On 24 January 2017, thelocal.se published the English version of an opinion piece originally written in Swedish by Civil Rights Defenders executive director Robert Hårdh for newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Like my post published yesterday about the call for Canada to ‘compensate’ for Trumps election [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/01/23/2017-4-canadas-year-of-real-human-rights-action/], this piece argues that Sweden, also as a member of the EU and with its current place on the UN Security council, must step forward and take a greater responsibility to protect human rights on a global level: Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged ‘funding’
We must find new ways to protect human rights defenders…and to counter the anti-human rights mood
December 12, 2016“Almost 20 years ago the UN adopted the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, but they face more danger than ever“, say Iva Dobichina and James Savage (resp. of the Open Society Foundations and the Fund for Global Human Rights) in a post on 10 December 2016 in the Guardian. “We must find new ways to protect human rights defenders” say the authors in an excellent article so rich and – in my view correct – in its analysis of the current climate that I reproduce it below in full. What is perhaps missing from the piece is a call for more sustained action by the worldwide human rights movement to improve its ‘performance’ in the battle for public opinion. A lot of the regression in the situation of human rights defenders seems to go hand-in-hand with an increase in public support for rights-averse policies (“Around the globe, a tectonic shift towards autocratic and semi-authoritarian rule by law, and the pernicious influence of corporate, criminal and fundamentalist non-state actors, has put human rights activists on the defensive and let rights violators go on the offence” state the authors correctly). To counter this we have to come up with equally convincing use of the modern media, especially through professional-level visualisation and ideas for campaigns that can broaden and galvanize the human rights movement. Read the rest of this entry »
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 »
Translating Russia’s human rights defenders, UK charity looks for crowdfunding
June 28, 2016
Russia’s human rights organizations regularly produce reports about the human rights situation in their country. Too often these reports are not translated into English because of the cost involved, or because of the difficulty of finding good translators.The project aims to enable the reports published by Russia’s human rights groups to reach a wider, international audience by providing first-rate translations into English. The money donated will be used to pay for the translations, which will be provided at no cost to the authors. The reports in question cover all kinds of human rights issues, including freedom of expression, right of assembly, right of association, the prohibition on torture, liberty and security of person, right to a fair trial, and freedom from discrimination, including on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religion or belief, or sexual orientation. The reports form the basis for the vital work of awareness-raising and advocacy to combat human rights violations in Russia.
Source: Translating Russia’s human rights defenders, a Charities in UK on Crowdfunder
Possible funding for training independent journalists exposing human rights abuses
May 19, 2016
Giselle Portenier (CNW Group/Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma)
Independent documentary-makers and freelance journalists working to expose human rights abuses can compete for a bursary to help them obtain hostile environment training, more usually made available to journalists working in war zones. The 2016 Portenier Human Rights Bursary competition, offered by the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma, opened on 16 May and closes on June 30. The annual bursary, introduced last year, is sponsored by the documentary-maker Giselle Portenier. Read the rest of this entry »
Support for screening human rights films
March 15, 2016Movies that Matter supports human rights film screenings in developing countries and countries where press freedom is at stake. Applications are welcome for mobile cinema projects, human rights film festivals, film outreach projects or other innovative cinema projects to stimulate the discussion on human rights, social justice and freedom of expression?
Starting this year, Movies that Matter offers two types of grants to stage human rights film festivals and screenings in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East:
a) start-up grants (max. EUR 7,500); and b) impact grants (max. EUR 10,000).
Please note that Movies that Matter does not support film production!
The application deadline is 17 April 2016.
See the website for more information about these types of grants, the selection criteria and how to apply:
http://www.moviesthatmatter.nl/english_index/international/support_programme
For inspiration, read about Movies that Matter’s earlier grantees here:
http://www.moviesthatmatter.nl/english_index/international/support_programme/supported_projects
http://www.moviesthatmatter.nl/
P.O. Box 1968, 1000 BZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Phone: +31 20 7733630
Soros does it again – this time in Connecticut
January 17, 2016In 2010 businessman and philanthropist George Soros gave $100 million to Human Rights Watch (if the same sum was matched in private contributions). This time a more modest but still considerable sum goes Connecticut. Georges Soros and Gary Gladstein Read the rest of this entry »
Donors should work jointly against the wave of civil society repression
July 10, 2015The Newsletter of the International Service for Human Rights of 5 June 2015 carried an interesting piece written by two representatives of donors that are very active in the area of protection human rights defenders. Julie Broome, Director of Programmes with the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and Iva Dobichina, Programme Manager with the Open Society Foundation‘s Human Rights Initiative, wrote jointly about much-needed efforts to “turn the tide against the wave of civil society repression”. The piece follows in toto below, but some of the key points are: Read the rest of this entry »
Austria and Netherlands pledge €1.35 million to African human rights defenders
February 16, 2015World Bulletin News (from Turkey) reports on 13 February about the Dutch and Austrian governments funding a three-year project to support African human rights defenders. One always wonders why this kind of information pops up in one news source but not in others. Read the rest of this entry »
Group of Governments and Agencies formulate policies on LGBTI issues and human rights defenders
November 21, 2014On the Occasion of the Annual Conference to Advance the Human Rights of and Promote Inclusive Development for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Persons held in Washington from 12-14 November 2014, the governments of Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay, as well as the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, the European Union, UNAIDS – the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, and the United Nations Development Programme, adopted a communiqué, which is relevant to human rights defenders in particular through the following paragraphs:
Introduction
…..
We further recognize the work of civil society organizations and human rights defenders from whom we have heard over the last three days. We commend their tremendous dedication and resolve to bring about a world free from violence and discrimination. We are gravely concerned by the serious challenges, difficult circumstances, and in some instances violent attacks that human rights defenders and organizations face as they work to achieve this important goal. We are inspired by their commitment, and recognize their rich diversity and unique views from different regions and across different cultures and traditions.
Together we affirm the following:
….
6. We dedicate ourselves to exploring ways to strengthen our international assistance and diplomacy efforts to promote and protect the human rights of LGBTI persons, through cooperating with additional governments and identifying new sources of funding and engagement, including from the private sector;
7. We will strive to ensure flexible and timely support, especially to meet the needs of the most vulnerable persons worldwide, including LGBTI persons;
8. We intend to guide our assistance and diplomacy efforts on the basis of need and when possible on the basis of needs assessments. We also recall the importance of co-ownership of assistance and diplomatic efforts with host governments as we work to advance the human rights of LGBTI persons;
9. We underline that governments, funders, civil society organizations and other implementing organizations should ensure involvement of local LGBTI communities and their allies in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of human rights and development cooperation efforts as appropriate;
…….
12. To further strengthen cooperation, coordination and communication of assistance and diplomatic efforts, we plan to continue to meet annually to discuss implementation of this communiqué and other relevant issues. The next meeting is expected to be organized by the Netherlands in early 2016.
For further information, please contact Chanan Weissman at WeissmanC[at]state.gov.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 