Interfax-Ukraine reports today that the Ukrainian Security Service has lifted an entry ban it had earlier imposed on a number of foreign activists and human rights defenders, including journalist Yury Barabash and human rights defender Andrei Yurov, both Russian citizens. As I reported earlier Yurov, a member of the Russian presidential Human Rights Council and a Moscow Helsinki Group expert, had been barred from entering Ukraine to take part in an international conference in Kiev (Kyiv): https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/andrei-yurov/ [The head of the Human Rights Council, Mikhail Fedotov, had called on the new Ukrainian authorities on Sunday to lift the entry ban.]
On 25 February 2014 the International Middle East Media Centre [IMEMC] carries a report from the Palestinian Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR) that Israeli soldiers kidnapped on Tuesday its lawyer and its researcher, after the army violently invaded their homes in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
The lawyer is Fares Riyad Abu al-Hasan and the researcher Ahmad Hamed al-Beetawy. The NGO said dozens of soldiers invaded the home of Abu al-Hasan, in the Rojeeb Housing Projects area, east of Nablus, and kidnapped him after violently searching his home causing property damage. The soldiers detonated the door of Abu al-Hasan’s home, invading the place and terrifying the family. They also interrogated Abu al-Hasan’s father for more than an hour, and confiscated documents and files. Abu al-Hasan was moved to the Petah Tikva interrogation facility. The soldiers also detonated the front door of the home of Ahmad al-Beetawy, and invaded the property in the Dahia area, south of Nablus, searched it for more than an hour and kidnapped him.
The foundation said that the soldiers also invaded its office in al-Isra’ building, in the center of Nablus city, and confiscated computers and files after violently searching the property.
(A woman protesting against violence (c) Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)
An excellent piece in the Guardian of 25 February by Jo Tuckman describes the impact of the Mesoamerican Human Rights Defenders’ Initiative [IM-Defensoras] which through solidarity tries to protect woman human rights defenders. The Honduran Berta Cáceres – who has been under threat for years because of her campaign against extractive industries – says that without solidarity from her peers, it could all be over. “The solidarity is why I am alive and why I am here,” she told a recent meeting of the IM-Defensoras in the Mexican capital. “And, of course, we are committed to continue.” (https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/berta-caceres/)
IM-Defensoras is a three-year-old effort to provide women rights defenders in the Central American region with protection mechanisms that are gender-sensitive and adapted to different contexts, and that go beyond traditional options. The organisers of IM-Defensoras say activists in Central America are increasingly being targeted and governmental protection is rarely effective and difficult to trust. The initiative documented 414 attacks on women activists between 2010 and 2012, a period in which it says 38 women were killed, with the vast majority of their deaths blamed on the state.
The initiative is built around the creation of national networks of activists. So far, these have been set up in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, with about 360 members. The plan is to expand these networks and set up new ones in Costa Rica and Panama. The importance of the networks stems partly from the recognition that women activists are usually less able to rely on family and organisational support than men. For example, a female leader in danger is much likelier to face pressure from her family, or even from male colleagues, to withdraw from activism. “The gender perspective means recognising that women defenders have already broken the rules“.
The networks are the basis of most of the work of IM-Defensoras. In times of emergency, the networks may draw attention to a credible death threat or organise temporary exile, for example. They devise strategies that take into account complications such as whether an activist also has children.
The Guardian article also draws attention to an often overlooked aspect of support networks: fighting stress. The initiative also encourages activists to pay attention to the stress they accumulate from sustained threats, attacks, sexual harassment and smear campaigns. The risk of burnout is increased further by the fact that most women activists receive no salary and so also undertake paid work, at the same time as spending several hours a day on domestic chores. After getting supportive messages, Lolita Chávez, a Guatemalan K´iche’ (Mayan language) human rights defender is quoted as saying: “I said to myself: ‘Maybe others think I am a terrorist but there are sisters telling me I am a defender of human rights’,”… “It was a counterbalance.” Chávez also spent three weeks in Mexico at a workshop to help her look after her own mental and physical health, which, like most women activists, she had neglected for years. “The initiative has filled me with life, but there are many sisters out there who are still waiting for this kind of support,” Chávez told the Mexico City meeting. “It is possible to do what we do and not be a martyr.” (see also: http://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/lolita-chavez-about-land-and-life-in-peril-in-guatemala/)
(human rights defenders in the photo were not allowed to see Cao – Sound of Hope)
Critically ill human rights defender Cao Shunli, who was prevented from attending a United Nations human rights review of China last fall, was taken to intensive care on 16 February 2014 after being denied medical treatment for months while in detention. “Cao Shunli is unconscious and on a ventilator,” her lawyer Wang Yu explained to Radio Free Asia. “She can’t talk and her condition is extremely serious… We think her life is in danger, but the hospital won’t give us any details; they just mumble something when we ask them,” he continued. A nurse blocked the entrance to the intensive care unit and told rights defender Wang Ling that Cao was “deeply unconscious” and would not recognize him, according to Human Rights in China (HRIC). Though Cao was initially taken to Beijing’s Qinghe Emergency Center, she was then transferred to an Army hospital, though her family requested that she be taken to an acute care hospital. Police at the hospital prevented activists from entering the hospital, and about 20 of them were taken to police substations for questioning, Wang Ling told HRIC.
[Cao and fellow rights defender Chen Jianfang were detained on 13 September, 2013 at Beijing’s International airport as they were leaving to fly to Geneva to take part in activities associated with the United Nations Human Rights Council UPR review of China’s human rights record. On the eve of the review, 21 October, she was formally arrested and charged with “creating a disturbance,” and has been detained since then. See earlier posts:
Twenty trainers from among Azerbaijani lawyers and human rights defenders have been trained to apply the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Revised European Social Charter (RESC), with a particular focus on anti-discrimination standards, AzerTag state news agency reported. The last of three four-day training sessions for Trainers took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, on 20-23 February.
Twenty lawyers and human rights defenders were selected for training via competition to share their experiences with colleagues through a series of cascade trainings, which will start in March 2014 and continue even after the joint project of the Council of Europe and European Unionis completed. The Justice Academy of the Republic of Azerbaijan is the key local partner in this project.
“This activity is one of the most important activities within the capacity building project for lawyers and human rights defenders, and I believe that the advocates and human rights defenders attending this programme have obtained essential benefit from the shared knowledge and they will put this knowledge and information into practice …” said Teymur Malik-Aslanov of the Council of Europe Office in Azerbaijan.
[This activity is a regional project implemented in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.]
In ForceChange Avram Reisman posts an appeal to be signed asking President Putin of Russia to investigate attacks against human rights defenders. The background is that in early February 2014, human rights defender Igor Sazhin’s apartment was attacked by an unknown assailant. Video from Sazhin’s apartment building shows that the man set the rug outside his family’s apartment ablaze after dousing it with fuel. Despite Sizhan filing a complaint with the police immediately afterward, the police claim the attempted arson was not a crime and refuse to investigate. Sazhin is a founding member of the Komi Human Rights Commission, which has been consistently targeted by the ultra-nationalist group Northern Frontier. In May 2013, Northern Frontier attacked a meeting of the Human Rights Commission. In addition, they have posted the names and addresses of many local human rights defenders, including Sazhin.
The open letter asks President Putin to denounce any violent political actions as deplorable; without this official response, human rights defenders across Russia will be in implicitly acceptable targets for ultra-nationalists.
Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, a participant in the Protective Fellowship Scheme for Human Rights Defenders At Risk at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at York University, was jailed in his native Somalia in 2013 after he interviewed a woman who claimed she was raped by government security forces. On 21 February 2014 he was honored as the recipient of the Oxfam Novib/PEN Award For Freedom Of Expression which recognises writers who have been persecuted for their work and continue to write
This video with testimony by Yolanda Oquelí, human rights defender from Guatemala, was posted last year by AI Canada and recently re-issued in French by AI France.
Since March 2013, activists and members of the local community have held an ongoing protest against the mine development by Radius Gold, a company based in Vancouver, Canada, and its wholly owned Guatemalan subsidiary, Exploración Mineras de Guatemala (EXMIGUA). Some community members claim that they were not consulted about the opening of the mine and fear it will pollute their water supply and damage land in San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc municipalities. On the evening of 13 June events took a sinister turn. Outspoken anti-mining activist Yolanda Oquelí was driving home from taking part in this ongoing protest when two gunmen on a motorbike cut across in front of her car and fired four shots. Yolanda was hit and a bullet lodged close to her liver. She recovered, continues to be subject to threats.
In February 2011, protesters in north-western Guatemala’s San Marcos region were attacked after speaking out against the local Marlin Mine, owned by Canadian company Goldcorp Inc. Community activist Aniceto López, was taken to the local mayor’s office, where officials allegedly beat him and threatened to kill him if he failed to stop speaking out against the mine.
[In July 2010, another grassroots activist in San Marcos, Deodora Hernández, was shot at close range in her own home by two unknown men. She had spoken out to defend her community’s right to water amidst fears that mining had polluted the local water supply]
When James Anaya, the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples visited Guatemala in June 2010, he received allegations that the Guatemalan government had repeatedly granted licences for the exploration of natural resources in indigenous territories without consulting with local indigenous peoples – or receiving their free, prior and informed consent.
An interesting illustration of what kind of issues human rights defenders could get involved in can be found in the Times of India of 23 February 2014: The local NGO “Human Rights Defenders ” accuses the authorities of turning a blind eye on Russians who are operating several illegal travel agencies and wedding companies in Goa. Despite numerous complaints, government authorities are not taking any action thereby causing loss of revenue to the state and affecting the livelihoods of locals. In a recent complaint to the tourism director, the Human Rights Defenders cited the names of several travel agencies allegedly run by Russians without registering with the tourism department and without complying with the laws. Briefing journalists, John Mascarenhas, President of the Human Rights Defenders South Goa district, accused tourism minister Dilip Parulekar of failing to keep his promise to stop all illegalities.
As I had only just started my blog “Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders” in 2010, I must have missed a number of interesting things, such as this video uploaded to You Tube by the UN on 1 December 2010. Against the background music of Stand Up for Your Rights by Bob Marley, this video give the floor to some ‘ordinary human rights defenders’ from various parts of the world. Human Rights Day of 10 December 2010 was dedicated to human rights defenders who battle against discrimination. For the record.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 