On 28 March 2014, human rights defender Mr Musa Usman Ndamba, a defender of the rights of the Mbororo community in Cameroon, appeared before the Bamenda Court of First Instance, and the trial was once again adjourned to the 23rd of May 2014. The trial of 28 March 2014 was the eighth such hearing in an ongoing trial against Musa Usman Ndamba led by a local wealthy landowner, Baba Ahmadou Danpullo, who has never attended any of the hearings. Meanwhile, two other defenders of the rights of the Mbororo, Messrs Abdulkarim Shehu and Mallam Yunusa are in detention whilst an arrest warrant has been issued for human rights defender Mr Fon Christopher Achobang. Musa Usman Ndamba is the Vice-President of Mbororo Social and Cultural Development Association (MBOSCUDA). Abdulkarim Shehu is a male nurse and social development worker, as well as founder and co-ordinator of the Angel of Hope Foundation, a health centre that caters for people with disabilities. Mallam Yunusa is an organiser of the Mbororo community of Banjah. Fon Christopher Achobang is a land rights campaigner and journalist sympathetic to the plight of the Mbororo.
Members of the community and their defenders have long been facing severe judicial and other harassment owing to disputes over their land. ……On 19 March 2014, authorities of the Catholic Church, led by a representative of the Archbishop of the Bamenda Archdiocese, directed a group of hired militias with a bulldozer to demolish the homes of the Mbororo in the Ndzah village. The community mobilised and stopped the demolition from taking place. However, during the stand-off both the representative of the Archbishop and Fon Christopher Achobang were injured. After the incident, at which he was not present, Abdulkarim Shehu reportedly took members of the police to the site to show them what had happened. Fon Christopher Achobang was forced to go into hiding after threats on his life following the incident. According to lawyers for the Mbororo Banjah community, the invasion took place in spite of a court case pending in the Bamenda Administrative Court with a Stay of Execution of the Order on the now disputed land, as a contested eviction notice had been issued the week before. Additionally, despite having been alerted to the impending invasion, government officials did nothing to stop it from going ahead, in complete violation of the law and the legal rights of the Mbororo community.
reports that on 22 March 2014, human rights defender and director of Radio Free Iraq, Mr Mohammed Bedaiwi, was shot dead, allegedly by an officer of the Presidential Regiment, in Baghdad. Mohamed Bedaiwi was a professor at the University and, for the past two years, the director of the Baghdad office of Radio Free Iraq. The station broadcasts from Prague. Mohammed Bedaiwi was stopped at a checkpoint on his way to work. An argument began between an officer and the human rights defender, and other officers reportedly began to beat Mohammed Bedaiwi. The incident culminated in the killing of the human rights defender. Reports indicate that the officer has been arrested but his identity has not been disclosed, leading to fears that the case may end in impunity. Mohammed Bedaiwi was very well-known and local sources consider it unlikely that the officers did not recognise him. On 23 March 2014 over 40 media institutions, including newspapers, radio stations and satellite TV channels, refrained from publishing or broadcasting in protest at the killing of Mohammed Bedaiwi. There have also been vigils and marches around the Iraqi capital in honour of the human rights defender. The press syndicate has expressed its concern about the killing of a journalist by an armed officer of the Presidential Guard.
[Since 2003 approximately 274 media professionals have been killed in Iraq; in the last four months alone, 11 journalists have been killed]
Swaziland should immediately release Mr. Thulani Maseko and Mr. Bheki Makhubu, the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network said today. The human rights defenders (the first a lawyer and the second a journalist) were arrested on Monday 17 March 2014, reportedly in response to articles published in a national magazine. Maseko is a prominent human rights lawyer working at the national and regional levels, a senior member of Lawyers for Human Rights Swaziland and the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network, which is part of the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network. Makhubu is the Editor-in-Chief of the Nation. The two men were arrested under the same warrant, issued by Chief Justice Ramodibedi, on charges of “scandalizing the judiciary” and contempt of court. Their lawyer was not permitted to represent the pair when they were jointly charged on 18 March 2014. They have been remanded pending a bail hearing on 24 March 2014. The charges are apparently in relation to articles published in the Nation Magazine questioning the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Chief Government Vehicle Inspector, Bhantshana Gwebu. Mr. Gwebu had been arrested and charged with contempt of court after he arrested the driver of a High Court judge. As an absolute monarchy, the King of Swaziland has the discretionary power to suspend constitutional rights such as freedom of expression and in practice these rights are frequently curtailed. Mr. Maseko has previously been charged with sedition for public statements made.“Human rights defenders must be able to speak out on issues of public interest,” said Hassan Shire, Chairperson of the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network. “We call on the Swaziland authorities to drop the charges against Mr Maseko and Mr Makhubu and allow them to continue with their important work.”
The FIDH, on 6 March 2014, issued a statement on the lack of access to medical care for human rights defenders in Iran, resulting in further deterioration of their health FIDH fears this may amount to a systematic practice aiming at further intimidating civil society voices critical of the regime.
On March 2, 2014, several prisoners of conscience detained in Evin prison, Tehran, wrote their second Read the rest of this entry »
In a post earlier in the day I mentioned that I would restrict myself to announcing Side Events to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that are specially focused on Human Rights Defenders, but that seems not be much of a restriction with two more interesting events scheduled for next week:
1. “Human Rights Defenders and the Shrinking Space for Civil Society” on Monday 10 March 2014 from 14 to 15h00 in Room XX Palais des Nations. Speakers:
Navi Pillay UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Halah Eldoseri – Saudi Arabia [researcher on women’s health services; blogs (Saudi women’s rights) to educate women about the country’s international obligations towards women; writes and organises lectures and workshops in Saudi Arabia for activists and the public]
Maksym Butkevych – Ukraine [radio and TV journalist working with “Hromadske Radio” (“Public Radio”) in Kiev; Co-Founder of “No Borders” project of the NGO “Social Action Centre”, which works on anti-discrimination issues; organised an independent radio station to directly cover the events in Ukraine; Co-Ordinator of the Independent Civic human rights violations Investigation Commission]
Mary Lawlor Director of Front Line Defenders [Chair]
Co sponsors: Troicare, International Commission of Jurists, Permanent Mission of Ireland.
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2. “Global Trends for Human Rights Defenders” on Wednesday 12 March from 09h30 -12h00 in the office of International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), Rue de Varembé 1. This Roundtable brings together human rights defenders, practitioners, academic scholars, intergovernmental officials, government representatives, and donors to discuss innovation and the way forward to improve understanding and protection of HRDs, specially to foster an enabling environments for human rights defenders. This discussion will draw upon:
Recommendations made in the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders to the Human Rights Council on 10 March 2014,
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.]
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
Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega is serving an 18-year prison sentence for “terrorism”. He was charged in 2011 after giving speeches and writing articles criticizing the government and supporting free speech. He is a Amnesty prisoner of conscience. Eskinder has long been a thorn in the side of the Ethiopian authorities. He has previously been harassed, arrested and prosecuted a number of times for his writing. Between 2006 and 2007, Eskinder and his wife Serkalem Fasil were detained and tried on treason and other charges along with 129 other journalists, opposition politicians and activists. Serkalem gave birth to their son Nafkot while in prison. In May 2013, Eskinder wrote from prison: “I will live to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It may or may not be a long wait. Whichever way events may go, I shall persevere!”
The misuse of of human rights awards is also noteworthy as seen in the post by Miriam Berger of Buzzfeed who reports on 26 November that Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president has been awarded a “Friend of Journalists” prize by local media. President Ilham Aliyev received the award — his second — in an elaborate ceremony on November 24. The survey was conducted by the Azerbaijani [!] Committee for Protection of Journalists, as well as other media representatives. He won 89% of the votes. At the acceptance ceremony, Aliyev spoke of his democratic reforms in the country. “Azerbaijan has a free media,” he said. …That few inside Azerbaijan objected may be linked to the fact that many journalists and human rights defenders are in detention or harassed into silence. Read the rest of this entry »
reported that on 22 October 2013, unidentified gunmen shot Mohamed Mohamud Tima’adde six times on his way to work. Three people were subsequently arrested trying to access the Medina hospital ward where Mohamed Mohamud was being treated. Initially it was reported that he was responding well, but on 27 October AP reports that according to the Somali journalist Ahmed Nor Mohamed his colleague has died of his wounds on Saturday night.
On 28 March 2014, human rights defender Mr Musa Usman Ndamba, a defender of the rights of the Mbororo community in Cameroon, appeared before the Bamenda Court of First Instance, and the trial was once again adjourned to the 23rd of May 2014. The trial of 28 March 2014 was the eighth such hearing in an ongoing trial against Musa Usman Ndamba led by a local wealthy landowner, Baba Ahmadou Danpullo, who has never attended any of the hearings. Meanwhile, two other defenders of the rights of the Mbororo, Messrs Abdulkarim Shehu and Mallam Yunusa are in detention whilst an arrest warrant has been issued for human rights defender Mr Fon Christopher Achobang. Musa Usman Ndamba is the Vice-President of Mbororo Social and Cultural Development Association (MBOSCUDA). Abdulkarim Shehu is a male nurse and social development worker, as well as founder and co-ordinator of the Angel of Hope Foundation, a health centre that caters for people with disabilities. Mallam Yunusa is an organiser of the Mbororo community of Banjah. Fon Christopher Achobang is a land rights campaigner and journalist sympathetic to the plight of the Mbororo.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 