Monday 19 March, 18:30 – 21:00, Staffan de Mistura, United Nations special envoy for the Syria crisis, will give the 2018 Sergio Vieira de Mello Lecture.
Staffan de Mistura is the United Nations special envoy for the Syria crisis. Having previously served as the head of the UN missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has over thirty years’ experience of working in conflict-affected areas and within humanitarian agencies. The event is moderated by the journalist Sophie Shevardnadze and will take place at Auditorium Ivan Pictet at the Maison de la Paix in Geneva. Registration is required for this event. Register here
The annual lecture is organised by the Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation and the Graduate Institute.
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. ”
The full program in the link below with many interesting films and debates. Special attention should go to:
Defending the Defenders
Everywhere defenders of our fundamental freedoms are harassed, imprisoned, tortured, even in countries with a strong tradition of defense of human rights.
In 2017, 197 environmental activists were murdered in the world. Human rights organizations are themselves prevented from carrying out their work, and are sometimes directly banned or expelled from certain countries. An increasing number of governments are making concerted efforts to prevent the International Criminal Court and the Human Rights Council from fulfilling their mission. A disturbing reality as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. The film Silas by Hawa Essuman and Anjali Nayar, chronicles the life of its eponymous main character in his fight over the years against convicted war-criminal Charles Taylor and the illegal deforestation and corruption in his native Liberia.
SCHEDULE
Co-presented with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAE), the European Union’s mission to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, International Service Human Rights (ISHR), the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and Lawyers Without Borders Switzerland
Introduction Peter Sørensen | Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the UN and other International Organizations in Geneva Sandra Lendenmann Winterberg | Head of the section for Human Rights Policy, Human Security Division, DFAE Asli Erdoğan | Author, Journalist and Defender of Human and Minority Rights Gerald Staberock | Secretary General of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT)
Panelists Maryam Al-Khawaja | Human rights activist, Head of External Relations and Vice-President of the Bahraini Center for Human Rights Michel Forst | UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Kate Gilmore | United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Claudia Samayoa | Co-founder and coordinator of Unidad de Protección de Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos Guatemala – UDEFEGUA, and member of executive council of the OMCT Moderated by Gunilla Von Hall | UN correspondent in Geneva of the Swedish Newspaper Svenska Dagbladet
– in collaboration with the members of HRCnet – is hosting a welcome reception for Vojislav Šuc, the new President of the Human Rights Council on Wednesday 31 January 2018. This is a regular opportunity for civil society staff, human rights experts and diplomats to meet and greet the new President and Vice-Presidents of the Council in a relaxed atmosphere. Those who won’t be in Geneva that evening, can give their thoughts about what the Human Rights Council’s priorities for 2018 should be. Share them on Twitter using #HRC2018 and Michael Ineichen, Human Rights Council Advocacy Director of the ISHR, will share a selection with the HRC President.
Thursday, 14 December 2017, the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT, founded in 1977 by the Swiss banker and lawyer Jean-Jacques Gautier) announced that its Secretary-General, Mark Thomson, will retire on the 31st of July 2018. Mark, who has served as Secretary General since 2001, says that this is the right time for him to hand over the reins to someone else and that, whilst he intends to remain active in torture prevention and access to justice issues, this will be on a voluntary and ad hoc basis and that his main goal is to seize the opportunity to focus his time and energy on his young family. The President of the APT, Martine Brunschwig Graf expressed her own and the Board’s sincere appreciation for the work Mark has done over the past seventeen years, stating that: “Mark has provided first-class leadership to the APT and during that time he has played a guiding role in some immensely important developments in torture prevention across the globe. He is held in high esteem by public oversight bodies and governmental and non-governmental partners in many countries who will be as sorry as we are to see him move on.” Before 2001 Mark Thompson worked at the International al Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
The APT’s Board, taking into account the quality of the existing team, has chosen not to make a public call and will instead appoint his successor at the next board meeting, on the 13th of April 2018.
This side event will take place during the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. The event will bring together multiple stakeholders to discuss how to remedy, redress and prevent attacks against human rights defenders working on business and human rights.
The World Organisation Against Torture <http://www.omct.org> (OMCT) and the Committee Against Torture from Nizhny Novgorod <http://pytkam.net/eng> organize a panel discussion on 9 November 2017 from 6:30–8:30 p.m.
The topic is “Can the media help promote human rights and fight torture in Russia and elsewhere?”
Panellists:
Ms. Olga Sadovskaya, Committee Against Torture from Nizhny Novgorod, Deputy Director
Ms. Therese Obrecht Hodler, journalist and former President of Reporters sans frontières <https://rsf.org>
Mr. MaksimKurnikov, Editor-in-Chief of radio EkhoMoskvy
Mr. Protsenko Nikita, Editor at Mediazone <zona.media>
Moderator: Mr. Gerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary General
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The panel discussion will be followed by a cocktail
Free entrance. Maison international des associations, Salle Gandhi, Rue des Savoises, 15. Geneva
If you are – or know – a human rights defender keen to increase interaction with the UN system, apply now for the 2018 edition of ISHR’s Human Rights Defenders Advocacy Programme!
The training will take place in Geneva between 11 and 22 June 2018 and provides defenders with opportunities to put their advocacy skills directly into action at the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council. Get a taste of the programme here.
ISHR’s Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme (HRDAP) equips defenders with the knowledge and skills to make strategic use of the international human rights system. It also provides an opportunity for participants to directly engage in lobbying and advocacy activities at the UN level to effect change on the ground back home.
As well as receiving training modules on all the UN human rights mechanisms from a range of experts, participants will also have the opportunity to build networks in Geneva and around the world, carry out lobbying of UN member States and UN staff, and learn from peers from a range of regions working on a range of human rights issues.
At the end of last year’s training, 100% of participants were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the overall programme, and they all also felt that they would be able to apply what they learnt to their own day-to-day work. ISHR will look to build upon this success in 2018.
Participants will take part in:
A short online learning component, prior to face-to-face training, to enable you to consolidate your existing knowledge and develop your advocacy objectives;
Intensive training in Geneva during June, to coincide with the 38th session of the Human Rights Council. The training will focus on ways to effectively use international human rights mechanisms and to influence outcomes;
Specific advocacy at Human Rights Council sessions and other relevant meetings, with regular feedback and peer education to learn from the experiences, including expert input from leading human rights advocates.
This programme is directed at experienced human rights defenders in non-governmental organisations, with existing advocacy experience at the national level and some prior knowledge of the international human rights system.
If you are interested in applying for ISHR’s training programme, please read the call for applications to check that you comply with the requirements, and apply before midnight Geneva time on 11 December 2018. The link to the online application form can be found in the call for applications. For more information, write to hrdap2018@ishr.ch.
Global Geneva published today, 4 October 2017, an article by me called “[Geneva] The right place for the world’s human rights award“. Rather than summarizing it, here is the full article. There are lots of other interesting pieces in the issue, see: http://www.global-geneva.com.
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The 2017 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders will be announced on Tuesday, 10 October, 2017 at the University of Geneva (UniDufour) in Geneva, Switzerland. For further information, go to MEA: This article also appears in the Oct-Nov 2017 edition of Global Geneva magazine.
WITHOUT INDIVIDUAL HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS (HRDs), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights law risk being a dead letter. Almost all human rights organisations have a mandate to come to the succour of threatened colleagues via urgent appeals and other campaigns. Some 150 now run an award and the number keeps growing – half were created since the beginning of the 21st century.
Curiously, however, the best known of these awards, the Nobel Peace Prize, is given out annually in Oslo and not in Geneva, the international hub for human rights. Alfred Nobel died on 10 December. Decades later, the United Nations declared 10 December as International Human Rights Day and designated 21 September as the International Day of Peace. The strange result is that the Nobel Peace Prize – intended for contributions to ‘peace’, not necessarily ‘human rights’ – is awarded every year in Oslo on 10 December, which is ‘Nobel Day’ in Sweden and Norway, and International Human Rights Day for the rest of the world.
The small volunteer secretariat operated out of Geneva, but many of the first award ceremonies were held abroad in places where the laureates are active. In 2001, it was decided to make Geneva the permanent location for the annual ceremony. By 2008, the lakeside city started offering serious support by making the award part of its “International Geneva” plan, an effort to galvanize the private and public sectors, including the rest of Switzerland, with regard to the region’s crucial importance as a hub for critical global issues. Since then, cooperation has grown into an admirable win-win partnership with the award run on a fully independent basis, while Geneva provides the infrastructure for the ceremony.
This suits all parties. The actual decisions are made by an autonomous jury of experts enabling the city to avoid having to deal with controversial aspects.
Mohamed Zaree of the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) is one of the three finalists, and is subject to a travel ban to Geneva where he is supposed to attend the 10 October 2017 Martin Ennals Award Ceremony. Despite requests directly to Egyptian President Al-Sisi, the ban – at this time of writing – has yet to be lifted.
Presenting the awards: a matter of protection – and courage
The wisdom of this separation was reiterated in 2016 when the MEA went to an imprisoned scholar belonging to the Uyghur minority. China reacted furiously, but its target ended up being the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who courageously persisted in presenting the award at the ceremony as his predecessors have done over the years.
How effective are human rights awards? To answer this, one needs to know in which way they are intended to help human rights defenders. In the first place, all awards seek to offer recognition and encouragement at the psychological level. This goal should not be trivialized as activists often have to work in difficult environments. Furthermore, they may prove unpopular even within their own social circles.
Secondly, many awards come with some financial support. Even relatively small amounts go far in cash-strapped organizations, many based in developing countries.
Finally, the most important but also elusive goal is protection. The latter is not really possible without a fair degree of publicity. An example: On 13 May 2008, Mutabar Tajibaeva, a detained human rights activist in Uzbekistan, was announced as that year’s MEA Laureate. A few weeks later, on 2 June, she was released from prison on medical grounds, and a few months later, was allowed to travel abroad. She came to Geneva to receive the MEA in person, declaring publicly that the award saved her life. However, one cannot state categorically that her release was a direct result of the award; many other actors contributed to the pressure that resulted in her release from prison.
Karla Avelar 2017 FINALIST – EL SALVADOR: Karla Avelar has dedicated her life to defending, nationally and internationally, the Human Rights of LGBTI persons, HIV affected persons, migrants, persons deprived of liberty in situations of vulnerability as well as victims of discrimination due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
For human rights abusers: embarrassment fueled by global press coverage
That such impact cannot be taken for granted is shown by the case of Ahmed Mansoor from the United Arab Emirates, the 2015 Laureate. The government did not lift his travel ban and he had to address the audience via a video link.
His case received further global coverage in August 2016. Flaws in Apple’s iOS operating system were discovered by Mansoor who alerted security researchers to unsolicited text messages he had received. Apple has since released a software update that addresses the problem. Then, on 20 March, 2017, around midnight, Ahmed Mansoor was arrested at his home in a raid by a large team of the Emirates’ security forces.
His importance as a human rights defender was demonstrated by the international response to this sudden arrest. In addition to many newspapers and social media, the UN Special Procedures and the EU Parliament quickly called for his release. But today, six months later, he continues to linger in jail.
FreeThe5KH 2017 FINALIST = CAMBODIA: Mr Ny Sokha, Mr Yi Soksan, Mr Nay Vanda, Ms Lim Mony and Mr Ny Chakrya, the “Khmer 5” are Cambodian human rights defenders who face judicial harassment and had spent 427 days in pre-trial detention, as a result of their legitimate human rights work.
Some believe that human rights awards can endanger the lives of laureates. Clearly, this is a danger, but the best judge of the balance between increased risk and greater protection remains the human rights defender in question. And generally, they seem to regard public exposure foremost as a form of protection, reflecting the increased importance of the media even in tense situations. The biggest problem with seeking increased protection through publicity is perhaps that the media are not automatically interested in all human rights awards.
That the media are increasingly referring to the MEA as the “Nobel prize for human rights” is perhaps the best sign that after almost 25 years, the award has found its status and place in Geneva. With the delivery of the 2017 prize on 10 October in Geneva, it will again be in the hope to go ‘from the front line to the front page’.
Hans Thoolen is a Dutch national who has worked for various NGOs and inter-governmental organizations, including 12 years in Geneva. He is now retired but not tired. Read his blog: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/
Mohamed Zaree of the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) is one of the three finalists, and is subject to a travel ban to Geneva where he is supposed to attend the 10 October 2017 Martin Ennals Award Ceremony. Despite requests directly to Egyptian President Al-Sisi, the ban – at this time of writing – has yet to be lifted.
Karla Avelar 2017 FINALIST – EL SALVADOR: Karla Avelar has dedicated her life to defending, nationally and internationally, the Human Rights of LGBTI persons, HIV affected persons, migrants, persons deprived of liberty in situations of vulnerability as well as victims of discrimination due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
FreeThe5KH 2017 FINALIST = CAMBODIA: Mr Ny Sokha, Mr Yi Soksan, Mr Nay Vanda, Ms Lim Mony and Mr Ny Chakrya, the “Khmer 5” are Cambodian human rights defenders who face judicial harassment and had spent 427 days in pre-trial detention, as a result of their legitimate human rights work.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 