Posts Tagged ‘judicial harassment’
September 26, 2013
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, whose founder and director are both jailed, wins Norway’s Rafto Prize for rights defenders. The award hopes to “turn the spotlight on systematic violations of human rights in a region where abuse is too often met with silence from Western governments,” the Rafto Foundation said in a statement on 26 September. The founder of the centre, Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, is serving a life sentence in jail after he and several other leading opposition figures were convicted of plotting to overthrow the monarchy. They were arrested in April 2011, in the wake of the Sunni-monarchy’s crackdown on a month of Shiite-led protests that demanded political reforms. Meanwhile the centre’s director, Nabeel Rajab, has been in jail for more than 14 months, serving a three-year jail term for taking part in unauthorised protests. The prize jury commended the rights group for its non-violent protests and documentation of human rights violations, despite government attempts to shut it down. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights was, inter alia, also one the Final Nominees for the MEA of 2012 and received the Baldwin Medal
The annual Rafto award was founded in 1986 in memory of Norwegian economic history professor Thorolf Rafto, a longtime human rights activist. The 15,000 Euro prize will be presented on November 3 in Bergen.
via Bahrain rights group wins Norwegian award | GlobalPost.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, Bahrain, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, GlobalPost, human rights activist, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, judicial harassment, MEA, Middle East, Nabeel Rajab, Rafto award, Roger Baldwin Medal, Thorolf Rafto
September 12, 2013
As concerns grow in Southeast Asia over the use of national security, anti-terrorist and defamation laws to limit freedom of expression on the Internet, a coalition of international and local NGOs and activists from Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia urged governments to stop using vague legislation based on ill-defined concepts such as “national security”, “sovereignty” or “lèse-majesté” to intimidate, harass and imprison independent voices. Speaking at an event in Geneva, which coincides with the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council, FIDH, IFEX, Article 19 and PEN International united to call for the urgent revision of these laws to bring them into line with international human rights standards. Independent and dissenting voices, including bloggers and netizens, journalists, activists and human rights defenders, have increasingly been subjected to repression in Southeast Asia.
A lot more detail in Human Rights Council : Stifled Southeast Asian Voices: NGOs Unite … – FIDH.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: anti-terrorist laws, Article 19, asian voices, Cambodia, censorship, civil society organizations, criminal defamation laws, defamation laws, dissenting voices, FIDH, freedom of expression, Geneva, Human Rights Defenders, IFEX, internet, intimidation, judicial harassment, National security, NGOs, Non-governmental organization, PEN, side event, Thailand, United Nations Human Rights Council, Viet Nam
September 6, 2013
In a piece in the Huffington Post of 9 September Frank Jannuzi, dep director of Amnesty International USA gives a good overview of the the 6 most damaging laws passed in Russia since President Putin was inaugurated last year, effectively criminalizing criticism: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights | Leave a Comment »
Tags: AI, Amnesty international USA, foreign funding, Frank Jannuzi, Huffington Post, illegal detention, judicial harassment, LGBT rights, NGOs, President, President of Russia, restrictive laws, Russia, Vladimir Putin
September 5, 2013
On 29 August 2013, human rights defender Ms Naw Ohn Hla was found guilty of disturbing public tranquillity under Section 505(b) of the Burmese Penal Code and sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour. She had been arrested on 13 August 2013 during a peaceful protest. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: aung san suu, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma, copper mine, environmental issues, Front Line (NGO), hard labour, Human right, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, judicial harassment, Letpadaung copper mine, Myanmar, Naw Ohn Hla, Nonviolent resistance, peaceful efforts, woman human rights defender
August 20, 2013
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), draw attention to the following situation in Malaysia.
According to the information received, on 7 August 2013, at 3.00pm, Cynthia Gabriel, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Aliran, anti corruption, Companies Commission Malaysia, Cynthia Gabriel, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, International Federation for Human Rights, judicial harassment, Malaysia, Observatory for the Protection of HRDs, Petaling Jaya, Scorpène-class submarine, Scorpene, Suaram, threats, woman human rights defender, World Organisation Against Torture
August 5, 2013
Since 13 July 2013, five ethnic Azerbaijani human rights defenders detained in Tabriz prison have taken part in an ongoing hunger strike in protest at their conviction following an unfair trial. Mahmud Fezli, Latif Haseni, Ayat Mehrali Baglou, Behboud Gholizadeh and Shahram Radmehr are members of the organisation Yeni Gamoh, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Azerbaijani, Azerbaijani language, Front Line (NGO), human rights, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, Iran, judicial harassment, minority rights, right to education, Tabriz, Tehran, Unesco
August 1, 2013
Yesterday I had a post “Philippines Chief Human Rights Defender, Rosales, asked to resign for ‘incompetence’”. In reaction I received from Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L) an update on the continued pressure on ‘opposition lawyers’ who are labeled as “enemies of the state”. 
The Dutch foundation Lawyers for Lawyers warns in an open letter to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, L4L | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Benigno Aquino III, Edre Olalia, enemies of the state, Extrajudicial killing, extrajudicial killings, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyer, impunity, Independence of Lawyers, judicial harassment, L4L, lawyer, Lawyers for Lawyers, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, NUPL, Philippines
June 17, 2013
On 17 June, 2013 the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders [joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture and the International Federation for Human Rights] issued a statement on the fate of 13 women human rights defenders in India.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in FIDH, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OMCT | Leave a Comment »
Tags: arbitrary arrest, freedom of demonstration, gang rapes, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, India, International Federation for Human Rights, intimidation, judicial harassment, Kalighat, Kolkata, Maitree, Observatory, rape, West Bengal, Women Human Rights, women human rights defenders, World Organisation Against Torture
June 13, 2013
Antoine Madelin of the International Federation for Human Rights (OSCE/Shiv Sharma)
A new project to promote the effective protection of human rights defenders through the development of recommendations for governments was launched by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at a two-day expert meeting in Warsaw on 10 and 11 June 2013. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in FIDH, human rights | 1 Comment »
Tags: Advocacy Organizations, Europe, harassment, human rights, Human Rights and Liberties, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, judicial harassment, June 2013, Non-governmental organization, ODIHR, promotion, protection, regional organisation, Warsaw
May 4, 2013
Mona Seif – on of the 2013 MEA nominees – calls on people to campaign for the liberation of Hassan Mustafa, a leading human rights defender in Alexandria, Egypt, who was sentenced 2 years in prison.
Hassan was arrested on 21 January 2013 as he was filing a complaint inside Mansheyya Courts Complex, at the prosecutor general’s office, against the random detention of protesters & children from a protest outside the same Court on the previous day. The protest was taking place during the trial of police officers accused of killing protesters in the 25 January Revolution. He was then falsely accused of attacking a prosecutor causing prosecutors cheeks to turn red (“the prosecutor actually supplied a medical report claiming so !”). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Alexandria, Arab spring, Egypt, Front to Defend Egypt Protesters, Hassan Mustafa, human rights, illegal detention, judicial harassment, Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, MEA nominees 2013, Mohamed Morsi, Mona Seif, MonaSeif
