Posts Tagged ‘Human Rights Defenders’
January 15, 2015
On Wednesday 14 January, Front Line Defenders launched its 2015 Annual Report, “Human Rights Defenders, Lives in the Balance” which examines in detail the deteriorating situation for human rights defenders (HRDs) around the world in the period January – December 2014.
The report was launched at a press conference in Dublin with as keynote speaker Mary Akrami, Co-founder and Director of the Afghan Women Skills Development Centre which was the first safe house for women and children in Afghanistan.
Mary Akrami, Andrea Rocca, and Mary Lawlor from Front Line Defenders launch the report.
Over the last two years Front Line Defenders has documented a growing global backlash against human rights defenders (HRDs) which has now reached crisis point. Against this backdrop, international human rights institutions as well as governments traditionally supportive of human rights defenders appear to be incapable of forcefully and effectively opposing the shutting down of civil society space.
“This is a crucial political moment. If we are to challenge the systematic erosion of human rights standards there needs to be a more consistent and credible political response, which must give the same priority and resources to creating a safe space for HRDs as authoritarian governments give to closing it down” said Front Line Defenders Executive Director, Mary Lawlor. “There can be no human rights progress if those at the forefront of human rights work are not allowed to work”.
The report highlights:
• that over 130 HRDs were killed or died in detention in the first ten months of 2014 as reported to Front Line Defenders
• Colombia accounted for 46 of those 130 HRDs killed in 2014
• The Americas overall claimed 101 of the 130 HRDs killed in 2014
• Globally, deprivation of liberty and court proceedings were the most widely used strategies to silence and intimidate HRDs
• Repressive laws continued their viral spread across the world with the growth of cut and paste repression as governments replicate legislation
• HRDs are exposed to digital attacks.
For more see: http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/27916
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Afghanistan, Americas, Andrea Rocca, annual report, Colombia, death threats, digital security, Front Line Defenders, Human Rights Defenders, international protection, judicial harasment, killings, Mary Akrami, Mary Lawlor, NGO Front Line Defenders
January 13, 2015
Paul Mwilambwe, a major suspect in the
Congolese Chebeya-Bazana case was indicted by a Senegalese court and placed under judicial supervision in Dakar on 8 January 2015. This decision was taken following a criminal complaint based on universal jurisdiction filed on 2 June 2014 by lawyers of the
FIDH Litigation Action Group (LAG) and the families of
Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana, the two Congolese human rights defenders who were assassinated in June 2010. FIDH hopes that these efforts of the
Senegalese judicial authorities contribute to identifying the persons responsible for these assassinations and the disappearance of these two human rights defenders.
“That Paul Mwilanbwe has been indicted and heard by an independent investigative judge is a fundamental step on the road to truth and, we hope, to the justice which has not been available to the victims’ families in DRC” , said Patrick Baudouin, FIDH Honorary President. “This is the first time since the Hissène Habré case that a case based on extra-territorial jurisdiction is being tried in Senegal, a step which sends a strong, positive signal showing that the Senegalese judiciary intends to play an active role in the fight against impunity for the most serious crimes committed in Africa”.
“Since the Democratic Republic of Congo did not provide for equitable judicial proceedings, we initiated the proceedings in Senegal to ensure that an impartial and independent investigation would be carried out and that full information would be obtained on the murder and the enforced disappearance of the victims, Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana. We wanted an independent judge to hear Paul Mwilambe, an actor in this tragedy, and this has happened today,” said Assane Dioma Ndiaye, a lawyer for the FIDH LAG and for the Chebeya and Bazana families.
Paul Mwilambwe, a major in the Congolese National Police force (PNC), was in charge of security for the office of General John Numbi, Head of the PNC at the time of the events, in the premises where Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana were killed. Shortly after these killings, Paul Mwilambwe fled to a country somewhere in Africa before going to Senegal. In a filmed interview with France 24 (in French), whilst still on the run, Mwilambwe testified and denounced his own participation and the role and involvement of senior members of the Congolese police, including General John Numbi in the enforced disappearance and murder of the two human rights defenders.
“For us, this indictment gives us great hope to obtain the truth and justice that was refused to us in Congo where the justice system is bogged down. I want to know where my husband was buried. I want someone to tell me where he is. And I want to be able to bury him with dignity” , said Marie-José Bazana, the wife of Fidèle Bazana whose body has still not been found.
https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/death-of-floribert-chebeya-and-fidele-bazana-in-drc-still-unresolved-after-3-years/
[Background: On 2 June 2010, Floribert Chebeya, Executive Director of the NGO Voix des sans Voix (Voice of the Voiceless – VSV), was found dead in his car in a suburb of Kinshasa. His close associate Fidele Bazana was reported missing. The day before, the two human rights defenders had shown up at PNC headquarters to meet with its Director, the Inspector-General, and General John Numbi. They did not emerge from this meeting alive. Faced with the public outcry triggered by the murder of Mr. Chebeya and disappearance of Mr. Bazana, the Congolese authorities were obliged to open an investigation. This investigation culminated in the precautionary suspension of General John Numbi and the imposition of murder indictments for eight police officers, including Paul Mwilambwe, who fled.
On 23 June 2011, following a trial marked by numerous incidents the military court on 23 June 2011 in Kinshasa acknowledged the civil responsibility of the Congolese state for the murder of Mr. Chebeya, as well as in the abduction and illegal detention of Mr. Bazana by several of its officers. The court convicted five of the eight police officers accused. Four were sentenced to death and one to life imprisonment. Three of those condemned to death are still on the run, and three of the police officers found to have played a role in the disappearance of Mr. Bazana, have since been acquitted. On 7 May 2013, the Military High Court, sitting as a court of appeal, declared itself incompetent to investigate the procedural issues in the case and decided to turn the proceedings over to the Supreme Court, operating as a constitutional court. In practice, this decision suspended the appeal proceedings, which remain deadlocked in DRC to date. In addition, Congolese authorities have never instituted proceedings to investigate the role played by General John Numbi, who has since been replaced as Head of the PNC, despite evidence and the complaints filed by the families of the two human rights defenders.]
The Chebeya-Bazana case: indictment of Paul Mwilambwe in (…).
Posted in FIDH, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: abduction, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Fidèle Bazana, FIDH, Floribert Chebeya, Human Rights Defenders, international jurisdiction, John Numbi, killing, Paul Mwilambwe, security forces, Senegal, Voix des sans Voix
January 13, 2015
On 13 January Asia-plus reported that a court in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, sentenced Sukhrat Kudratov to nine years in a penal colony for bribery and fraud. Kudratov’s real crime, it appears, was defending opposition activist Zaid Saidov in 2013. Last year, another one of Saidov’s lawyers, Fakhriddin Zokirov, was arrested on forgery charges. He was released after eight months on the promise he would no longer defend Saidov. Steve Swerdlow of Human Rights Watch called Kudratov’s jailing “a serious setback for the freedom of expression and the independent legal profession in Tajikistan.”
At the time of the arrest, Frontline Defenders called him “one of few lawyers in Tajikistan who defends opposition activists, victims of police torture, and those accused of ‘religious extremism“. Dushanbe-based Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law named Kudratov their human rights defender of the year in 2011.
Tajikistan Jails Prominent Human Rights Lawyer | EurasiaNet.org.
Posted in Front Line, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Asia-plus, detention, Eurasia.net, Fakhriddin Zokirov, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyers, judicial harassment, prison sentence, Sukhrat Kudratov, Tajikistan, Zaid Saidov
January 12, 2015
On 26 December 2014, the Geneva-based International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) reported that the following posts were the most visited on its website in 2014:
Top 5 human rights posts for 2014 | ISHR.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, ISHR, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: 2014, African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Human Rights Defenders, International Service for Human Rights, ISHR, LGBTI, reprisals, UN, UN Human Rights Council, UN Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, webiste
December 30, 2014
At the end of this year I want to wish my readers a very Happy New Year and to share – in the good tradition of transparency – the main statistics of my blog on human rights defenders in 2014. It clearly is a ‘niche blog’ and that is what it will remain. I am quite happy with the relatively large number of archives visitors, i.e. some 40 persons per day find something worthwhile in my older posts. Also the geographical spread is pleasing. Of course, a larger number of visitors would be even better and I would be grateful for any promotion you could undertake. All the best Hans
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: 2014, blog, Hans Thoolen, Human Rights Defenders, overview, WordPress
December 22, 2014
As a relative specialist on human rights awards [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/my-post-number-1000-human-rights-awards-finally-made-accessible-for-and-by-true-heroes/], I would be amiss not to relate the following ‘problem’ with a human rights award in Zimbabwe. The local NGO ZimRights gave a number of human rights awards and ended up having to defend the People’s Choice Award, which had been attributed to a ZANU-PF MP Joseph Chinotimba. A number of human rights defenders activists protested as they said it as was wrong to honour a war veteran who is known to have led violent farm invasions which claimed lives and displaced thousands of people.
Buhera-South MP Joseph Chinotimba
ZimRights has responded by saying that the People’s Choice Award is not [really] a Human Rights Defender Award but is an award “linked to the raising of pertinent developmental issues in the nation using platforms that one has access to”. It also explained that the nominees were selected by the people in all ZimRights’ eleven provinces and when votes were tallied Hon Chinotimba emerged as the winner. ZimRights said they take this result as a challenge and lesson on future education and human rights voting. The 3rd Edition of the Community Human Rights Defenders Award was held in Bulawayo last week on Thursday and the controversy may have obscured that the Overall Human Rights Defender of the Year was awarded to Rebecca Chisamba, a television talk show host. The New Zimbabwe report on 21 December added that “It is not clear what has endeared Chinotimba to the people but a few months ago the comical legislator arrived in Victoria Falls where he bought 200 cases of beer for the revellers at a local beer garden. Chinos, as the Buhera South MP is affectionately known, also pledged to pay school fees for over 20 school children at Chinotimba School which he claims is named after his ancestor.”
ZimRights defends Chinotimba’s award.
Another paper, Newsday, on 22 December, reported that the MP in question, perhaps in response to the criticism, “stunned the more than 200 invited guests that included donor agencies, MPs, civil society leaders, community human rights defenders and commissioners of a variety commissions when he turned down the holiday offer and requested that the money be channelled towards improving infrastructure in his constituency” [The prize was a paid holiday at Victoria Falls with his wife.]
[Chinotimba came into the political limelight in 2000 when he together with the late war veterans’ leader Chenjerai Hunzvi led violent farm invasions and later stormed then High Court judge Justice James Devitte’s chambers in protest against his court rulings on land issues. Since his election into Parliament last year, Chinotimba has generated a lot of controversy through his fearless debates.]
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2014/12/22/will-spend-prize-poor-not-holiday-chinotimba/
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: award, Buhera-South, Chinos, human rights award, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, Joseph Chinotimba, New Zimbabwe, Newsday, Rebecca Chisamba, violence, woman human rights defender, ZANU PF, Zimbabwe, ZimRights
December 19, 2014
Not a shocking story but an excellent illustration of how to motivate students through meeting Human Rights Defenders in person:
Thirty three staff and students of the Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT), Tipperary were in Strasbourg last November as guests of the European Parliament’s Human Rights committee. The group spent three days in the French city. They were given a seminar on the European Parliament. However the main purpose of the visit was to attend a workshop with Human Rights Defenders from across the world. They met students involved in the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine and a young woman pleading for the lives of her imprisoned parents in Azerbaijan.
However the most heart wrenching and inspiring words came from Dr Denis Mukwege, a doctor from the Congo who has dedicated his life to treating women who are victims of the brutal conflict in the east of his country. Dr Mukwege was in Strasbourg to receive the Sakharov Prize for freedom of speech and the Tipperary students were part of a delegation of young people invited to meet with him and other nominees. [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/congolese-gynecologist-wins-europes-sakharov-prize-in-2014/]
He told the group that it was the womens’ courage and stories of recovery that kept him motivated. All present felt honoured to be invited to such a prestigious event and urged everybody to remember those struggling against injustice. For more information on the groups visit: Social Community Studies facebook page at LIT
News – LIT-Tipperary-Students-Meet-Human-Rights-Defenders.
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Azerbaijan, Democratic Republic Congo, Denis Mukwege, EP, Human Rights committee of the European Parliament, Human Rights Defenders, human rights education, Ireland, Limerick Institute of Technology, Sakharov Prize, Strasbourg, students, Ukraine
December 19, 2014
On 19 December 2014, Naomi Sharang wrote a long piece in the Nigerian Observer (News agency of Nigeria – NAN). After a short general introduction, the author zooms in on the Nigerian situation and the role of human rights defenders, interviewing a NGO representative as well as someone from the Nigerian Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Here follow the main excerpts: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: access to justice, Advocacy, Aver Gavar, compensation, Emmanuel Onwubiko, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), internally displaced, Naomi Sharang, National Human Rights Commission, News agency of Nigeria, Nigeria, rape, rights of women, terrorism
December 18, 2014
Discerning readers may have noticed in my latest post – on the change in Cuba policy in the USA – that the name of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights was different. Not an error on my part. The organisation has just changed its name to Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and also adopted a new logo:
The change simplifies the older title to focus on the organization’s core mission of partnering with human rights defenders in the field, educate students in the classroom, and engage the business community about issues of sustainability. The rebranding also extends across the Atlantic Ocean: Robert F. Kennedy Center Europe will now be known as Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Europe.
Posted in Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: human rights, Human Rights Defenders, logo, name change, NGO, Robert F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, USA
December 18, 2014
President Obama’s announcement to normalize relations with Cuba has led to a range of reactions. Most of the world (the UN General Assembly has called for an end to the US embargo for years – in October 2014, 188 of the 192 member countries voted for a resolution condemning the policy) and certainly most of the human rights movement, including in the US itself, has welcomed the long-overdue move:
E.g. Human Rights Watch and RFK Human Rights have come with positive comments:
“It’s been clear for years that US efforts to promote change in Cuba through bans on trade and travel have been a costly and misguided failure. Rather than isolating Cuba, the embargo has isolated the United States, alienating governments that might otherwise speak out about the human rights situation on the island.” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of HRW on 18 December. [the statement of HRW added: Nevertheless, the Cuban government continues to repress individuals and groups who criticize the government or call for basic human rights. Arbitrary arrests and short-term detention have increased dramatically in recent years and routinely prevent human rights defenders, independent journalists, and others from gathering or moving about freely. Detention is often used pre-emptively to prevent people from participating in peaceful marches or meetings to discuss politics. Detainees are often beaten, threatened, and held incommunicado for hours or days.] “The embargo has imposed indiscriminate hardship on Cubans, but done nothing to end abuses,” Vivanco said. “The Obama administration should make human rights a focus of its Cuba policy but look for more effective ways – including working with other democracies in the region – to press the Cuban government to respect fundamental rights.”
On 17 December, Kerry Kennedy and Santiago A. Canton, on behalf of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, welcomed the announcement saying that the change in policy will lead to an opening of dialogue at all levels between the United States and Cuba, including on the issue of protecting and advancing human rights.
Still, some chose to disagree:
The Washington Times reports that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was one of many Republicans to criticize President Obama’s move on Wednesday to open up diplomatic relations with Cuba, saying the move undermines the “quest for a free and democratic Cuba“…..Mr. Bush, who announced Tuesday he was actively exploring a bid for the presidency in 2016, said he’s “delighted” that American Alan Gross was freed after five years in prison, but said it was “unfortunate” that the United States chose to released three convicted spies as part of the deal. …Earlier this month, Mr. Bush said the U.S. should consider strengthening its embargo against Cuba at the annual luncheon of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC as he pledged support for the group, a strong defender of the policy.
In the Hudson Reporter (Hudson County is home to thousands of Cuban emigrants and refugees) Congressman Albio Sires stated: “What should be a joyous moment to celebrate the overdue homecoming of Alan Gross today has been marred by the actions undertaken by the administration to secure his release”.. “The president’s announcement today detailing plans for a loosening of sanctions and initiating discussions to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba is naïve and disrespectful to the millions of Cubans that have lived under the Castros’ repressive regime; and the thousands of human rights defenders that have fought tirelessly and at times with their lives to bring about democratic change to Cuba. Moreover, “while I may welcome the release of over 50 political prisoners, little has been said for the countless others that remain inside a Cuban prison or the fact that the same 50 plus prisoners freed today could very well be imprisoned again tomorrow for exercising the same human rights of free speech that unjustly placed them inside prison the first time.”
US/Cuba: Obama’s New Approach to Cuba | Human Rights Watch.
http://rfkcenter.org/robert-f-kennedy-human-rights-welcomes-president-obamas-announcement-of-a-change-in-united-states-policy-towards-cuba
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/17/jeb-bush-obamas-cuba-move-latest-foreign-policy-mi/
http://www.hudsonreporter.com/view/full_story/26253357/article-Mixed-reactions-to-news-of-Pres–Obama-s-change-of-policy-on-Cuba?instance=top_story
Posted in HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Cuba, diplomacy, embargo, HRW, Hudson Reporter, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights Watch, Jef Bush, José Miguel Vivanco, Kerry Kennedy, President Obama, RFK, Robert Kennedy Human Rights, Santiago A. Canton, USA, Washington Times
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 