For those who did not go to the OMCT website, here is today’s portrait in the series of 10: Pierre-Claver Akolly Amégnikpo DEKPOH, from Lomé in Togo. He has been engaged in the fight for human dignity and social peace and against injustice since 1990; and has been a member of ACAT-Togo since March 1999. He states that his commitment to the fight against torture and ill-treatment is in keeping with his Christian faith.
Posts Tagged ‘impunity’
10 Portraits of Human Rights Defenders in the next 10 Days at OMCT
December 1, 2012As Human Rights Defenders are the voice of those who are deprived of it because they are victims of torture, ill-treatment or summary execution, OMCT (one of the 10 NGOs on the Jury of the MEA) has started a series of portraits of those who excel in the fight against torture and impunity. From 1 to the 10 of December, the organisation will every day put a different HRD in the limelight. They tell about the challenges and the obstacles they face and the hopes and disappointments they encounter in their everyday life. It s`tarts today with Edeliza Hernandez from the Philippines:
- Edeliza P. Hernandez / The Philippines
Executive Director, Medical Action Group
I may not refer to each case in this blog but invite you to visit the OMCT website: http://www.omct.org/human-rights-defenders/events/2012/11/d22051/
Environmental HRDs in the Philippines pay heavy price for their activism
November 16, 2012An excellent post in Davao Today by MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN highlights the life-threatening dangers to those who oppose land grabbing or destruction of the environment as well as the quasi-total impunity for the perpetrators.
She relates how Stella Matutina, a nun leading Mindanao’s environmentalists, demonstrates that trying to stop giant mining firms has become deadlier. Speaking during a public hearing initiated by Philippine legislators last week, Matutina rattled off glaring statistics to present what she termed as “the most salient and gravest trends” in human rights abuses under the Aquino government.
The numbers of slain victims were punishing: 32 leaders killed in two years, 24 of them indigenous peoples who opposed land grabbing in their ancestral domains. The numbers of victims sued by courts were deplorable: 159 individuals who face pending warrants of arrests, subpoenas, and other forms of “legal harassment and intimidation.” The numbers of displaced residents were glaring: about 1,017 families with 5,275 individuals, particularly in the regions of Caraga, Northern and Southern Mindanao, dislocated due to military encampments and operations. In all these, Matuina, convenor of the coalition, Panalipdan (English translation: Defend) Mindanao, lamented that “the state of impunity continues to this day.”
The “state of impunity” was coined by rights activists following the carnage notoriously known as Ampatuan massacre involving the murder of 58 individuals, 34 of them media practitioners in Maguindanao province three years ago. Impunity, the activists say, because perpetrators remain scot-free, if not, unpunished. Matutina added that extrajudicial killings, particularly of indigenous leaders and environment advocates in Mindanao, escalated “at a faster pace, compared to the same period under (former President Gloria) Arroyo.” A human rights victim herself, Matutina said her experience from the hands of the military was “of no consequence compared to the fate that befell other victims of human rights violations across Mindanao.” Three years ago, Matutina, dead-tired from a day of environment seminar with residents, was rudely woken from sleep and detained for several hours by soldiers belonging to the Philippine Army’s 67th Infantry Battalion in a far-flung village in Cateel town, Davao Oriental. Soldiers tagged her as a New People’s Army rebel, an accusation which Matutina brushed off as part of her “determined advocacy” in protecting communities and the environment.
for the full story see: http://davaotoday.com/main/2012/11/16/for-love-of-environment-advocates-pay-dearly/
Related articles
“Carrying the Ideal” film on women HRDs in Nepal
November 8, 2012Women human rights defenders in Dhanusha, a district in Nepal’s southern Terai region, are often subjected to threats and attacks due to their work. In the summer of 2010, Peace Brigades International, a non-governental organization working for the protection of Nepalese human rights defenders since 2006, visited Dhanusha to profile their struggles, as well as to bring to light the special needs of women human rights defenders across Nepal.
“Carrying the Ideal: Women Human Rights Defenders” documents the courageous and often dangerous work of women defenders carried out in a climate of impunity and injustice and in a social strata supportive of caste and gender discrimination.
“Only washed wounds will heal”: HRDs from 39 countries discuss Transitional Justice in Latin America
October 24, 2012Event at the Resistance Memorial, the site where political prisoners were held and tortured during the dictatorship. It was the stage of a debate attended by almost 100 activists and academics from around the world on October 18, 2012
More than 60 human rights defenders from 39 countries gathered at the Resistance Memorial, in São Paulo, to discuss issues related to “Transitional Justice” – in reference to the processes of transition from dictatorship to democracy. The debate was part of the 12th International Human Rights Colloquium, organized by Conectas and being held in São Paulo since Monday.
Two specialists on the subject – Paulo Vanucchi, former Brazilian Human Rights Minister under the Lula da Silva administration, and Gáston Chillier, of the Argentine organization CELS (Center for Legal and Social Studies), presented an overview of how Argentina and Brazil reached the stage of Transitional Justice.
…….Vanucchi defended punishing the military, while pointing out that punishment does not necessarily mean a prison sentence. Vannuchi ended with an expression borrowed from the Chilean President Michelle Bachelet: “Only washed wounds will heal”.
Human Rights Groups Welcome Spanish Court’s Decision to Acquit Judge Baltasar Garzón
February 28, 2012On 27 February 2012 an impressive array of international NGOs welcomed the decision by the Criminal Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court to acquit the judge and human rights defender Baltasar Garzón. The organizations include: the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), Lawyers Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Asociación pro Derechos Humanos de España (APDHE), Asociación Española para el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos (AEDIDH), the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) and Rights International Spain (RIS). The stated: “… We have previously issued a statement https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByBM8_x9YdxiOTllZTE4YzYtNGQ1Mi00NGQ1LWJlNTgtMDhjNDliMDE4MzYx/edit?pli=1 warning the international community and Spanish society of the danger that the process posed to both judicial independence and access to justice for victims of crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to finally acquit Judge Baltasar Garzón of the malfeasance charges against him. However, at the same time, we strongly reaffirm that grave damage has been done to both Judge Garzón and judicial independence more broadly. Judge Garzón should never have been prosecuted for complying with the clear obligation under international law to investigate grave violations of human rights.”
The organizations added that the critical question that motivated the prosecution of Judge Garzón has not been adequately answered: “Who has the legal authority to investigate crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime?” “We remind the Supreme Court of its obligation to rule on this issue of legal authority or competency raised before it. Determination of this pressing issue was inexplicably subordinated to the malfeasance prosecution against Judge Garzón and as a result has unjustifiably remained pending for over two years. Our organizations call on the Supreme Court to consider and determine, in accordance with its constitutional mandate and principles of international law, what courts have the authority to investigate and provide effective remedy for the 114,266 enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings committed during the Civil War and Franco regime that followed. We also call on the Court to confirm the applicability of national and international law to the investigation and redress of these and other serious crimes against international law.”
Along with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee, the NGOs call on Spain to repeal its 1977 Amnesty Law as it violates the international law obligations Spain has assumed since that year and the Spanish Constitution itself (articles 1.1, 9, 10.2, 95 and 96).
Indonesia and HRDs: some progress but still problems concludes Human Rights First
December 6, 2011Human Rights First recently returned from an assessment trip to Jakarta where they met with activists to learn from them whether the Indonesian government has prioritized human rights through its treatment of human rights defenders. They had the following to say, which will be included in an alternative report to the Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia slated for next summer before the UN Human Rights Council:
- Impunity for past human rights abusers, particularly those involved at the highest levels in the 2004 assassination of leading human rights defender Munir, continues to be a central concern for human rights defenders and adds to an environment where defenders feel unprotected in their work.
- Human rights defenders acknowledge that outright violence against them has declined in recent years, but attacks and other forms of intimidation and harassment continue especially in conflict areas such as Papua and West Papua. Tactics used include surveillance and threats of violence and arrest that increase around the release of reports, trainings and before and after visits by international human rights groups.
- Human rights defenders in conflict areas are also subject to excessive use of force by police when exercising their freedoms of assembly and expression. Most recently, in October 2011 police, backed by a military detachment, fired assault rifles over a demonstration in Jayapura, Papua, killing at least three. Over 300 protesters were arrested and witnesses report the use of torture.
- The work of human rights defenders, particularly those working on exposing corruption and past human rights abuses, has been impeded by criminal and civil defamation cases brought against them.
President Yudhoyono should make clear that past and future attacks against human rights defenders will not go unpunished and publicly support a renewed independent investigation into Munir’s death that would lead to recommendations for prosecution and a case review of past criminal proceedings. The Government should repeal or amend legislation that criminalizes the work of human rights defenders, including journalists.
for more info see: Indonesia on the Right Path, But Still Has a Long Way To Go | Human Rights First.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 