military authorities, giving international visibility to what was happening in Argentina and denouncing the military repression in international forums,” he said.
“If just a fraction of the global attention given to football could be given to securing human rights, we would all be celebrating victory.”
Front Line Defenders and Brazilian NGO partners Justiça Global and Terra de Direitos launched today an online and social media campaign to focus attention on the plight of 42 human rights defenders (HRDs) from each of the participating World Cup nations (www.sportshrd.org). The international campaign kicks off in a few hours just before the first World Cup match between Brazil and Croatia with an event in Dublin.
“Front Line Defenders draws attention to these heroes in our societies who work at great personal risk, against seemingly insurmountable odds to secure fundamental rights and freedoms for others,” announced Mary Lawlor, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders.
The campaign site allows visitors to send messages of solidarity, which will be delivered to the HRDs. On Twitter, please use #sportshrd to enlarge the reach of the campaign.
The Wisconsin Gazette of 15 April 2014 carries a good summary of a major report by Global Witnessthat shows that killings of human rights defenders protecting environmental and land rights increased sharply in the last decade due to the intensification of competition for natural resources. The report “Deadly Environment” highlights a severe shortage of information or monitoring of the problem.
“It has never been more important to protect the environment, and it has never been more deadly,” said Oliver Courtney of Global Witness. “There can be few starker or more obvious symptoms of the global environmental crisis than a dramatic upturn in killings of ordinary people defending rights to their land or environment. Yet this rapidly worsening problem is going largely unnoticed, and those responsible almost always get away with it. We hope our findings will act as the wake-up call that national governments and the international community clearly need.”
Key findings in “Deadly Environment”:
• At least 908 people were killed in 35 countries protecting rights to land and the environment between 2002 and 2013, with the death rate rising in the last four years to an average of two activists a week. Read the rest of this entry »
Mandeep Tiwana posted on 10 April in the Mail & Guardian a piece that – sadly – needed to be written. On how South Africa and India increasingly find themselves siding with Russia, China in votes concerning human rights in the UN Human Rights Council. Mandeep recalls that “Mandela was acutely aware of the role that international solidarity played in supporting anti-apartheid activists as they mobilised on the streets. As president, he made a compelling speech at the Southern African Development Community’s periodic conference in 1997 in Blantyre, Malawi. He urged that national sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of other countries could not blunt the common concern for democracy, human rights and good governance in the regional grouping. Mandela called upon his fellow leaders to recognise the right of citizens to “participate unhindered in political activities”. Under title : “India, SA risk forsaking their proud histories on human rights” the piece makes good reading for your weekend: Read the rest of this entry »
Ilwad Elman – a Somali women human rights defender.
You can find many more cases via the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition [http://www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org/] which brings together women activists and those committed to the advancement of women human rights and those working on gender issues, to advocate for better protection of women human rights defenders.
The Committee to Protect Journalists [CPJ] has published its Risk List, indicating where press freedom is in decline. In determining the list, CPJ staff examined six press freedom indicators: fatalities, imprisonments, restrictive legislation, state censorship, impunity in anti-press attacks, and journalists driven into exile. Countries named to the Risk List are not necessarily the world’s worst places for journalists; such a list would include nations like North Korea and Eritrea, where free expression has long been suffocated. Instead, the Risk List identifies the 10 places where CPJ documented the most significant downward trends during 2012. Those trends included:
High murder rates and entrenched impunity in Pakistan, Somalia, and Brazil.
The use of restrictive laws to silence dissent in Ecuador, Turkey, and Russia.
The imprisonment of large numbers of journalists, typically on anti-state charges, to thwart critical reporting in Ethiopia, Turkey, Vietnam, Iran, and Syria.
An exceedingly high fatality rate in Syria, where journalists faced multiple risks from all sides in the conflict.
CPJ, which is publishing its Risk List for the first time, identified Syria and Somalia, which are racked by conflict, along with Iran, Vietnam, and Ethiopia, nations that are ruled with an authoritarian grip. But half of the nations on the Risk List– Brazil, Turkey, Pakistan, and Russia, along with Ecuador–practice some form of democracy and exert significant influence on a regional or international stage.
Threats to press freedom were not confined within the borders of these nations. Four Risk List countries sought to undermine international or regional press freedom initiatives during the year. Russia pushed for centralized control of the Internet ahead of the World Conference on International Telecommunications. Ecuador led an effort, supported by Brazil, to weaken the ability of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to intervene in cases of systemic or grave press freedom abuses. Brazil and Pakistan were among a handful of countries that tried to derail a U.N. plan to improve journalist security and combat impunity worldwide.
Setbacks in Brazil are particularly alarming given its status as a regional leader and home to a diverse array of news media. But a spike in journalist murders, a failure to address impunity, and a pattern of judicial censorship have put Brazil’s press freedom at risk, CPJ found. Turkey, too, has projected an image as a regional model for freedom and democracy. But while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed a commitment to press freedom, his administration has wielded an anti-terror law as a club to jail and intimidate journalists.
Less surprising, but no less worrisome are setbacks in Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Iran. Though Ethiopia and Vietnam have been applauded for economic strides, both countries have lagged in terms of openness and freedom of the press. Conditions worsened in 2012, as Ethiopian and Vietnamese authorities ramped up efforts to stifle dissent by imprisoning journalists on anti-state charges. Iran, ignoring international criticism of its press record, has intensified an assault on critical voices that began after the disputed 2009 presidential election.
In Syria and Somalia, where journalists faced risks from multiple sides, the death tolls have mounted. Crossfire was the leading cause of death for journalists in Syria, although at least three journalists were assassinated, CPJ research shows. Both rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been implicated in acts of violence against the press. All 12 journalists killed in Somalia in 2012, the country’s bloodiest year for the press, were targeted in direct reprisal for their reporting. Both insurgents and government officials were suspected of involvement. In both countries, the ranks of young journalists, many with little training and experience, have been particularly hard hit.
In the full report below you can find capsule reports on the 10 nations named to the CPJ Risk List:
For those who think that large international human rights meetings tend to take place in the ‘western’, you should check out the programme and website of the WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS FORUM which was held in Brasilia from 10 – 13 December 2013: http://www.fmdh.sdh.gov.br/index.php/en/program [representatives from 74 countries, more than 500 different activities and over 9.000 participants].
One such activity was the seminar “Comparative experiences for the protection of human rights defenders at the international level” chaired by Luciana García, director of the Department of Defence of Human Rights, from the Brazilian Human Rights Secretariat. Luis Enrique Eguren, President of Protection International, shared the table (picture above) with experts from other organisations, such as: Andrea Rocca of Front Line Defenders, Laura Tresca of Article 19, and Michelle Morais de sa Silva, General Coordinator for Accompaniment in Projects of International Cooperation.
The WFHR is an initiative of the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency of the Brazilian Republic, whose main objective is to promote a space for the public debate on Human Rights in which the progress and challenges are addressed with respect for the differences and social participation, with the aims of reducing inequalities and fighting against human rights violations…The Minister Maria do Rosário, from the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil: “We organise this forum in Brazil because we think governments must always be opened to dialogue with civil society, precisely because this strengthens democracy …..We learn with Mandela that it is ourselves who must be the actors for the promotion of peace”.
At the closing ceremony of the World Human Rights Forum it was announced which countries will host the next events: Morocco in 2014 and Argentina in 2015.
On 26 September 2013 many countries attended the first ministerial meeting held at the United Nations on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
(UN Photo/Amanda Voisard)
Foreign ministers attending the meeting, held on the margins of the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate, adopted a declaration pledging not just to protect LGBT rights but also to counter homophobic and transphobic attitudes. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay commended
Today, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and FIFA President Sepp Blatter will officially mark the one-year countdown to the opening of the 2014 World Cup. Read the rest of this entry »
(From left to right — Charles Harper, Estela Barnes de Carlotto, Ambassador Alberto D’Alotto and Bishop-emeritus Aldo Etchegoyen. Photo: Argentinian mission in Geneva)
