In the NHRF Annual Report for 2023, you will find comprehensive information on the NHRF’s activities and the remarkable work carried out by its grantee partners throughout the year.
In 2023, NHRF supported 153 projects and 131 grantee partners in 7 priority countries. Through these projects, 16,072 human rights defenders were supported, of which at least 56% were women human rights defenders.
Scroll down this page to read the full annual report or open it here. You will find annual reports from previous years at the end of this page.
While China is systematically erasing the memory of the brutal repression of student protests on 4 June 1989, 14 prominent participants of that movement are still behind bars, rearrested for their struggle for democracy. Chinese Human Rights Defenders issued an appeal for their release.
“For 35 years, all top Chinese leaders, from Li Peng to Xi Jinping, have been fixated on erasing memories of June 4 by persecuting those who peacefully seek accountability,” reads the CHRD statement. “Everyone who cares about justice should call on Beijing to immediately and unconditionally release these and all other prisoners of conscience in China.”
The appeal includes a list of 27 people who, for various reasons, are still in prison in relation to the Tiananmen Square movement. “[F]ar from being complete, [. . .] it is a window to the severity, scale, and persistence of reprisals by the Chinese government over the past 35 years,” the statement reads. In particular, 14 names belong to people who participated directly in the events of 35 years ago and are currently in prison after they were rearrested for promoting democracy in China.
Zhou Guoqiang (周国强) was imprisoned for organising a strike in support of student protests in Beijing in 1989, and served four years in a re-education camp. He was arrested again for online comments in October 2023. His current whereabouts and charges remain unknown.
Guangdong activist Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), who took part in the 1989 movement as a student in Shanghai, has been serving a six-year sentence since 2015 for his human rights activism.
Another university student from that time, Chen Shuqing (陈树庆) from Hangzhou, has been serving a 10-and-a-half-year sentence since 2016 for pro-democracy activism.
Lü Gengsong (吕耿松), a teacher fired in 1993 for supporting the pro-democracy movement, has been serving an 11-year sentence since 2016 for his pro-democracy work.
Beijing-based lawyer Xia Lin (夏霖) has been serving an 11-year sentence since 2016 for his professional work as a lawyer; he participated in the 1989 movement as a student at the Southwest Institute of Political Science and Law in Chongqing.
Xinjiang activist Zhao Haitong (赵海通) has been serving a 14-year sentence since 2014 for his activities as a human rights defender. He, too, had been imprisoned in the aftermath of the 1989 massacre.
Xu Na (许那), artist, poet, and a Falun Gong follower, took part in the hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. She was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to eight years in prison for “using an evil cult to disrupt law enforcement.”
Sichuan activist Chen Yunfei (陈云飞) served a four-year sentence from 2015 to 2019, in part for organising a commemoration for the victims of 4 June. He had participated in the 1989 movement as a student at the China Agricultural University in Beijing.
Another member of the student movements at the time, Xu Guang (徐光), was arrested in 2022 and is serving a four-year sentence on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.
Huang Xiaomin (黄晓敏), who was arrested in Sichuan province in 2021, suffered th same fate, and was sentenced to four years, while CaoPeizhi (曹培植) was arrested in 2022 and sentenced to 2.2 years in Henan province.
Zhang Zhongshun (张忠顺), another student who participated in the 1989 protests, was reported to police in 2007 for talking to his students about the events of 4 June. He was jailed for three years and is now in jail for continuing to support activism and faces charges of subversion in Shandong province.
Wang Yifei (王一飞) disappeared into police custody after he was detained in 2021. Before his arrest in 2018, he had been demanding justice for the victims of 1989 for several years.
Shi Tingfu (史庭福), already convicted of organiing a public vigil in Nanjing in 2017 and giving a speech in memory of the victims of Tiananmen, was rearrested in January 2024 and is awaiting trial on several charges, including “spreading false information, and inciting terrorism and extremism in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.”
The other 13 names belong to people who were not directly involved in the events of 1989 in Beijing, but fought in mainland China and Hong Kong to keep alive the memory of what happened.
This second list includes Tong Hao (仝浩), a young doctor born in 1987, who was jailed for 1.5 years for publishing a post on 4 June 2020. He was arrested in August 2023 and has been in police custody in Jiangsu province ever since.
Some of the jailed are dissidents in Hong Kong, like Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho, and Chow Hang-tung; the latter, a lawyer, was recently issued a new arrest warrant in prison together with seven other people (including her mother) for commemorating the Tainanmen massacre online.
As Chinese Human Rights Defenders note, three witnesses to events in Tianamen Square have died in prison in the past 35 years. The most prominent is Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), who died in July 2017 from liver cancer in police custody while serving an 11-year sentence since 2009 for his role as a leader in the Charter 08 campaign. A university lecturer in 1989, he was jailed for 18 months for taking part in the 1989 movement.
Jiangsu writer Yang Tongyan (杨同彦) died a few months after Liu, in November 2017, from a brain tumor. He was serving a 12-year sentence imposed in 2006 for his political activism. He had already spent 10 years in prison for taking part in the 1989 movement.
Last but not least, we must remember labour activist LiWangyang (李旺阳), who died under suspicious circumstances on 6 June 2012 while in a hospital guarded by police in Shaoyang, Hunan province. Li, leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, was sentenced to a total of 23 years in prison. Chinese authorities claimed he committed suicide by hanging himself in his hospital room, a claim his family has disputed since Li was blind and deaf from torture and would not have been physically able to hang himself. Against the wishes of Li’s family, Hunan authorities conducted their own autopsy and then cremated the body.
In 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the launch of the Marianne Initiative for human rights defenders, aimed at better supporting them in their fight, both abroad and in France. The Marianne Association for Human Rights Defenders was created to federate the actors involved in our country (State, organisations and associations for the promotion of human rights and reception, local authorities, qualified personalities, etc.) and to carry the initiative’s support pillar in France, for the benefit of about fifteen laureates per year (reception, personalised support, networking, etc.).
After receiving the first all-female class in 2022 and a mixed class in 2023, the third class was officially launched now.
Some fifteen men and women from every continent have been welcomed to France for six months as part of the Initiative. The winners benefit from a training program designed to strengthen their skills and commitment in their home country or in France, whether in favour of civil and political rights, women’s rights, minority rights or environmental rights.
Recipients complete a comprehensive program consisting of:
Training in negotiation, leadership, advocacy, physical and digital security, project management, etc. ;
Courses from the School of International Affairs of Sciences Po Paris and French language;
Contact with French or international personalities involved in human rights and development issues;
Meetings with inspiring personalities and potential partner organizations (NGOs, foundations, institutions, etc.);
Conferences and cultural activities ;
Individual interviews to support the activist project;
Visits to international institutions and organizations;
Exchanges with members of the program’s alumni network.
The hosting programme in France provides for accommodation near Paris, the payment of a monthly grant to cover daily needs, a training programme, support, and networking with Human Rights Defenders for a period of 6 months. After the 6 months, participants no longer benefit from the grant, the accommodation and the support provided in the programme. Participation is individual and does not provide for the laureate to be accompanied by their family.
Class of 2025 runs from January-July 2025. The Application Deadline: 17th June 2024
Nina Alizadeh Marandi of HRW on 28 May 2024 said that German environmental activists are facing increasingly harsh rhetoric and legal action from authorities as they mobilize to confront the climate crisis.
Last week, on 21 May, Germany’s efforts to curb environmental activism took a disturbing turn when authorities used an offence typically reserved for prosecutorial pursuit of serious organized crime to indict Letzte Generation (Last Generation), a climate activist group known for disruptive protests such as roadblocks and other acts of civil disobedience, as a criminal organization. A conviction under federal law would pave the way for prosecuting anyone who participates in or supports Letzte Generation, including administratively or financially.
The investigation into Letzte Generation as a criminal organization has involved armed police conducting predawn raids, storming private apartments while the activists were still asleep, and granting warrants for police to surveil the group’s communications, including calls made with media.
Last year the group’s website was temporarily seized during a fundraising campaign, with a notice from the police falsely labeling Letzte Generation a criminal organization and stating any donation constitutes illegal support for crime. This move by the police, despite no judicial assessment of the charges having taken place, exposes a deeply worrying bias against the group and raises questions about whether authorities are respecting due process.
International law protects the right to public participation in environmental matters and recognizes peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience as a legitimate form of assembly. Disruptions like traffic blockades, while inconvenient, generally do not constitute violence under international standards, although damage to or destruction of private or public property may.
While civil disobedience often involves breaking national laws, authorities are required to respond proportionately, giving due weight to the right to protest and the importance to the public interest of the issues at stake.
The government’s extreme response to Letzte Generation’s activism appears disproportionate, threatens the very right to protest, and smears climate activists when their cause has never been more urgent. Instead of intimidating environmental defenders, Germany should live up to its commitment to ambitious climate action and investigate the concerns that groups like Letzte Generation raise.
On 28 May 2024 ACCESS NOW published its overview of grants in 2023: Through our Access Now Grantsprogram — now in its ninth year — we provide flexible, grantee-driven financial support to the grassroots and frontline organizations confronting these threats. We do this because we believe the people most directly impacted by attacks on human rights — from Palestine to Myanmar to Ukraine and beyond — are best placed to define solutions and implement them. Below is an overview of our grant-making in 2023, including a deep dive into the humanitarian response to the Gaza crisis, which was sparked that year.
AN OVERVIEW
In 2023, Access Now Grants awarded a total of just under $1.7 million USD, fortifying our collective efforts to defend and extend digital rights. We provided 66 grants to 63 organizations and individuals leading digital rights efforts in about 30 countries. [for details, see: https://www.accessnow.org/digital-rights-grants/]
We strive to support those who need it most. Currently, Access Now Grants reserves nearly all of our funding for people and organizations in Global Majority countries. In 2023, we awarded the highest number of grants (20) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, followed by Asia Pacific (15), Africa (13), the Middle East and North Africa (10), Latin America and the Caribbean (7), and one grantee that works on the global level but supports journalists and human rights organizations operating in countries experiencing armed conflict and crisis.
Notably, 71% of our 2023 grants supported efforts in countries that Freedom House has classified as “not free” in its Freedom in the World reporting. We also extended funding to organizations and communities we had not previously supported, including in Libya, Iraq, Palestine, Thailand, and Senegal. In addition, 25% of our grants focused on defending gender and sexuality rights and supported people who identify as women, non-binary, or LGBTQ+.
In addition to ensuring we reach people with the funding they need, we work to provide the kind of longer-term support that can help organizations build momentum. In 2023, 60% of the grantees that received core, project, and discretionary grants were receiving their third or more year of consecutive funding.
SPOTLIGHT ON GAZA : It is impossible to remark on any human rights efforts in 2023 without acknowledging the genocide now unfolding in Palestine. After the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, we have seen digital threats play a devastating role in deepening the crisis in Gaza: from the Israeli military’s reported use of AI technology to bomb and kill Palestinians, often with their family; to internet shutdowns that restrict Gazans’ access to life-saving information and ability to communicate; to communication platforms’ censorship of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices; to the documented increase in hate speech and incitement to violence against Palestinians online….
As we continue our grant-making in the year ahead, in Palestine and around the world, we remain committed to human rights organizations and activists who are fighting for justice, security, and dignity for their communities and for all of us. Their collective work is more necessary and urgent than ever.
ACCESS NOW gives a list of the grants awarded in 2023. Some grants are not included for security reasons. Others must be listed anonymously.
Sara Nabil is a human rights defender and artist from Afghanistan, forced into exile. She spoke to ISHR about her dream of one day seeing a ‘free democratic Afghanistan, where each human being [regardless of which] gender they are, man or woman, neutral or other genders, [would be] treated equally.’
‘Since the Taliban came to power, Afghanistan [has become] the only country where we see that women don’t have any kind of rights.’
Iranian hip-hop artist Toomaj Salehi, Uyghur poet and activist Tahir Hamut Izgil, and Venezuelan pianist and recording artist Gabriela Montero.
On 22 May 2024) The Human Rights Foundation announced the recipients of the 2024 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent: Iranian hip-hop artist Toomaj Salehi, Uyghur poet and activist Tahir Hamut Izgil, and Venezuelan pianist and recording artist Gabriela Montero.
“Their work stands as a testament to extraordinary bravery and ingenuity,” HRF Founder Thor Halvorssen said. This year’s laureates will be recognized during a ceremony on Tuesday, June 4, at the 2024 Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) in Oslo, Norway. Montero will be performing the European and Scandinavian premiere of “Canaima: A Quintet for Piano and Strings” at the Oslo Konserthus. The Havel Prize ceremony will also be broadcast live at oslofreedomforum.com.
Toomaj Salehi is an Iranian hip-hop artist known for lyrics protesting the Iranian regime and calling for human rights. In September 2022, at the height of the nationwide “Women, Life, Freedom” protests, Salehi released several songs supporting women’s rights. One song, “Divination,” with the lyrics, “Someone’s crime was that her hair was flowing in the wind. Someone’s crime is that he or she was brave and…outspoken,” grew in popularity and was sung throughout the protests. Salehi was first arrested in October 2022 and was released on bail in November 2023 after the Iranian Supreme Court overturned his charges of “corruption on Earth,” “propaganda against the system,” “collaboration with a hostile government,” “inciting people to murder and riot,” and “insulting the leadership.” On November 27, 2023, he posted a YouTube video describing the torture and forced confession he experienced during his detention. Three days later, armed plain-clothes agents abducted Salehi. He was subsequently charged in two trials. On April 24, the Isfahan Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death.
Tahir Hamut Izgil is a prominent Uyghur poet, filmmaker, and activist. He is known for his avant-garde poetry, written in Uyghur and influenced by Uyghur life. Originally from Kashgar, Izgil led the 1989 student movement at the Central Nationalities Institute in Beijing. In the late 1990s, he was arrested on charges related to the possession of sensitive literature, leading to a three-year sentence in forced labor camps. He is among the few Uyghur intellectuals who successfully escaped the region in 2017.Izgil’s new memoir, “Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide,” documents his journey living in and escaping the Uyghur Region, sharing a rare testimony of the Uyghur genocide with the broader world. His book has been listed as one of the “50 notable works of nonfiction” by The Washington Post and as one of the “10 0 Must-Read Books of 2023” by Time Magazine
Gabriela Montero is a Grammy Award-winning Venezuelan pianist and recording artist. Celebrated for her exceptional musicality and ability to improvise, Montero has garnered critical acclaim and a devoted following on the world stage. Montero’s recent highlights include her first orchestral composition, “Ex Patria,” a tone poem that grew from the human rights struggle in Montero’s native Venezuela. The piece powerfully illustrates and protests Venezuela’s descent into lawlessness, corruption, and violence, winning her first Latin Grammy® for Best Classical Album.Montero is a committed human rights advocate, using her gifts of composition and improvisation as tools of creative dissent. In 2015, she was named an Honorary Consul by Amnesty International. Montero was awarded the 2012 Rockefeller Award for her contribution to the arts and was a featured performer at Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Inauguration. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/10/15/venezuelan-pianist-gabriela-montero-wins-the-2018-beethoven-prize/]
On 22 May 2024 Front Line Defenders launched its Global Analysis 2023/24 on the situation of human rights defenders (HRDs) at risk around the world, an in-depth annual publication detailing the variety of risks, threats and attacks faced by HRDs around the world.
The report also reveals statistics gathered and verified by the HRD Memorial initiative – which Front Line Defenders coordinates – documenting the killings of at least 300 HRDs in 28 countries in 2023. Almost a third of those killed (31%) were Indigenous people’s rights defenders. This brings the total documented killings of HRDs in the last decade to nearly 3,000.
“This appalling wave of attacks on human rights defenders is a direct result of an international human rights framework left in tatters and governments’ double standards when it comes to respecting human rights,” said Alan Glasgow, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders. “A quarter decade after the UN adopted a Declaration on human rights defenders, not enough progress has been made to ensure defenders are valued and protected. In this time, thousands of defenders have paid with their lives and many more face ongoing attacks and intimidation for their peaceful work. Urgent action is needed to change this.”
Wide-ranging risks to HRDs
Globally, the violation most commonly cited by HRDs was arbitrary arrest/detention (15%), followed by legal action (13%), continuing an ongoing trend of criminalisation as the most-reported risk. This was followed by death threats (10.2%), surveillance (9.8%) and physical attacks (8.5%). Trans and non gender-conforming HRDs reported slightly higher rates of physical attacks, and a much greater risk of smear campaigns. Globally, the five most targeted areas of human rights defence were: LGBTIQ+ rights (10.2%); Women’s rights (9.7%); Human rights movements (8.5%); Indigenous peoples’ rights (7.1%); and Human rights documentation (5.2%).
The statistics in the Global Analysis are derived from Front Line Defenders’ casework and approved grant applications between 1 January and 31 December 2023. The statistics are based on 1,538 reported violations in 105 countries. Front Line Defenders documents multiple violations per case or grant, as this is the reality of the situation for human rights defenders. For more details on how these and the HRD Memorial data are gathered, please refer to the Methodology section at the end of the report.
AI asked three older activists to reflect on their experiences, the changes they are campaigning for, and how being an older person gives them unique perspective and motivation.
Cecile de Ryckel, 78, Belgium
Cecile is a lifelong activist working on anti-racism and climate change.
Why did you become an activist?
After a homelessness crisis amongst migrants in Belgium in 2015, my husband and I hosted two people from Ethiopia who the authorities had left to sleep in a city park. They told us that in Ethiopia they were small-scale farmers and grew food for their families. However, it was raining less frequently, and growing food was becoming more difficult. That was when I realized that climate change was one of the most important issues in the world today, and that it would have far-reaching consequences. Soon after that I participated in a citizens assembly discussing how best to address climate change and reduce carbon emissions. We learned how to mobilize people and change behaviours. I joined an advocacy collective, Grandparents for the Climate, and started working actively on the issue.
We have a responsibility to future generations to address this challenge today. It already has wide-ranging impacts on people of all ages. I remember when I was a child that we would joke that an older person was someone who “wouldn’t make it through the winter”, but today due to rising temperatures we sadly have to ask whether some older people can “make it through the summer”.
I recently saw how a group of older women won a landmark court case that the Swiss government’s weak climate change policy had violated their rights. This will help advance the cause greatly, for people of all ages.
Amina Musa, 72, Nigeria
Amina is an activist on behalf of victims of the armed conflict in north-east Nigeria and their families, including those who have been unlawfully killed or detained.
Why did you become an activist?
I became an activist nine years ago when Boko Haram forced us to leave our homes, and we found ourselves living in camps controlled by the Nigerian government. The military made baseless accusations that our sons were associated with Boko Haram. Our sons were blindfolded and arrested and held in dehumanizing conditions. I had no choice but to start campaigning for their release. As mothers, we came together and started a movement to seek justice. We are demanding that all those detained unlawfully be released immediately and that the government investigate the gross violations we have experienced. Some of our sons have been in detention for more than 10 years. We have had enough, we want justice.
I tell other older people that they should continue with their activism and bear with the challenges, and that our activism can also inspire younger people. I know it is not easy, but these causes are important. Age should not and will not deter us from making our society free from injustice.
Juan Jacobo Hernández, 82, Mexico
Juan is an activist on social issues and LGBTQ+ liberation.
Why did you become an activist?
In the 1960s, I was part of Mexican student movements. Then Stonewall happened: I had a boyfriend at the time who lived in New York, and he told me that I had to come and see it for myself. I witnessed the first LGBTQ+ rebellion: the first time gay men, trans people, lesbians were standing up and confronting the police. Coming back to Mexico, we started the Frente de Liberación Homosexual (Gay Liberation Front). I had learned a lot about how to make protests visible and how to make our voices heard. Finally, there was a space where we could be active, where we could do something. When I started my activism, we didn’t use the term “human rights” – but that’s what it has always been about. We held large demonstrations against political repression, for the abolition of the death penalty, and to fight restrictions on social protest. Persecution by the government was very real and close to us at the time – gay men and trans women were persecuted, raided by the police, extorted and beaten up.
Whenever we were out in the street, we felt that something bad could happen. We were struggling for our lives, for our security, for our right to be in the street without being beaten up, robbed or killed.
My whole life, I have never stopped being an activist. The AIDS epidemic collapsed the first phase of gay liberation. So many activists died and [as I grew older], I recognised the need to transmit my experience, knowledge and values [to the younger generation]. Since 1981 I’ve been part of Collective Sol, where we work to build and strengthen the capacity of small, grassroots organizations that are working on the most pressing LGBTQ+ issues they see today.
My life as an activist means I can look back and say I have witnessed three great moments in LGBTQ+ liberation. The first was when we formed political organizations, coming out of the shadows and breaking the silence. The second was the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the way it created a connection between LGBTQ+ liberation and people living with HIV, irrespective of whether they were LGBTQ+. This connection was powerful and drove the movement forward.
Here Haris Azhar shares how and why he believes the law can be used as a powerful tool to deal with repression of democratic voices and their rights. Read more from our In My Own Words series here.
My name is Haris Azhar. I would say I’ve been working, in general terms, on human rights issues for the last 25 years. I work across the country in Indonesia on some human rights, issues or situations, and in some conflict areas such as in Papua.
I have been working for and dealing with some vulnerable groups such as labour groups, as well as the indigenous people and victims from the violence as well. These days I practise as a lawyer, I do pro bono and also professional for-profit work where I use the profits work to subsidise the pro bono and public interest legal work. I have also joined some organisations, and I was director for two human rights organisations. So that’s why I’ve been very human rights focused.
In early 2024 me and my friend Fatia were brought to court. We won, and we got a good decision from the court. But this is not the final one, because the attorney general has appealed to the Supreme Court. I think this whole process was meant to serve as an example.
The whole process, especially last year, was intended to be intimidation. The litigation or the pre-trial process was intended to intimidate me [and] not to not say more about the practice of business oligarchs in this country. But myself, lawyers, and groups here said, we would not say sorry. We would not stop speaking, and that those in power could continue their judicial harassment of us and that we would fight them.
And during the fight, a lot of things happened [such as] intimidations, negative accusations and campaigns. They accused us of hoax stories, but actually they did the hoax stories. They took over and intercepted my mobile phone as well. These are the lengths and practices of intimidation in place.
However, the process of the court for people like us, we pretty much don’t really care about the final decisions. We can see the shadow of the prisons, because what the government thinks is important for them is for us to not have democratic voices. There aremany cases by politicians and by business groups that aim to criminalise decent voices, and it has become a [common] practice. There are even consultants that can help you if you would like to know how to criminalise decent/democratic voices.
It’s become an industry against freedom of expression, to show that, “This is what happens if you are against us.” They wanted to show they could bring me to court so the warning was that anyone who becomes the client of Haris should be aware. It was symbolic, and that’s what I mean it is a message to intimidate and to intimidate vulnerable groups especially.
Widespread engagement on human rights, working through organisations, has developed not only my knowledge, my skill, but also my networks. This has also developed my interest in what some of the ways we (as a nation) would like to put on the table with regards to issues of human rights.
As a practising lawyer, we have always believed here that we can use the law [to achieve justice]. However the movement here is not like in South Africa, as an example, where at one point in South Africa there was no real equality. There was no legal institution that could be used to secure fairness. We don’t have that kind of situation here [in Indonesia], but we are still looking for the formalisation of equality and fairness.
We like to use the legal debate, space, and discourse as a way to combat evil, because the law provides the kind of tools or ammunition to attack evil. Those in power hide behind the law and therefore here in Indonesia, most of the battle and discourse always has an element of legality.
I believe that the law is one of the crucial things that need to be handled, in addition to other advocacy issues. Because we know that the law or legal mechanisms are [also] being used by the bad guys, by the oligarchs to justify and legalise their plans and to do their own business. Those in power always say that they have complied with the law, that they uphold the rule of law, but actually we know that the law they comply with is their own creation. It is their own definition. That’s why we [as legal practitioners] need to step in, even though it’s not the popular action to do so.
If those in, and adjacent to, power cannot be left to create what is good and not good within the framework of law. We need to bring in the voices from the ground. We need to bring the voices from the indigenous people. We need to bring the voices from the labour groups, from the students, from the women’s groups, and many other vulnerable groups who are connected to the issues.
This is instead of the politicians and the business groups alone making their own arguments and developing their own definitions. We cannot let them be, and let them take over in that kind of way. Rule of law and legislation, has to be accompanied and coloured by the vulnerable voices and interests. This is why we insist that a part of the campaign, part of the research, is that we take the legal action as well.
The gap between the haves and the political groups on the ground is huge. This has been happening year on year, and it is getting worse every year. The new regulations and legislations that we have here, which very much comply with the interests of the business groups which belong to some politicians, create more loose protection of rights of workers and women. For the youth and the students, they are getting fewer protections for their education and freedom.
There’s no freedom on campus for students anymore, [because of] intervention from the government and the police on campuses. It’s getting obvious these days. So I think we need at least two things. First, figuring out how to protect vulnerable groups, because why they were attacked or would be attacked is because they found irregularities, and problematic issues behind the policies of the government, or the law.
These issues have led to economic issues, social issues, business issues and so the vulnerable groups make a choice where they complain or protest, but they get attacked by police, government and intelligence. That is why we need more collaborations with vulnerable groups.
We also need more friends — lawyers, international advocates, researchers — coming down into the rural areas, and into the urban areas to capture what is happening and make a noise, to campaign. That’s why we need to have the first group that I mentioned before. We need not to deal with the substance of the problem, but with the second layer of the problem, [which is] the attacks of the participation, the effects to the participation. For this we need to have a lot of groups [working on] how to deal with this kind of shrinking space.
We just had the 2024 elections where we campaigned around the threat to our freedoms of speech and expression. Some of the candidates responded very well, but the one that was supported by the current regime didn’t have a strong resonance with what we are saying. In addition to the campaign, along with my criminalisation, myself, some friends and organisations submitted a complaint to the Constitutional Court.
Our complaint was regarding some legal articles which were being used against me and against some journalists. We won the case in the Constitutional Court earlier this year, and an article which had been used to criminalise a lot of people has now been dropped. But this win is very short [lived] because we have some articles within certain laws which allow the police to criminalise speech.
When I said we won, that’s regarding just one article in our criminal code. But in the next year and a half we will have a new criminal code implemented and new articles to criminalise speeches. We will need to challenge those articles in the next two years. It’s like Tom and Jerry, where we play hide and seek. It seems politicians and business need a shield to protect themselves from the public, hence these situations but we keep fighting them using the same law.
Legal institutions are not our institutions yet. They are still their institutions [meaning the powerful]. However to a certain degree, the legal space is an open stage for you to perform, to have a say. I think if we don’t fill the space, it will be filled by those who are not supportive of freedom of speech or freedom of expression.
These are the reasons why I think we have to join legal action. So as to not give space for evil to come in and occupy. Also, legal action is not the only type of work needed. It has to be one among others. For instance there is advocacy work too. But law cannot be neglected and that’s why this current situation (and the coming situations), require more than just focusing on the legal system. It has to be about a collaborative methodology and approach.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 