Malta is still struggling to adequately protect human rights defenders, including journalists, according to a new OSCE review published on 2 September 2025.
While some progress has been noted, the report warns that legal pressure, rhetoric used and a lack of meaningful reforms continue to erode fundamental freedoms. The assessment by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) follows a fact-finding mission to Malta in March 2023.
ODIHR noted “concerning instances of disparaging rhetoric and smearing remarks used by political actors, including politicians and other persons of authority” in relation to activists in various areas and journalists Those working on corruption, migration, environmental issues, and sexual and reproductive rights were identified as frequent targets. Interviewees described harassment, threats and intimidation, often extending to their families.
Women activists reported sexist abuse, including being spat on or confronted physically.
Interviewees told ODIHR that their work was often portrayed as partisan political activity. The assessment also noted attempts to damage reputations, harm employment prospects and label defenders as enemies, traitors or political opponents.
The report connects this hostile environment to the 2021 public inquiry into journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination, which found that state inaction and vilification of journalists fostered a “climate of impunity.” Two years later, ODIHR says many recommendations remain unfulfilled, particularly on media freedom and journalist safety.
The OSCE heard accounts of online trolling, social media threats, spoofing campaigns, threatening phone calls, and verbal abuse of family members.
ODIHR also found that Maltese journalists continue to receive threatening letters from local and international law firms, sometimes prompting article removals due to fear of high legal costs.
Although defamation was decriminalised in 2018, gaps in the law remain, and proposed anti-SLAPP reforms have been criticised as inadequate.
Freedom of expression and access to information also face obstacles. Journalists spoke of costly and lengthy efforts to secure public records, while whistle-blower protections are seen as weak due to fears of reprisals.
The report calls for a public review of Malta’s Freedom of Information Act, the release of a government-commissioned evaluation, and new legislative proposals to improve transparency and accountability.
Civil society activists also described intimidation around protests, including court rulings against authorities for repeatedly removing banners and memorials related to Caruana Galizia.
ODIHR acknowledged political support for LGBTI rights, with NGOs in this sector receiving strong public backing and engagement from officials. Freedom of assembly was generally upheld, and some NGOs received benefits through tax incentives and secondments. Nonetheless, ODIHR concludes that Malta must urgently rebuild trust and ensure a safer environment for rights defenders.
Key recommendations include public recognition of their work, stronger police protection protocols, robust anti-SLAPP legislation, improved transparency measures, and genuine consultation on media reforms. “Baseless lawsuits, threats and smear campaigns not only endanger individuals but weaken democracy itself,” the report warns.
ODIHR said it is ready to support Malta in implementing reforms but emphasised that political commitment is vital.
On 23 April 2025 Front Line Defenders expressed its serious concern for Syrian woman human right defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji, as well as her family and the ‘Equity and Empowerment’ organisation, who are being targeted by a defamation campaign on Facebook which seeks to incite violence against them. The online campaign, initiated both by individuals known to support the new government and unknown users, has targeted Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii for a Facebook post she made on 20 April 2025, in which she advocated against forced marriages. This bombardment of defamatory messages has included calls for violence, including death threats, constituting a clear case of harassment.
Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji is a Syrian feminist and woman human rights defender. She is the CEO of the Equity and Empowerment organisation and the Chairperson of the Board of Directors in Shan network for peace building. Equity and Empowerment is a women-led organisation which works on gender equality, focusing on digital security, economic and political empowerment. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/08/10/syrian-woman-human-rights-defender-hiba-ezzideen-al-hajji-threatened/]
Since 20 April 2025, Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii’s Facebook account, through which she posted about women’s rights, has been used to start a defamation campaign and incite violence against her, as well as her family and the Equity and Empowerment organisation, both based in Idlib, Syria. The online campaign has led to Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii receiving numerous death threats on the social media platform, both through private messages and through a flood of posts on her own account, as well as on Equity and Empowerment’s page. The online mob, formed by unknown users, have urged followers to post defamatory content against her online and called for physical violence, inciting people to burn down the center of Equity and Empowerment in Idlib, with the objective of killing Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii and harming her family. They have distorted the meaning of an old video, in which she stated that it is unnecessary to use the veil in the centers of Equity and Empowerment where there are only women, to falsely accuse her of insulting the Hijab and Islam. The online mob have also attempted to distort her Facebook post in which she urged authorities to investigate cases of women’s abduction, in order to allow for accountability.
Several public figures have taken advantage of this defamation campaign in order to falsely accuse the woman rights defender of being an agent to Assad security branches, despite her clear stands against the Assad regime and extensive record of human rights activism against it. Subsequently, on 22 April, the police in Idlib closed down the center of Equity and Empowerment. Furthermore, the governor of Idlib announced via Facebook that he has requested the public prosecutor to file a lawsuit against Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii for insulting the hijab. The woman human rights defender has expressed a profound concern for her personal safety and well-being. She has reported fearing for her life, as well as the lives of her family and team at Equity and Empowerment.
Front Line Defenders condemns the defamation and online campaign seeking to incite violence, as well as subsequent acts of intimidation against woman human rights defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii, her family and her organisation Equity and Empowerment. Front Line Defenders believes that the defamation campaign and online harassment is directly related to Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji’s work in the defence of human rights, particularly her work towards the promotion of women’s rights in Syria.
Front Line Defenders also expresses concern with the recurrent use of Facebook as a tool to incite violence against woman human rights defenders in Syria. The organisation urges Meta to immediately take down all Facebook posts against woman human rights defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii and her organisation Equity and Empowerment, suspend any groups, pages and profiles used to defame her or organise attacks and incite violence against her and her organisation, while also storing data that is relevant for future investigations and accountability. Meta must fulfill their responsibility to protect human rights, in accordance with international human rights standards. They must take the necessary steps to guarantee the safety of human rights defenders online, ensuring their platforms do not contribute to violent and dangerous campaigns, or allow users to incite targeted violence against defenders, particularly woman human rights defenders, which puts their lives at serious risk. Front Line Defenders stands ready to assist Meta with identifying the defamatory and violent content in question and the accounts on which they are hosted or shared.
Here Haris Azhar shares how and why he believes the law can be used as a powerful tool to deal with repression of democratic voices and their rights. Read more from our In My Own Words series here.
My name is Haris Azhar. I would say I’ve been working, in general terms, on human rights issues for the last 25 years. I work across the country in Indonesia on some human rights, issues or situations, and in some conflict areas such as in Papua.
I have been working for and dealing with some vulnerable groups such as labour groups, as well as the indigenous people and victims from the violence as well. These days I practise as a lawyer, I do pro bono and also professional for-profit work where I use the profits work to subsidise the pro bono and public interest legal work. I have also joined some organisations, and I was director for two human rights organisations. So that’s why I’ve been very human rights focused.
In early 2024 me and my friend Fatia were brought to court. We won, and we got a good decision from the court. But this is not the final one, because the attorney general has appealed to the Supreme Court. I think this whole process was meant to serve as an example.
The whole process, especially last year, was intended to be intimidation. The litigation or the pre-trial process was intended to intimidate me [and] not to not say more about the practice of business oligarchs in this country. But myself, lawyers, and groups here said, we would not say sorry. We would not stop speaking, and that those in power could continue their judicial harassment of us and that we would fight them.
And during the fight, a lot of things happened [such as] intimidations, negative accusations and campaigns. They accused us of hoax stories, but actually they did the hoax stories. They took over and intercepted my mobile phone as well. These are the lengths and practices of intimidation in place.
However, the process of the court for people like us, we pretty much don’t really care about the final decisions. We can see the shadow of the prisons, because what the government thinks is important for them is for us to not have democratic voices. There aremany cases by politicians and by business groups that aim to criminalise decent voices, and it has become a [common] practice. There are even consultants that can help you if you would like to know how to criminalise decent/democratic voices.
It’s become an industry against freedom of expression, to show that, “This is what happens if you are against us.” They wanted to show they could bring me to court so the warning was that anyone who becomes the client of Haris should be aware. It was symbolic, and that’s what I mean it is a message to intimidate and to intimidate vulnerable groups especially.
Widespread engagement on human rights, working through organisations, has developed not only my knowledge, my skill, but also my networks. This has also developed my interest in what some of the ways we (as a nation) would like to put on the table with regards to issues of human rights.
As a practising lawyer, we have always believed here that we can use the law [to achieve justice]. However the movement here is not like in South Africa, as an example, where at one point in South Africa there was no real equality. There was no legal institution that could be used to secure fairness. We don’t have that kind of situation here [in Indonesia], but we are still looking for the formalisation of equality and fairness.
We like to use the legal debate, space, and discourse as a way to combat evil, because the law provides the kind of tools or ammunition to attack evil. Those in power hide behind the law and therefore here in Indonesia, most of the battle and discourse always has an element of legality.
I believe that the law is one of the crucial things that need to be handled, in addition to other advocacy issues. Because we know that the law or legal mechanisms are [also] being used by the bad guys, by the oligarchs to justify and legalise their plans and to do their own business. Those in power always say that they have complied with the law, that they uphold the rule of law, but actually we know that the law they comply with is their own creation. It is their own definition. That’s why we [as legal practitioners] need to step in, even though it’s not the popular action to do so.
If those in, and adjacent to, power cannot be left to create what is good and not good within the framework of law. We need to bring in the voices from the ground. We need to bring the voices from the indigenous people. We need to bring the voices from the labour groups, from the students, from the women’s groups, and many other vulnerable groups who are connected to the issues.
This is instead of the politicians and the business groups alone making their own arguments and developing their own definitions. We cannot let them be, and let them take over in that kind of way. Rule of law and legislation, has to be accompanied and coloured by the vulnerable voices and interests. This is why we insist that a part of the campaign, part of the research, is that we take the legal action as well.
The gap between the haves and the political groups on the ground is huge. This has been happening year on year, and it is getting worse every year. The new regulations and legislations that we have here, which very much comply with the interests of the business groups which belong to some politicians, create more loose protection of rights of workers and women. For the youth and the students, they are getting fewer protections for their education and freedom.
There’s no freedom on campus for students anymore, [because of] intervention from the government and the police on campuses. It’s getting obvious these days. So I think we need at least two things. First, figuring out how to protect vulnerable groups, because why they were attacked or would be attacked is because they found irregularities, and problematic issues behind the policies of the government, or the law.
These issues have led to economic issues, social issues, business issues and so the vulnerable groups make a choice where they complain or protest, but they get attacked by police, government and intelligence. That is why we need more collaborations with vulnerable groups.
We also need more friends — lawyers, international advocates, researchers — coming down into the rural areas, and into the urban areas to capture what is happening and make a noise, to campaign. That’s why we need to have the first group that I mentioned before. We need not to deal with the substance of the problem, but with the second layer of the problem, [which is] the attacks of the participation, the effects to the participation. For this we need to have a lot of groups [working on] how to deal with this kind of shrinking space.
We just had the 2024 elections where we campaigned around the threat to our freedoms of speech and expression. Some of the candidates responded very well, but the one that was supported by the current regime didn’t have a strong resonance with what we are saying. In addition to the campaign, along with my criminalisation, myself, some friends and organisations submitted a complaint to the Constitutional Court.
Our complaint was regarding some legal articles which were being used against me and against some journalists. We won the case in the Constitutional Court earlier this year, and an article which had been used to criminalise a lot of people has now been dropped. But this win is very short [lived] because we have some articles within certain laws which allow the police to criminalise speech.
When I said we won, that’s regarding just one article in our criminal code. But in the next year and a half we will have a new criminal code implemented and new articles to criminalise speeches. We will need to challenge those articles in the next two years. It’s like Tom and Jerry, where we play hide and seek. It seems politicians and business need a shield to protect themselves from the public, hence these situations but we keep fighting them using the same law.
Legal institutions are not our institutions yet. They are still their institutions [meaning the powerful]. However to a certain degree, the legal space is an open stage for you to perform, to have a say. I think if we don’t fill the space, it will be filled by those who are not supportive of freedom of speech or freedom of expression.
These are the reasons why I think we have to join legal action. So as to not give space for evil to come in and occupy. Also, legal action is not the only type of work needed. It has to be one among others. For instance there is advocacy work too. But law cannot be neglected and that’s why this current situation (and the coming situations), require more than just focusing on the legal system. It has to be about a collaborative methodology and approach.
In a joint public statement with the Centre for Reproductive Rights, Women’s Link Worldwide and Front Line Defenders the organisations welcome today’s decision acquitting Vanessa Mendoza Cortés and remind the authorities that she should face no further intimidation or reprisals for carrying out her important and legitimate human rights work.
“Today’s acquittal upholds Vanessa Mendoza Cortés’ right to freedom of expression and affirms the legitimacy of the efforts of all those defending women’s rights and sexual and reproductive rights. However, Vanessa Mendoza Cortés has paid a high price for defending human rights. She has endured an unjust and protracted judicial process lasting more than four years. This has impinged on her crucial work and that of the organisation she represents.
Vanessa Mendoza Cortés has paid a high price, enduring an unjust and protracted judicial process lasting more than four years.
“We call on the Andorran authorities to publicly recognize the legitimacy of the human rights work carried out by Vanessa Mendoza Cortés. The authorities must take concrete measures to ensure she and other activists can defend the human rights of women and girls in Andorra, including the right to safe and legal abortion, without intimidation and fear of reprisals.
“Andorra should comply with its obligations to decriminalize abortion and make access to it safe and legal in the country.”
Vanessa Mendoza Cortés, President of the women’s rights organisation Stop Violence (Stop Violències), was charged with criminal defamation after voicing concerns about Andorra’s total abortion ban at a meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to examine the country’s record on women’s rights in 2019.
Responding to the indictment of two prominent human rights defenders, Fatia Maulidiyanti and Haris Azhar, Amnesty International Indonesia’s Executive Director Usman Hamid said on 13 November 2023:
“This disgraceful indictment will have a destructive effect on the work of human rights defenders in Indonesia. Instead of protecting the right to freedom of expression, the Indonesian authorities are obliterating civic space. These alarming indictments illustrate the increasing oppression faced by activists who express dissenting opinions. We urge the Indonesian authorities to immediately release Fatia Maulidiyanti and Haris Azhar. The right to freedom of expression must be respected and guaranteed.” See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/10/15/indonesia-human-rights-defenders-under-pressure/
The prosecutor demanded that Fatia should be imprisoned for three years and six months, and Haris for four years. They were deemed guilty after being sued by the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. The minister filed a defamation case against Fatia and Haris in September 2021. Both were charged by the police on 17 March 2022 with defamation under Article 27 section (3) of the Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) Law. Amnesty International Indonesia has voiced concerns related to problematic provisions in Indonesian EIT Law, including this provision.
The police investigation relates to a YouTube video of a conversation between the two human rights defenders where they discussed the findings of a report on the alleged involvement of several military figures in the mining industry.
Amnesty International Indonesia has recorded that at least 1,021 human rights defenders were prosecuted, arrested, attacked and intimidated by various actors from January 2019 to December 2022. Meanwhile, there are at least 332 people that have been charged under the EIT Law, most of them accused of defamation, between January 2019 and May 2022.
On 26 July 2023 Front Line Defenders stated that it stands in solidarity with Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji, and calls on the de facto authorities in Idlib to put an end to the targeting of the Syrian woman human rights defender.
Despite the efforts of human rights organisations, women human rights defenders in Syria continue to face many forms of restrictions and threats. In this context, Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji, a woman human rights defender and CEO of the feminist organisation Equity and Empowerment, has recently been targeted by a malicious online defamation campaign because of her work on women’s rights and democracy in Syria. On 4 July 2023, Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji received death threats from unknown individuals who disagreed with her advocacy efforts for “equality and democracy,” asserting that such work went against the teachings of Islam. Subsequently, the Facebook page of her organisation Equity and Empowerment was overwhelmed with hateful comments and threats, further escalating the distressing situation.
Those behind the defamation campaign are believed to be Jihadists operating in Idlib, northwestern Syria, where the woman human rights defender conducts her human rights work. The woman human rights defender has previously reported that these radical groups were responsible for similar threats, indicating a pattern of persecution and harassment against her and other human rights defenders in the area.
The attacks have also manifested in offline harm. On 18 July 2023, a family member of the woman human rights defender was insulted by a stranger who threatened them saying that if Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji does not stop her work, one of her family members will be killed. The defamatory narrative against Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji aims at inciting further hatred and violence against her, all in an effort to undermine her human rights work.
On 21 July 2023, an imam in the countryside outside of Idlib gave a sermon which mentioned the woman human rights defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji and the organisation Equity and Empowerment. The sermon called for the organisation to be closed, incorrectly mentioning its links to western states as a means of discrediting its work.
On 2 March 2020, Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief declared that they “firmly reject any claim that religious beliefs can be invoked as a legitimate ‘justification’ for violence or discrimination against women or girls.”
The campaign has taken place over various online platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Telegram, using fake and verified accounts to post derogatory fake images of the human rights defender along with hateful captions. In addition to this, she has been subjected to death threats, harassment, and incitements against her and her family, along with doxing, deep fakes, threats of rape and sexual slurs.
Front Line Defenders believes that the defamation campaign is directly related to Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji’s work in defence of human rights, in particular her work towards the promotion of women’s rights in Syria. Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the defamation campaign against the woman human rights defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji. It calls on the de facto authorities in Idlib to put an end to the targeting of the woman human rights defender, including the defamation campaign, and demands that Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji’s safety and well-being be protected as well as that of all women human rights defenders facing similar threats and attacks in the country.
De Lima, who has now been in detention for more than six years, was acquitted for allegedly trading illegal drugs while she was secretary of justice, after being acquitted in the first case against her in 2021. Both cases were evidently fabricated and there is no reason to think that the third case against her is any more credible.
Then-President Rodrigo Duterte directed de Lima’s persecution in response to her attempts to investigate killings that took place in the early stages of Duterte’s “war on drugs” in 2016. But Duterte’s enmity toward her started in the late 2000s when, as chair of the Commission on Human Rights, de Lima began an investigation into killings attributed to a “death squad” operating in Davao City, where Duterte was the mayor. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating those killings as well as numerous “drug war” killings that took place while Duterte was president. In 2019, as part of his efforts to avoid international justice, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s Rome Statute, which obligates states party to the treaty to cooperate with the court.
While de Lima’s latest acquittal brings hope that her unjust detention may be ending sooner rather than later, she never should have been prosecuted or held in pretrial detention without bail. Duterte’s improper influence over the Department of Justice was evident by the recanting of the testimony of three key witnesses in this case, saying they had been coerced.
This is an opportunity for the Department of Justice to regain some of its credibility by dropping the outstanding case against de Lima. But there also needs to be accountability. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who last week conceded abuses were committed in the “war on drugs,” should urgently launch an inquiry into how the levers of the justice system were manipulated against de Lima and implement reforms to ensure such politicization of the justice system never happens again.
This is echoed by anOpen Letter to the Government of the Philippines on 24 May 2023 by
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
Balay Alternative Legal Advocates for Development in Mindanaw (Balaod Mindanaw)
Karapatan Alliance Philippines (KARAPATAN)
Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism (Dakila)
Purple Action for Indigenous Women’s Rights (LILAK)
They welcome the acquittal of Leila de Lima, former Senator and chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines, on one of her two remaining politically motivated charges on 12 May 2023 by a Muntinlupa court….
De Lima’s arrest is in violation of her constitutional rights as a sitting senator and in contravention of international human rights law. The arrest is purely based on politically-motivated charges, following her senate investigation into the thousands of extrajudicial killings under Duterte’s ‘war on drugs.’….De Lima should never have been detained in the first place.
The arbitrary detention and mistreatment of former Senator de Lima reflect the Duterte administration’s judicial harassment of human rights defenders as well as the Philippines’ shrinking civic space. Nearly a year after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in June 2022, de Lima’s case remains stagnant. The slow progression of the case demonstrates both the previous and current Philippine administrations’ unwillingness to seek justice and accountability…
FORUM-ASIA alongside its reputable Philippine member organisations urge your Excellencies 1) to immediately and unconditionally drop the remaining politically motivated charges against de Lima; 2) to request the Muntinlupa court to grant her bail petition for release; 3) and to provide compensation and other reparations for the human rights violations she was made to endure.
Philippine authorities should release and allow de Lima to be reunited with her loved ones after six long years.
We demand the immediate release of de Lima and all other political prisoners who have been persecuted for their work and beliefs in human rights and social justice.
Earlier on Monday, 9 January 2023 the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had rejoiced in the acquittal of members of Karapatan, – the Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights – and their allies GABRIELA – National Alliance of Women – and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) in the face of the perjury charges brought against them by the Philippine authorities.
The Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 139 issued its judgment on the retaliatory and trumped-up perjury case against ten human rights defenders, Karapatan Chairperson, Elisa Tita Lubi; Karapatan Secretary General, Cristina “Tinay” Palabay; Karapatan Deputy Secretary General, Roneo Clamor; Karapatan Treasurer, Gabriela Grista Dalena; Karapatan National Council members, Edita Burgos, Wilfredo Ruazol, and Jose Mari Callueng; GABRIELA Chairperson, Gertrudes Ranjo Libang; GABRIELA Secretary General, Joan May Salvador, and member of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, Emma Cupin, acquitting them of all charges.
In a case of judicial harassment, which started in July 2019, the then-National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. submitted a perjury complaint against the three organizations related to the registration of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines. Although the case was initially dismissed for lack of probable cause and sufficient evidence, in February 2020 the Quezon City Prosecutor, Vimar Barcellano, granted a motion for reconsideration of the perjury case.
The judicial harassment resulted in global condemnation from civilsociety, Members of the EuropeanParliament and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders calling on the Philippine authorities to put an end to the judicial harassment faced by the ten human rights defenders and the wider human rights movement in the country.
While we celebrate the acquittal, we remain as committed as ever to stand in solidarity with members and the wider human rights community in the Philippines in their struggles to advance human rights and social justice for all.
The Human Rights Council on 11 March held an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. With thanks to Reliefweb, here an extract:
Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said last year she had presented a report detailing the shocking scale of killings of human rights defenders across the world – in almost a third of the Member States of the United Nations. Words of support had been heard from States at her presentation, saying they would work with her to stop this scourge – to date, she had received no invitations from any States as to ways to discuss how to stop these killings, and she had received more communications on killings. Human rights defenders who worked against corruption were often attacked for exposing or researching abuse of power, graft, bribery, fraud and other related malpractices, and these attacks took many forms. Governments and business targeted anti-corruption fighters as they feared exposure. Corruption was deeply rooted in some societies and could not be rooted out overnight, but States needed to publicly recognise the work of human rights defenders, and openly combat attacks against them.
In the ensuing dialogue, speakers said the international community should work to better support human rights defenders and protect them from retaliation. Human rights defenders played a vital role all across the globe. States should end impunity for those seeking to stifle the voices of human rights defenders, and work better to protect them, amplifying their voices in the United Nations system. Human rights defenders protected and fought for the core values of the international community; they should be given an enabling environment. Corruption was, as the Special Rapporteur’s report said, a human rights issue, and national legislators were obliged to defend those investigating it. Work needed to continue to create an environment where human rights defenders and all civil society workers could operate without fear of violence and reprisals, which would further reinforce democratic and legislative institutions.
Speaking in the dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders were European Union, Lithuania (on behalf of a group of countries), Australia (on behalf of a group of countries), Liechtenstein, Germany, Paraguay, Philippines, Egypt, UN Women, Norway (on behalf of a group of countries), Sierra Leone, Montenegro, Slovenia, Iraq, Cuba, France, Venezuela, Luxembourg, China, Burkina Faso, India, Namibia, Marshall Islands, Lesotho, Armenia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Russian Federation, Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru, Morocco, Algeria, Togo, Ireland, Belarus and Uruguay. Tunisia, United States, Belgium, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Côte d’Ivoire, United Kingdom, Niger, Czech Republic, Albania, Botswana, Malta, Vanuatu, Italy, Georgia, Mauritania, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Republic of Moldova, Saudi Arabia, Viet Nam, Iran and Pakistan.
Also speaking were SUHAKAM, Morocco National Human Rights Institution, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, American Association of Jurists, Sociedade Maranhense de Direitos Humanos, International Service for Human Rights, Dominicans for Justice and Peace – Order of Preachers, World Organisation Against Torture, Oidhaco, Bureau International des Droits Humains – Action Colombie, Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND), Peace Brigades International, and Il Cenacolo.
Speaking in right of reply were Armenia, Israel, Lithuania, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Cuba, Azerbaijan and Bahrain.
Greek Orthodox Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus. Two activists were found to have falsely accused him of hate speech by a Greek court on Tuesday. Credit: Ewiki/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0
Several newspapers (here Anna Wichmann for GreekReporter of 16 February 2022) commented on the rather surprising ruling by a Greek court that two human rights activists falsely accused a Greek Orthodox bishop of hate speech and sentenced them to year-long prison sentences that were suspended for three years.
Bishop Seraphim, who is the Metropolitan of Piraeus, was acquitted on charges of hate speech. The bishop has made what many believe are both coded and explicit references to antisemitic tropes many times. For example when Greece introduced new legislation to expand rights for gay and lesbian couples in 2015, he claimed that an “international Zionist monster” was behind the bill.
He also claimed that Jews themselves funded and planned the Holocaust and charged that they were the reason for Greece’s financial troubles on Greek television five years ago. After his statement about the Holocaust began to garner controversy, the Greek Orthodox Bishop clarified that it was his own opinion and not that of the Greek Orthodox Church.
These comments were seen as extremely troubling in a country whose once vibrant Jewish community was nearly wiped out during the Holocaust, and antisemitic rhetoric and attacks, usually in the form of vandalism, are still a major problem.
The accused brought a formal complaint against the Bishop in 2017 in which they claimed he fueled hatred and incited violence against Greece’ Jewish minority with his inflammatory statements about Jews and the Holocaust. They also claimed that he had abused his office.
The prosecutor dismissed the activists’ complaint in 2019, but the Bishop decided to file his own motion against the activists for falsely accusing him of hate speech, and the prosecutor subsequently formally charged the accused in November.
Greece passed Law No. 4285/2014 in 2014, which criminalized hate speech — particularly speech which incites violence — and genocide denial. The law reads “Anyone, who publicly incites, provokes, or stirs, either orally or through the press, the Internet, or any other means, acts of violence or hatred against a person or group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, in a manner that endangers the public order and exposes the life, physical integrity, and freedom of persons defined above to danger, will be punished by imprisonment of from three months to three years and a fine of €5,000 to €20,000.”
Human rights groups around the world paid careful attention to the case; many believed that bringing the activists to trial alone was a sign of an alarming shift of the judicial system’s role in the country as a force against activists.
Amnesty International stated on social media that “The ruling poses a direct threat to the right to freedom of expression and has a chilling effect on human rights defenders advocating against racism and hate speech.”
Andrea Gilbert, one of the accused, who works for the Greek Helsinki Monitor rights group, expressed her outrage at the verdict to The Guardian: “Today’s outrageous verdict is representative of the institutionalized antisemitism that exists in Greece…We have immediately appealed and will fight it all the way.”
Activists and people who work for NGOs argue that the trial epitomizes how difficult it is for them to work in Greece.
“Human rights defenders (in Greece) are consistently targeted for their legitimate work…(They) face different types of attacks, including surveillance, judicial harassment, arbitrary arrests, detentions, ill-treatment, entry bans and expulsions,” the international secretariat of the World Organization Against Torture stated to The Guardian.
Although not included in the activists’ initial complaint of hate speech against Greek Orthodox Bishop Seraphim, he is also known to express what many believe are homophobic sentiments.
He has claimed that homosexuality brings about disease and can be “carcinogenic.” He has also called homosexuality an issue of “psychopathology” rather than sexuality.
In 2021, when Greece was hit with catastrophic wildfires that destroyed vast swaths of land and thousands of houses, Seraphim released a statement in which he hinted that the fires were a punishment for Greece adopting legislation that expanded the rights of gay people, writing:
“With love I would say to our leaders that when they show off the subversion of human ontology and human nature and institutionalize it as a “human right,” despite the fact that it doesn’t have any relationship with human nature, and they view it as a plus on their CV for advancement in their position of authority, they don’t understand that this is hubris, and each instance of hubris requires purification and ‘just repayment.’”
Alan Macleod in Mint-press News of 7 May 2021 studies in quite some detail the way in which the recently released Human Rights Watch (HRW) report has made waves around the world and the organised backlash that followed.
The 213-page study goes into detail about a range of racist laws and policies carried out by successive administrations, concluding that there is an “overarching Israeli government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.” The report accuses the state of Israel of widespread “institutional discrimination” and of “denying millions of Palestinians their fundamental rights…solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish.” It further notes that, across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, it has “sought to maximize the land available for Jewish communities and to concentrate most Palestinians in dense population centers.”
“Prominent voices have warned for years that apartheid lurks just around the corner if the trajectory of Israel’s rule over Palestinians does not change,” said the organization’s executive director, Kenneth Roth. “This detailed study shows that Israeli authorities have already turned that corner and today are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
Perhaps most importantly, Human Rights Watch is now openly calling for global action to end the repression. The report asks the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute those involved in Palestinian persecution. While not explicitly endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sactions (BDS) movement, Human Rights Watch directly advocates that “[s]tates should impose individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against officials and individuals responsible for the continued commission of these serious crimes,” and for businesses to “cease business activities that directly contribute to the crimes of apartheid and persecution.”
A big splash
The report was widely covered across the world and has been heralded by Palestine solidarity activists, with experts seeing it as a potential turning point in the struggle for Palestinian sovereignty. “It was inevitable that Human Rights Watch would have to declare Israel an Apartheid state and, from what I hear, Amnesty International is going to be next to say it,” Asa Winstanley of the Electronic Intifada told MintPress. “It puts Israel’s backers in a difficult spot because Human Rights Watch is really part of the establishment so they cannot just dismiss it and it makes it impossible to ignore… It is harder for them to say Human Rights Watch is anti-Semitic, but they’re trying it anyway,” he added.
Trying indeed. Michigan Congresswoman Lisa McClain tweeted that “Human Rights Watch has shown again how they have an anti-Israel agenda,” suggesting they instead focus their attention on China or Iran’s repressive governments. “Hostility and hypocrisy are HRW’s hallmarks when it comes to Israel,” wrote the American Jewish Committee. The Jerusalem Post’s editorial board was equally condemnatory, denouncing what they saw as the “cynical appropriation of the suffering of the victims of the actual apartheid regime.” Other Israeli journalists described the report as “a disgrace to the memory of the millions who suffered under that policy [apartheid] in South Africa.” The news even made enough waves to force a response from the White House. Press Secretary Jen Psaki replied that “[a]s to the question of whether Israel’s actions constitute apartheid, that is not the view of this administration.”
Organized spontaneity
Yet much of the online anger at the report was actually manufactured by an Israeli government-sponsored app, Act.IL, which organized supporters of the Jewish state to act in sync to create an artificial groundswell of opposition to it. The app, which reportedly has a budget of over $1 million per year, instructed users to leave combative comments on Facebook, Twitter, and popular news outlets, and to like and promote others who did the same.
Human Rights Watch’s Facebook post announcing the report’s release has received over 1,400 comments, hundreds of them written in a similar, scathingly negative tone. One that the app directly told users to signal boost, for instance, described Palestinians as a people “indoctrinated with hate for Israel and Jews for over 100 years,” and claimed they were paid salaries to murder Israelis. It also presented the 1967 war and occupation as a humanitarian effort to bring electricity and other infrastructure to Arabs.
Another “mission” Act.IL gave its users was to promote a Facebook comment attacking the report as “nothing more than hate speech” and calling its lead author a “rabid anti-Zionist and Israel hater.”
One of the many images provided to Act.IL users for their astroturfing campaign against HRW
Act.IL is one of the chief tools in Israel’s online public relations enterprise. The app debuted in 2017 and is part of what Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan called an “Iron Dome of Truth.” “Our cell phones are the number one weapon against us,” he explained, noting that public opinion in the U.S. was beginning to turn against them. While most of the app’s nearly 20,000 users are volunteers, a core of them are paid operatives, with many students receiving scholarships as a reward for their work.
The app has been designed to feel like a game, with points assigned for completing “missions” such as sharing pro-Israel videos, reporting anti-Israel content, signing petitions, or attending online seminars. Users can track their progress on leaderboards, earn badges and prizes, and chat with other members of the community. While it might feel like Animal Crossing or World of Warcraft for some, its creators see this very much as a new front in the war against Palestine. Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked categorizes BDS as “another branch of terrorism in the modern age,” and has been an important voice in taking the fight to a new front.
An Act.IL mission encouraging astroturfing of online discussions. Source | @AntiBDSApp
There is also an online toolkit full of folders of responses to typical questions and issues that arise. Users can, for instance, go to the BDS folder to find stock replies to their arguments. Or they can go to a specific folder to find articles, images and videos they can use to demonize Hamas.
The missions are organized by outlet, so users can, for instance, target only Facebook, Telegram, or other platforms they are most familiar with. At the time of writing, there are 10 missions each to complete on Facebook and YouTube, 30 on Instagram, 25 on Twitter.
One current challenge is to upvote an answer to a question on Quora that asks about the validity and purpose of checkpoints in the West Bank. The answer claims they are purely about protection from terror attacks, and claims that Red Crescent ambulances are used to ferry bombs around the area. Other missions include pressuring an online store to remove a bag with a message stating “Make Israel Palestine Again.”
An Act.IL “mission” encouraging users to demand the removal of products with pro-Palestinian messaging
“It is quite astounding how openly they do it. But, of course, when you see a comment online, you wouldn’t necessarily think that it was coming from the Israeli government, but this is essentially what is happening,” Winstanley said. “Israel is not the only state to do this, but they do it fairly successfully.”
For all this, however, it is clear that Act.IL has a serious problem with user retention and lacks the volunteer numbers for it to be truly game changing.
Controlling the message
In a time of heightened awareness about foreign government interference online, it is particularly surprising that these operations can be openly carried out across virtually every major platform. Big tech companies like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are constantly deleting tens of thousands of Russian, Chinese, Iranian and Cuban accounts belonging to what they claim are organized, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.
In an effort to gauge the legality of its operations, MintPress reached out to Facebook, YouTube, Quora, and other big platforms used by Act.IL. We received no response from any of them. While this is particularly noteworthy — as these companies have teams of public relations representatives and are extremely forthright and timely with responses on other issues — it is perhaps not surprising. Facebook especially has long been working closely with the Israeli government in deciding which voices to censor. As far back as 2016, Ayelet Shaked boasted that Facebook removed 95% of the posts her office asked them to. Yet when Shaked herself called for a genocidal war against Palestine and its women, who give birth to “little snakes,” not only did the post remain online, it received thousands of likes and was widely circulated.
“The concern is that Facebook is adopting Israeli policy and terminology when it comes to defining what incitement is,” said Nadim Nashif, co-founder of 7amleh, the Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media. 7amleh was therefore dismayed when last year, Facebook appointed former Israeli Minister of Justice Emi Palmor to its Oversight Board, the council having the final say in the moderation of content on the platform used by 2.6 billion people worldwide. In her role as justice minister, Palmor was directly implicated in the persecution and subjugation of Palestinians.
Earlier this year, an Israeli Defense Forces soldier attempted to sue a Palestinian-American activist living in California over an allegedly slanderous Facebook post condemning her for participating in ethnic cleansing. Remarkably, the plaintiff attempted to convince a California judge to apply Israeli law to the incident, despite the fact that both she and the defendant are American citizens. https://cdn.iframe.ly/r7H7ueP?iframe=card-small&v=1&app=1
Inside the world of academia, professors critical of Israel have found themselves pushed out of the profession. In 2007, prominent critic of Israel Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University for political reasons. Seven years later, the University of Illinois “unhired” Steven Sailata for his comments denouncing Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza. Emails showed that wealthy donors put significant pressure on the university to pull the plug on him. More recently, Cornel West was blocked from a tenured job at Harvard this year, despite having previously held tenure at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. “Being the faculty advisor for the Palestinian student group was the one that probably went outside of the line for many Harvard staff,” West told Krystal Ball and Kyle Kulinski. “It’s a joke. It’s ridiculous. It’s ludicrous. It’s preposterous that it wouldn’t have something to do with politics.”
Top media figures have also paid the price for their support of BDS. CNN fired commentator Marc Lamont Hill after he made a speech at the United Nations calling for a free Palestine. Meanwhile, journalist Abby Martin was blocked from speaking at a conference at Georgia Southern University last year after she refused to sign a contract promising to renounce BDS. Georgia is one of dozens of U.S. states to have anti-BDS legislation, essentially forcing any would-be recipient of public contracts or funds, including government employees, to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel. Martin is currently suing the state of Georgia. MintCast Interviews Abby Martin About Her Anti-BDS Lawsuit & The Israel Lobby…
While Human Rights Watch’s report is new, the charge of apartheid is not. In 2017, a United Nations report “clearly and frankly concludes” that Israel is “a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people.” Earlier this year, Israeli human rights organization B’TSelem also used the word “apartheid,” claiming that Israel had established “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”…
Advocates for Palestine hailed Human Rights Watch’s study. Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies wrote:
There can be little doubt that much of HRW’s decision to issue this report now was based on the recognition that not only is it no longer political suicide to call Israeli apartheid what it is, but that we are now at a tipping point whereby failing to call out apartheid risks losing credibility for a human rights organization. It’s a huge victory for our movement.”
The battle, however, is far from won, and it is clear that the Israel lobby will continue to fight to hold back the tide until it is insurmountable.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 