As reported by many newspapers including Al-Jazeera (Asad Hashim on 25 April) Sabeen Mahmud, a prominent Pakistani human rights defender, has been shot dead, shortly after hosting an event on Balochistan’s “disappeared people”, in the southern city of Karachi. Mahmud, 40, was the director of T2F [The Second Floor], a café and arts space that has been a mainstay of Karachi’s activists since it opened its doors in 2007. She was one of the country’s most outspoken human rights advocates. Mahmud was shot four times at close range and pronounced dead on arrival at the National Medical Centre hospital on Friday 24 April at 9.40pm.
Mahmud and her mother were on their way from an event (“Unsilencing Balochistan,” hosted at T2F, with Baloch human rights activists Mama Qadeer, Farzana Majeed and Muhammad Ali Talpur) when her car came under fire from unidentified gunmen, according to police. Her mother was also shot twice, but was out of immediate danger, hospital officials said.
The Voice of Baloch Missing Persons organisation, which both activists belong to, says that more than 2,825 people have “disappeared” in this way since 2005. They allege the disappearances, which are mostly of Baloch rights activists and students, have been carried out by the Pakistani government and its powerful ISI intelligence agency, a charge the agency denies.
“Sabeen was a voice of reason, pluralism and secularism: the kind of creed that endangers the insidious side of constructed Pakistani nationalism,” Raza Rumi, a rights activist who escaped an assassination attempt in March 2014 and now lives in the United States out of fear for his life, told Al Jazeera.
Jeremy Hance – writing in Mongabay on 20 April, under the title “Killings of environmental activists jumped by 20 percent last year“ confirms again the terrible truth that it is in the countryside, away from monitors, and in disputes over land issues that the most gruesome repression takes place and the leader is..Brazil! [for last year’s report see: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/environment-deadly-for-human-rights-defenders-says-global-witness/]
Soy field in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.
The assassination, murder, and extrajudicial killing of environmental activists rose by 20 percent last year, according to a new grim report by Global Witness. The organization documented 116 killings in 2014 across 17 countries with the highest number in Brazil, which saw 29 environmental and land defenders killed. Still, the report is a major understatement of the problem as data across much of Africa, China, the Middle East, and Central Asia remains scarce to non-existent.
“Across the world environmental defenders are being shot dead in broad daylight, kidnapped, threatened, or tried as terrorists for standing in the way of so-called ‘development’,” said Billy Kyte, a campaigner with Global Witness. “The true authors of these crimes—a powerful nexus of corporate and state interests—are escaping unpunished. Urgent action is needed to protect citizens and bring perpetrators to justice.”
Most of the deaths last year—116 of them—were related to disputes over land. But mining was linked to 25 deaths, and hydroelectric dams and agribusiness to 14 each. Indigenous people also remain among the most targeted.
“In 2014, 47 indigenous people were killed defending their natural resources, 40 percent of the total deaths of environmental and land defenders,” reads Global Witness’s new report, entitled How Many More?. This year’s report follows a landmark document last year that tracked environmental activist killing—all 908 of them—over a dozen years.
Environmental activist killings by sector. Image courtesy of Global Witness.
Human rights defenders are stigmatized (as ‘anti-development’) and criminalized in order to silence their opposition.
While Brazil had the highest number of environmental activist murders in 2014, the most dangerous place to be an environmental activist was actually Honduras, according to Global Witness. During the last five years (2010-2014), Honduras lost 101 activists, giving it the highest rate of environmental activist killings per capita.
“A UN Human Rights Council resolution addressing the heightened risk posed to environmental and land defenders would be a start,” Kyte said. “But, in the end, governments themselves have to take responsibility and ensure impartial, exhaustive investigations into killings of these activists. And they have to bring perpetrators to account. Many targeted assassinations of activists are being passed off as ‘common’ murders and are going unnoticed.”
Environmental activist killings by country. Those in red were indigenous people. Image courtesy of Global Witness.
An example of how (making) film can teach young people to become human rights defenders. This comes Essex county in the USA.
The Speak Truth To Power student video competition encourages school students to become engaged in human rights. The video contest is sponsored by New York State United Teachers and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights and is based on Kerry Kennedy’s book Speak Truth To Power. Students who participate in the contest must choose one of the individuals identified by the RFK Center Human Rights and create a three- to five-minute short film. The contest is looking for student films that utilize creative storytelling to teach others about a human rights issue. The format is open to documentary, stop motion, narrative, digital photo essay or other innovative explorations that involve filmmaking components.
Two Bloomfield Tech students, Christopher A. Rodriguez and Julio Villegas, won the first place in the video contest with a five-minute film about genocide and focused on Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Wiesel. This feat was proudly reported in the local media on 21 April:
“Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. and the Essex County Vocational Technical School District …… are all very proud of Chris and Julio for winning the top prize in the RFK Human Rights Center’s student film contest. ……..It was important to share their film with our Essex County audience to raise awareness of this emotional issue and to highlight the exceptional work of our students”.
The first public premiere of the film was made Tuesday, April 21st during the afternoon celebration in Newark. In addition, the will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Thursday, April 23rd.
Elected and school officials shared their pride about the students’ accomplishment:
“I want to thank our students for their courage and their hard work,” Essex County Vocational Technical School Board President Father Edwin Leahy said. “Every time you speak the truth, you don’t get a crowd like this. You have to continue to do what is right even if you don’t have a lot of support”.
“Today is an amazing celebration of education,” said Bloomfield Tech Social Studies Teacher Jennifer DaSilva, who gave the students’ the assignment. “Both students have flourished in our Diaspora class. Their film is extraordinary and helps raise awareness about the tragedies taking place in the world today”.
Also sharing words of encouragement were Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, Freeholder Patricia Sebold, Sheriff Armando Fontoura and Chief of Staff Phil Alagia.
This is already episode 69,published on 17 April 2015. This one focuses on Indonesia.
The programme begins with the latest in the decade-long fight for justice for slain human rights defender Munir Said Thalib: the naming of a street in The Hague in honour of Munir. This week, Munir’s wife travelled to The Netherlands to unveil Munir Street. AHRC TV caught up with Suciwati and learned about a recent Petition signed by Right Livelihood Award Laureates from across the world calling on Indonesian President Joko Widodo to resolve Munir’s case and prosecute those responsible for his assassination.
Next, there is a long section on the Filipino migrant worker Mary Jane Veloso who faces the firing squad in Indonesia for drug trafficking. Global campaigns are underway to stop the execution, as Veloso appears to have been duped into carrying a suitcase containing drugs into Indonesia. AHRC TV speaks with Eni Lestari of Asian Migrants Coordinating Body and Dolores Balladares of United Filipinos, who are lobbying hard to save Veloso’s life.
Finally, AHRC TV tunes in to human rights defender Chris Biantoro, who speaks about the increase in incidents of torture in Indonesia and other fatal flaws that characterise Indonesia’s criminal justice institutions.
I do no longer refer to all episodes in this remarkably long running experiment in using images as anyone can subscribe to the You Tube channel.
published on 21 April “KUMULIKA – THE AFRICAN COMMISSION MONITOR” which describes the NGO Forum that was held from 17-19 April prior to the 56th ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). It involved close to 200 civil society participants from the continent. As usual. the NGO Forum followed the practice of holding a series of panel discussions combined with smaller special interest discussion groups, over the course of which recommendations and resolutions were developed to put to the Commission at the upcoming session. You can find more detail in that Newsletter but some key elements are:
The Hollywood Reporter (THR) of 20 April 2015 contains an interesting and detailed piece by Paul Bond who went with the Human Rights Foundation on a trip to South Korea, to see how defector send films, television shows, books, and offline versions of Wikipedia into North Korea. The experience inspired nine articles, all of them published on THR’s website, but the centerpiece is this one: ‘The Interview’ Sequel: Inside the Frightening Battle Raging on the North Korean Border’. The articles all together give an interesting picture of the powerful role that film can play in the case of closed societies where there is hardly any internet (here North Korean), but also how the South Korean authorities out of fear for retaliation limit the human rights defenders’ actions.
Left: U.S. resident Thor Halvorssen filled bags with The Interview,leaflets and American music to be ballooned into North Korea but was stopped April 9 by South Korean police. Right: Lee Min Bok prepared a balloon with Interview,Zero Dark Thirtyand U.S. dollars but was prevented from launching it by two guards.
To trick North Korean authorities, Interview begins with state propaganda clips before switching abruptly to a 12-minute subtitled edit of Interview — a bit from the beginning, middle and end, with the more vulgar parts removed.
Lewis Hamilton has just won the Bahrain Grand Prix [which was canceled in 2011 amid violent clashes after an uprising demanding political reforms]. It was the occasion for F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone to says that the Azerbaijan “Baku European Grand Prix” will make its début in 2016, despite concerns over the country’s human rights record. Earlier this week, the sport’s official website carried a notice stating that “The Formula One Group is committed to respecting internationally recognized human rights in its operations globally.” Asked if the human rights situation in Azerbaijan had been checked out with a view to hosting next year’s race, Ecclestone said “We have” before adding “I think everybody seems to be happy. There doesn’t seem to be any big problem there.”
One wonders where he got this idea as the Human Rights Watch report (and that of other NGOs, such as FIDH/OMCT, see link below) on Azerbaijan for 2015 was damning:
I tend not to refer to all cases of human rights defenders detained or sentenced. Sadly there are too many, but also they are often covered by many human rights NGOs and other media. I make an exception for two recent cases which were done by serial offenders China and Azerbaijan:
– A Chinese court sentenced 71-year old journalist, Gao Yu, to 7 years in jail, accusing her of ‘leaking’ an inner Communist Get together document to an overseas site. Many NGOs, human rights defenders and media outlets have condemned the harsh sentence, as well as several States and the EU.
reports that on 12 April 2015, human rights defender Sandra Kodouda was forcibly taken from her car by a group of unidentified men in Omdurman, Sudan.
She was speaking to a friend on the phone and the kidnappers were overheard on the telephone line as they refused to show their identification when Sandra Kodouda requested it, and instructed her to switch off her phone. Shortly after, family members found her abandoned car with the keys still in the ignition. When filing a criminal case at the Omdurman Central Police Station alleging the kidnapping of Sandra Kodouda, her family members were informed by the authorities that there was no record of her detention at that time.
[Sandra Kodouda has campaigned on social issues throughout the country. She is a member of the Youth Committee against the Building of Dal and Kajabar Dams, and peacefully partook in country-wide anti-austerity demonstrations in September and October 2013. Sandra Kodouda has previously been targeted as a result of her human rights work. She was detained by the NISS in August 2014 on account of her participation in the No to Women’s Oppression collective, an initiative which has worked to raise awareness of oppression against women and to promote and protect women’s rights through peaceful protest and reporting. She was also detained by the NISS in July 2012 after mobilising support for the release of youth activist Mr Rudwan Daoud, who himself had been detained by the NISS in the same month on the basis of participating in peaceful political protests.]
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 