Front Line Defenders issued a second call for nominations for the 2017 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk (if you have already submitted a nomination you should have received a confirmation email). Deadline remains: Friday, 3 February 2017. See: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/12/14/call-for-nominations-for-two-important-human-rights-awards-deadline-february-2017/
Posts Tagged ‘Front Line (NGO)’
Front Line reminder of deadline for its 2017 award
January 16, 2017Front Line launches its 2016 Report on Human Rights Defenders at Risk
January 9, 2017
After a short break, this blog resumes its job of selecting and summarizing events related to Human Rights Defenders. 2016 was a horrible year for HRDs and the launch of the annual report of Front Line Defenders confirms this by reporting that “more than 1000 human rights defenders were killed, harassed, detained, or subjected to smear campaigns and other violations in 2016″.
According to the report, 281 human rights defenders were murdered in 25 countries, 49 percent of whom were defending land, indigenous and environmental rights. Front Line Defenders found that in the vast majority of cases, killings were preceded by warnings, death threats and intimidation which, when reported to police, were routinely ignored. In addition to killings, over half of the cases reported by Front Line Defenders in 2016 concerned criminalisation, a tactic which the organisation calls “the first choice of governments to silence defenders and to dissuade others”.
For other post on Front Line last year, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/category/front-line/page/4/
Fake news also in the human rights arena: who would give a Human Rights award to Duterte?
December 21, 2016Republished as some readers could not properly see the post: This blog has a special interest in human rights awards, so I noted with dismay that according to some obscure sources President Duterte of the Philippines had been given an international human rights award. The announcement looked like this:
“International Human Rights Committee to Award President Duterte = AUGUST 18, 2016
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been named as one of the honorees in the annual Human Rights Award by the International Human Rights Committee.”
Unable to find any confirmation elsewhere I wrote to the American Bar Association which has an award and an ‘International Human Rights Committee’. No reply received yet but in the meantime I saw yesterday the “Fake news alert!” published on December 14, 2016 in Busted. And indeed it seems that fake news has also entered the human rights awards arena:
Various Facebook Duterte supporter groups such as “Duterte Warriors”, “Duterte News Global”, and “Duterte Media” have been sharing news of President Duterte being awarded by the International Human Rights Committee. According to the news article sourced from Trending News PH, President Rodrigo Duterte was named as one of the honorees in the annual Human Rights Award held by the International Human Rights Committee. This “committee” was said to have bestowed this award to Duterte for his “exemplary service in the promotion of human rights.” However, the said article is not linked to any other source and no major news outlets have reported on the headline. Furthermore, upon closer inspection, there are numerous inconsistencies on the dates the groups posted the article. The article itself was posted 4 months ago while the groups posted on September and October, with the “Duterte Warriors” group sharing the post twice, once in August and another in September. What was the point of posting the same news article more than once and on different months?
Moreover, the photo used in the article was originally a photo taken during LPU’s Quality Awards Convocation wherein Duterte, still a mayor that time, was awarded as the Most Outstanding Alumnus of Lyceum of the Philippines University in 2015. [http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/677750/duterte-is-lpus-outstanding-alumnus]
Even if it would turn out that some biased or incompetent committee did bestow a minor award, it does not change the fact that Duterte has issues with human rights defenders for the way he is conducting his war on drugs. In fact, recently, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs demanded that Duterte should renounce his earlier statement that seemed to threaten the lawyers of alleged drug dealers. “Duterte’s threats against lawyers and human rights defenders constitute a dangerous extension of his abusive ‘war on drugs’ that has already resulted in more than 5,000 killings,” HRW deputy Asia director Phelim Kine said. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/11/02/duterte-is-wrong-human-rights-defenders-are-beautiful/
See also Front Line Defenders on 1 December: “On 28 November 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened (<http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/848933/duterte-threatens-to-kill-human-rights-activists-if-drug-problem-worsens)> to kill human rights defenders in the Philippines in his speech in Malacañang. “The human rights (defenders) said I ordered the killings. I told them, ‘OK Let’s stop. We’ll let them (drug users) multiply so that when it’s harvest time, more people will die, I will include you because you are the reason why their numbers swell,” referring to human rights defenders.`
Sources:
Busted: International Human Rights award given to Duterte? Fake news alert!
Re-appearance of Abdul Wahid Baloch in Pakistan after four months!
December 8, 2016
Re-appearances after a time lapse of 4 months are rare. So this case in Pakistan deserves a mention: Abdul Wahid Baloch is a human rights defender who has called for justice for the Baloch community through the organisation of campaigns, protests and public condemnation of a number of high profile cases. Human rights defenders that have demanded justice for state violations against the Baloch community have been regarded as being anti-state by the Pakistani authorities. On the morning of 5 December 2015, Abdul Wahid Baloch returned to his house in Karachi, roughly four months after his disappearance on 26 July 2016. Abdul Wahid Baloch thanked human rights groups, media and individuals who campaigned for his release but refused to comment on anything involving his disappearance.
Source: Abdul Wahid Baloch | Front Line Defenders
For another post on repression of the Baloch: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2014/04/07/intimidation-against-human-rights-defender-nasrullah-baloch-in-pakistan/
New on-line memorial to remember killed human rights defenders
December 2, 2016
Irish President Michael D Higgins with international activists and NGO representatives in Dublin at the launch of the Human Rights Defenders Memorial. Photograph: Conor McCabe
A coalition of 20 national and international human rights organisations jointly coordinated the project. Contributors included human rights groups from Colombia, Honduras and the Philippines, which Front Line Defenders said are ranked among three of the deadliest countries in the world for human rights defenders. The organisation said other countries included among the worst in terms of killing and physical attacks against human rights defenders included North Korea, China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe.
Andrew Anderson, executive director of Front Line Defenders, said the memorial sent a message the human rights community was stronger than any one person. “It will not be deterred, and its leaders will not be forgotten,” he said. “This is not random violence. This is the calculated elimination of those who speak out to defend the rights of the most vulnerable. Autocrats and powerful economic interests think that if they kill an activist, they kill a movement. The goal of the HRD Memorial is to prove them wrong.”
Human rights defender Khurram Parvez (reluctantly) released in India
December 1, 2016On 23 September 2016 I reported on the arrest of human rights defender Khurram Parvez [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/khurram-parvezs-re-arrest-in-kashmir-illustrates-draconian-use-of-public-safety-act/#more-8476] in Jammu and Kashmir. A great many interventions by human rights NGOs focused on this case which highlights the draconian use of India’s Public Safety Act (PSA).
On 30 November 2016, Khurram Parvez was released from jail but even this was not done without wrangling by the police as reported by Front Line on 30 November: On 25 November 2016, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir in Srinagar quashed the order of detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA) and ordered the immediate release of Khuram Parvez. Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar in his order said Khuram Parvez’s detention was “illegal”. However, in the judge’s order there was a small clerical error, so the police at Jammu’s Kot Balwal jail decided to keep Khurram Parvez in detention until a corrigendum could be issued. On 29 November 2016 at 3 pm the Jammu’s Kot Balwal jail received the corrigendum, but did not release Khurram Parvez. Instead, at around 5 pm of the same day, he was taken to the joint interrogation centre at Meeran Sahib, Jammu. No reasons were provided for his continued detention to the human rights defender or his legal counsel. Khurram Parvez was released on the morning of 30 November.
[Khurram Parvez is the Chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a collective of 13 non-governmental organizations from ten Asian countries, that campaign on the issue of enforced disappearances. He is also the Programme Coordinator of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), which is a coalition of various campaign, research and advocacy organisations based in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, which monitor and investigate human right abuses. See: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/khurram-parvez]
Note that Khurram’s Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) won the 2016 Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/11/11/anti-disappearances-ngo-wins-asian-human-rights-award/]
Facing a global attack on the very idea of human rights defenders – funders need to step up
October 19, 2016Andrew Anderson, in the meantime confirmed as the new Director of Front Line Defenders [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/10/08/front-line-defenders-announces-steady-hand-andrew-anderson-as-new-executive-director/], argues – in a very interesting piece published by the International Human Rights Funders Group on 8 September 2016 – for the following:
(1) increased direct support to human rights defenders working at the local and national level,
(2) more flexibility in funding, and
(3) a greater focus on core, multi-year support.
As the piece is short and to the point, here the full text: Read the rest of this entry »
Front Line Defenders announces steady hand Andrew Anderson as new Executive Director
October 8, 2016Dublin-based NGO Front Line Defenders announced on 6 October 2016 that Andrew Anderson has been appointed as the organisation’s new Executive Director. Andrew has worked for the international protection of human rights defenders for more than twenty years, and has played a key leadership role in building Front Line Defenders into an effective force fighting for those most at risk. He will begin his new role on 1 November 2016.
The Front Line Defenders Board of Trustees selected Andrew due to his extensive management, fundraising and human rights experience. In its announcement, the Board of Trustees noted that it “unanimously agreed that Andrew is the candidate with the experience and skills best placed to lead Front Line Defenders into the next stage of our development.”
The choice is a good one in my view as Andrew has 27 years experience of working for human rights at the international level and has served as Deputy Director of Front Line Defenders since March 2003. As Deputy Director, he led the development of an international civil society consortium to implement the EU human rights defenders mechanism (www.ProtectDefenders.eu), and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York. Before joining Front Line Defenders, Andrew worked for thirteen years at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International where he served as Director of the Campaigning and Crisis Response Programme and as Director of the Africa Programme. For an earlier video statement by Andrew see: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/andrew-anderson-speaks-and-speaks-well-on-the-anniversary-of-un-declaration-on-hrds-youtube/.
“It is an honour and a challenge to take on this role at a time when human rights defenders are facing increasing attacks in all regions of the world,” said Andrew. “We must sustain the drive and energy which made Front Line Defenders so effective under Mary’s inspirational leadership and build on that legacy to deliver rapid and practical support for those who risk their lives to build a better future.”
Andrew will succeed Front Line Defenders’ current Executive Director Mary Lawlor, who founded the organisation in 2001. See: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/mary-lawlor-leaves-as-executive-director-of-front-line-defenders-job-search-for-successor-started/
Source: Front Line Defenders Announces New Executive Director, Andrew Anderson | Front Line Defenders
Iran: shameful sentences for Narges Mohammadi, Issa Saharkhiz, Arash Sadeghi – no detente in human rights
September 30, 2016
© International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
There was some hope that with the ‘nuclear agreement’ Iran would relent in its persecution of human rights defenders. [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/human-rights-defenders-squeezed-by-geo-politics-the-cases-of-colombia-iran-and-cuba/#more-6957] It now seems clear that this is not the case:
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Amnesty International, OMCT and FIDH and many others condemned a decision by an Iranian appeals court to uphold a 16-year jail sentence against journalist and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi. Under a law passed last year, she will ‘only’ serve the sentence linked to the most important charge – in this case 10 years for “forming and managing an illegal group” which pressed for an end to capital punishment. Mohammadi, 44, was the spokesperson of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders and campaigned for an end to the death penalty in Iran. 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi who founded the Centre for Human Rights Defenders, said: “I condemn this sentence imposed by the Iranian judicial system as Narges’s only crime is to be a human rights defender in a country that flouts these rights“.
Mohammadi went on hunger strike in June after being denied phone contact with her children, who live with their father in France. The authorities relented after 20 days of the hunger strike. [see also: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/retaliation-against-iranian-human-rights-defender-for-meeting-with-ashton/]
In memoriam Gladys Lanza: one of Honduras finest human rights defenders
September 21, 2016
On 20 September 2016 Gladys Lanza (#GladysLanza), one of Honduras most outstanding human rights defenders, passed away. With this video Front Line wants to help her struggle to continue. Honduras remains in the top list of places where human rights defenders are persecuted and attacked. See: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/honduras-one-of-the-worst-places-to-be-a-human-rights-defender/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 