On 13 February 2018 fourteen international and regional rights organizations stated that the Egyptian government has trampled over even the minimum requirements for free and fair presidential elections (planned 26-28 March). The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has relentlessly stifled basic freedoms and arrested potential candidates and rounded up their supporters. “Egypt’s allies should speak out publicly now to denounce these farcical elections, rather than continue with largely unquestioning support for a government presiding over the country’s worst human rights crisis in decades,” the groups said.
The authorities have successively eliminated key challengers who announced their intention to run for president….The current atmosphere of retaliation against dissenting voices and the increasing crackdown against human rights defenders and independent rights organizations have made effective monitoring of the elections extremely difficult for domestic and foreign organizations. Media reports have said that the number of organizations that were granted permission to monitor the elections was 44 percent fewer than in the last presidential election in 2014 and that the number of requests, in general, has gone down. Several opposition parties called for boycotting the elections. A day later al-Sisi threatened to use force, including the army, against those who undermine “Egypt’s stability and security.” On February 6, the Prosecutor-General’s Office ordered an investigation against 13 of the leading opposition figures who called for a boycott, accusing them of calling for “overthrowing the ruling regime.” “Seven years after Egypt’s 2011 uprising, the government has made a mockery of the basic rights for which protesters fought,” the groups said. “Egypt’s government claims to be in a ‘democratic transition’ but move further away with every election.”
So, the two side events that are coming up are extremely valuable as the national space for dissent is nihil:
The Situation of Human Rights and Upcoming Elections in Egypt: Facilitating Radicalisation is an event organised by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) and co-sponsored by ISHR, that will take place on 9 March at 13:30 to 15:00 in Room XXIII. The event will address the deterioration of the human rights situation in Egypt and the dangers of the international community’s failure to respond.
Human rights violations in Egypt and in the Gulf States is an event organised by FIDH, CIVICUS, the Gulf Center for Human Rights. It will take place on 15 March 2018 at 15:00 till 16:00 in Room XXIII. The event will focus on the interlinked plight of human rights defenders in Egypt and the Gulf States as both are facing ongoing targeting by their own governments as well as explore measures for coordination and advocacy at the international level.
In the same context there is the press release of Friday 2 February 2018 in which a number of organisations, under the umbrella Committee for Justice (CFJ), condemned Tuesday’s execution of Egyptian Tayseer Odeh Suleiman after he was convicted in Ismalia’s military court in what they said was a flawed trial inconsistent with international legal and human rights standards. Suleiman, 25, was hanged after the Supreme Military Court of Appeals rejected the defence put foward by his lawyer without explaining the reasons behind the rejection….CFJ confirmed that there had been an unprecedented increase in the implementation of death sentences in Egypt, based on illegal proceedings, with 26 people executed between the end of December last year and the present. CFJ further asserted that the reason for the death penalties “under the guise of combating terrorism” were misleading and in violation of basic standards of a fair trial indicating significant flaws in Egypt’s judicial process.
On only a few days ago (2 March 2018), responding to reports from his family and colleagues that Ezzat Ghonim – a prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer and director of the NGO, Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms – failed to return home from work yesterday, Najia Bounaim, Amnesty International’s North Africa Campaigns Director, said: “Given the highly-charged political climate in Egypt and the clampdown on dissent in the lead-up to the presidential elections, we are deeply concerned that Ezzat Ghonim may have been forcibly disappeared. ”
With elections coming up in Germany this weekend it is interesting to alert you to three items that may have escaped attention:
(1) A report by Deutsche Welle states that Germany granted asylum to 196 Turkish diplomats:
In response to a parliamentary question by Left Party, Germany’s Interior Ministry said 196 Turkish nationals, who applied for asylum in Germany following a botched coup attempt in July, 2016, were recognized. According to the ministry statement, 80% of 249 Turkish applicants with diplomatic status and their families were given asylum. Members of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are also among those seeking asylum, said the ministry. The number of asylum applications from Turkey has been significantly increasing. There were 433 applications in June while this number rose to 620 in July and 962 in September.
(2) On 20 September Human Rights Watch made public its assessment of the ‘human rights’ content of the political platforms of the different parties. It concludes that the parties differ on human rights approach and in migration policy.
“The election platforms of the main German parties offer a clear roadmap for voters when it comes to making sure their elected representatives will protect human rights,” says Wenzel Michalski, Germany director at Human Right Watch. “Of course, what matters is the actual political work after the elections, which we will closely monitor.” Three parties, the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany), Bündnis90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens) and FDP (Free Democratic Party) devote separate sections of their platforms to human rights in foreign policy.
Separately, a German newspaper publisher said it filed an appeal to Turkey’s highest court against the incarceration for the past five months of a German-Turkish reporter, the Associated Press has reported. Deniz Yücel, who works for the daily Die Welt, was arrested Feb. 14 in Istanbul. He was accused of disseminating terrorist propaganda and inciting hatred, as well as espionage and ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – allegations Yücel denies. He hasn’t been formally charged.
The ISHR has now published ‘scorecards’ for each of the States seeking election to the UN Human Rights Council for 2017-2019. Read the rest of this entry »
Participants shout slogans during a rally organised by pro-democracy group Bersih 2.0 near Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur, August 30, 2015. — Reuters pic
Bersih 2.0 (also called the Walk for Democracy) has won South Korea’s 2016 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights for its efforts in pushing for electoral reform in Malaysia. The Bersih 2.0 steering committee, in a statement, said it was proud for being acknowledged for its work through the Gwangju award. “This acknowledgement is the result of the fight of the people of Malaysia who had gathered peacefully as many as four times in the city centre to seek a clean and fair electoral system in the country…The people have also proved their patriotic spirit when they walked the streets to defend the constitution, freedom to gather, voice an opinion and seek information,” it said. “We would like to take this opportunity to thank all non governmental organisations overseas who have supported Bersih 2.0 all these years.”
The committee said Bersih 2.0 was nominated by Indonesian activist Mugiyanto from the International NGO forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) and Malaysian activist Yap Swee Seng. The award ceremony will take place on May 18 at the Memorial Foundation in South Korea.
With International Women Human Rights Defenders Day coming up (29 November)I will pay special attention to questions that concern them. Here a case of police harassment from Front Line concerning Tanzania: Read the rest of this entry »
On 14 April 2015 Inform Action Kenya published this fairly long (1 hour) but informative video: “Kenya: A Guidebook to Impunity”. Human rights defender, Maina Kiai, looks at how the disputed 2013 election was used to protect political icon, President Uhuru Kenyatta, from crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court. The events have left hundreds of thousands of victims without hope of justice and disappointed human rights defenders who took tremendous risks to try and bring the perpetrators to account.
On 27 February 2014 it was reported by TwoCircles.net that Amnesty International India is asking political parties contesting the 2014 parliamentary elections to commit to and adopt as part of their manifestoes 14 key goals to improve India’s human rights record. … India’s political parties need to show their commitment to respect, protect and fulfill fundamental human rights. Amnesty representatives are meeting leaders from various political parties with the following 14 points of the ‘Human Rights Charter’:
Protecting the rights of communities affected by corporate-led projects.
Ending torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances.
Ending arbitrary detention and reducing excessive under-trial detention.
Protecting the rights of all persons in custody.
Ending the use of the death penalty.
Ensuring justice for marginalized communities who have suffered abuses.
Reforming the criminal justice system to better tackle violent crime.
Tackling all forms of violence against women more effectively.
Holding armed forces accountable for human rights abuses.
Protecting people’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression.
Protecting the rights of migrant workers and domestic workers.
Strengthening human rights institutions and protecting human rights defenders.
Building a culture of respect for human rights through education.
Adopting a more principled approach to human rights abuses around the world.
The European Parliament Elections of 2014 are coming on 22 May and the Human Rights and Democracy Network [HRDN] has launched a campaign: Stand 4 Human Rights.Read the rest of this entry »
The mission to Honduras was made up of Baltasar Garzón, a Spanish jurist and human rights defender; Luis Guillermo Pérez Casas, attorney and head of the FIDH mission; Lisa Haugaard of the Latin America Working Group; Annie Bird of Rights Action; Mirna Perla, former magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador; Julieta González from APRODEV-Advocacy Program for Central America in Brussels; Susanna Daag from the Copenhagen Initiative for Central America (CIFCA) in Brussels; Hollman Morris, Colombian journalist and human rights defender; Enrique Santiago of the Foro de Abogados of Spain; Beatriz Gil from the Institute for Political Studies on Latin America and Africa (IEPALA) in Spain; and Pascal Paradis from Lawyers without Borders, Canada. The mission was carried out with the support of CIPRODEH.
The report of 20 December 2013 highlights the following:
deep concern over the attacks and threats made against the human rights defenders mentioned in its November 23, 2013 press release, including journalists and those who work to defend women, indigenous and Garifuna territories, natural resources, and the lesbian, gay, transsexual, bisexual, and intersexual community. The mission had access to two blacklists targeting leaders of social and labor organizations, human rights defenders, journalists, and members of the Libertad y Refundación political party and indicating they would be murdered.
concern over the recent and apparently arbitrary transfer of public prosecutors who had been working in the Special Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Prosecutors’ Offices and the impact of these transfers on the work necessary to overcome the high level of impunity in the country.
number of irregularities in the election process identified through multiple reports from diverse sectors of Honduran civil society.
a lack of transparency around the funding of political campaigns and the sources of political party funding.
strong presence of the Armed Forces during the course of the elections.
reports that during the course of the last few days, four people linked to the Partido Libertad y Refundación have been murdered. These numbers are over and above the 39 murders that have taken place since May of last year, mostly of members of the same party.
Two hundred and eighteen human rights defenders in Shanghai signed a public appeal urging the United Nations not to elect China to the 47-member Human Rights Council. The election will be held on 12 November in the General Assembly.
China is one of the five candidates for the four seats to be filled by Asia-Pacific states. The other candidates are Jordan, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. Among the voluntary pledges made by China for its membership are: “To continue to strengthen the development of democracy and the rule of law [and] push forward the reform of the judicial system.” The appeal is dated October 21, 2013, the day before China’s Universal Periodic Review at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Below are copies of the original signature sheets. Read the rest of this entry »
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 