The urgent human rights issues in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region are hugely varied and demand creative campaigns that are well-researched, well-planned and well-managed despite the time pressures that surround them.
JOB PURPOSE: To lead the identification, development, implementation and evaluation of Amnesty International’s campaigning and advocacy strategies on human rights violations in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, to deliver impact in relation to agreed priorities, utilizing political judgment and analytical, communication and representational skills.
ABOUT YOU
Lead the development and implementation of campaign strategies, ensuring campaigns result in measurable change.
Advise on, coordinate and review the contribution to relevant campaigns by regional colleagues and other programmes.
Coordinate action planning and ensure consistency with campaigning standards and optimal use of resources.
Assess opportunities for action, identifying creative and effective campaigning tactics.
Provide advice to sections and structures and external partners on the development and implementation of campaign strategies.
Responsible for ensuring there is effective communication between relevant IS teams, sections and structures and partners about projects.
Draft, review and advise on campaign materials for internal and external use, ensuring products are coherent within the campaign strategy.
Communicate AI’s concerns, positions and messages to external and internal audiences.
Contribute to planning, execution and evaluation stages of campaign projects; develop and share campaigning best practice.
SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
The ability to adapt to fast-changing political situations in, and related to, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Experience of leading and implementing campaigns at the national & international level and the ability to lead innovation and creative approaches to campaigning.
Knowledge of working on, and in, the region and a specialist knowledge in relation to specific countries or other geographical areas in the region.
Digitally competent, with experience of digital campaigning and keeping up to date with digital trends and campaigning methodologies.
Experience of working with colleagues and partners based around the world.
Excellent communications skills in English and Russian in a fluent, clear and concise way. Knowledge of another regional language desirable
Experience of leading project teams and the ability to engage and inspire team members.
Experience of managing conflicting demands, meeting deadlines and adjusting priorities
Ability to undertake research to gather information relevant to the development of campaign strategies.
Ability to evaluate campaigns and projects and to report progress against stated objectives; experience of managing budgets and reporting against expenditure.
Amnesty International is committed to creating and sustaining a working environment in which everyone has an equal opportunity to fulfill their potential and we welcome applications from suitably qualified people from all sections of the community. For further information on our benefits, please visit https://www.amnesty.org/en/careers/benefits/
Media (here the dailysabah of 13 July 2019) have referred to a Global Conference for Media Freedom, co-organized by the British and Canadian foreign ministries. The two-day conference, held at the Printworks event center in London, was joined by over a thousand guests from 100 countries, including journalists, academics, politicians and diplomats. The conference was held to trigger a global initiative to safeguard journalists and fortify global media freedom. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered last October and Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a bomb attack in 2017, were widely mentioned and marked by the panelists and participants.
One of the panel discussions placed a lot of importance on efforts to bring to justice those who have killed journalists, review national attempts to resolve cold cases and examine attempts to affect change in U.N. member states to prevent impunity. In addition to these topics and media-government interactions; the increasing relations between the media and investors in digital media also brought about new debates, such as ethical journalism and sustainability of the media.
One of the key proposals of the conference was creating an international judicial committee for journalists which will include judges, lawyers, academics and human rights defenders from all over the world. Also, to reduce pressure against journalists and media on a global scale, prevent journalist murders, attacks, kidnappings and ensure the safety of journalists; a new initiative based on international and civil society pressure to hold the governments accountable is to be created. In my personal opinion I doubt that there is really a need for creating new entities in an area where there are already so many NGOs, coalitions, campaigns and awards, but the severity of the situation perhaps justifies it (2018 was the worst year on record for violence and abuse against journalists – in 2018, at least 99 journalists were killed, a further 348 imprisoned and 60 held hostage. Beyond that, almost 1,000 journalists and media workers have been killed in the past decade. Among them, 93 percent of those killed were local journalists and 7 percent are foreign correspondents). See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/journalists/
Another finding of the research conducted by these institutions is that the impunity for crimes against journalists remains the norm, with justice in only one in 10 cases.
I have always liked the symbolic act of renaming streets after human rights defenders [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/06/07/ahmed-mansoor-ten-years-jail-for-tweeting-and-a-street-named-after-you/]. Amnesty International activists will ‘rename’ the streets surrounding the Chinese Embassy in London next week to mark the 30th anniversary of the notorious Tiananmen Square crackdown. On Tuesday 4 June (10h00 am), a total of 30 authentic-looking ‘Tiananmen Square’ street signs will be displayed in the streets around the embassy in central London to mark the anniversary. Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen and Shao Jiang – one of the original student protest leaders who was in Tiananmen Square on the night of 4 June – will place a ‘Tiananmen Square’ sign immediately outside the Chinese Embassy building.
Independent Catholic News of 4 October 2018 carries the following story on the London Mining Network 12-20 October 2018:
“I am Misael Socarras Ipuana, of the Wayuu People. I live in the north of Colombia, in the peninsula of La Guajira, in the community of La Gran Parada. I am a human rights defender, indigenous communicator, director, cultural expert and leader of my community. I am 48 years old, married according to the traditions of my people to Moncia Lopez Pushaina. I have six children, for whom I struggle daily to give them a better future, free of contamination and mining. We want to be autonomous in our territories, free and able to enjoy Mother Nature without restrictions or fear.”
Misael is one of the five human rights and environmental defenders joining the London Mining Network for a week of action 12-20 October around the annual shareholder meeting of BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company. He will be speaking at events, meeting anti-coal campaigners in County Durham and holding BHP executives to account.
The London Mining Network, which highlights justice, peace and environmental issues related to extractive industries, is supported by religious and missionary groups with experience of the problems in countries where they work. Most of the world’s biggest mining companies, and many smaller mining companies, are listed on the London Stock Exchange, and on its Alternative Investment Market (AIM).
Communities all over the world are rising against mining violence and building alternatives that offer truly-sustainable futures, assert people’s rights and are deeply rooted in custodianship of land and water. This week of action will be an opportunity to explore this resurgence. They call for the UK government to commit to a Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights to end corporate impunity.
As the world’s largest multinational mining company, Anglo-Australian-owned BHP’s AGM is an important moment to build these arguments. BHP’s record of forced displacement, dispossession and catastrophic environmental damage stretches back decades. The company is so powerful it is seldom held to account for this devastation, while indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant communities are hardest hit.
REDRESS is a specialist human rights organisation that works globally to combat torture and support survivors in their quest for justice (see www.redress.org). It does so by: representing survivors’ interests before national and international courts and human rights bodies; advocating on their behalf with governments and other policy makers; working with partner organisations around the globe to increase civil society’s ability to fight against impunity, to prevent torture and to support those who suffer from it; and by raising awareness about the scourge of torture and the plight of survivors to strengthen institutions in their work against torture. Founded 25 years ago, REDRESS is headquartered in London but operates globally. Since 2016, REDRESS Nederland works closely with REDRESS from its office in The Hague. The Director currently oversees the work of both.
Although the deadline officially is 30 September it may be that late applications are accepted.
The role of Director is to lead all aspects of REDRESS, its staff and mission, reporting to the Board of Trustees. It involves:
defining and implementing its overall strategy;
recruiting, motivating and managing (directly or indirectly) its staff of up to 20, operating in an open high-performance culture within a strong governance framework;
ensuring the highest possible standards of representation of clients and output of work from the staff;
creating law changing legal and PR strategies and opportunities to combat torture in individual matters, including writing publicly on these issues;
liaising and working with key stakeholders and contacts, including:
running a fund-raising strategy with REDRESS’s supporters who are a mixture of well- known philanthropic trusts, law firms, individuals and states or para-state entities and ensuring a high level of transparency to them and complete delivery to them on their expectations;
line management of the organisation and its finances;
considerable travel; and
working with the Board of Trustees of REDRESS itself, the board of REDRESS Nederland and the US Board to ensure alignment, support and good governance.
The post is full time and involves significant travel.The post is vacant from January 2018.
Interviews will take place in October 2017. There will be two rounds of interviews. The process would also give final candidates the opportunity to meet the REDRESS team and to gain their own information on the standing of the organisation and the quality and approach of its staff.
The Trustees would hope to make an appointment in October or early November for the new Director to start in January or as soon thereafter as practicable.
Applications must include a full resume and a covering letter setting out why you are interested in the role, what you would bring to it, what you would want to achieve as Director and how you meet the criteria above. Applications are invited by 30 September 2017 to Sheilagh@redress.org.
From 9 – 18 March there will be the 2016 human rights film festival of Human Rights Watchin London, and from there it will travel to Toronto (30 March – 7 April), New York (10 – 19 June) and Nairobi (14-18 November). Read the rest of this entry »
The International Service for Human Rights [ISHR] and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre [BHRRC] organize a well-stocked panel on “Business and the protection of human rights defenders” on 14 July 2015 (12h30-14h30) in London: DLA Piper, 3 Noble Street, London. RSVP by Friday 10 July. The discussion.. Read the rest of this entry »
As this blog is very fond of human rights films, I am copying the programme almost in full. Morever, one the five themes in London this year is: Human Rights Defenders!
The 18th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London will be presented from 18 to 28 March, 2014, with a programme of 20 award-winning documentary and feature films. The festival will take place at the Curzon Mayfair, Curzon Soho, Ritzy Brixton and for the first time at the Barbican cinemas.
This year’s programme includes ten UK premieres and three exclusive previews organised around five themes:
Armed Conflict and the Arab Spring;
Human Rights Defenders, Icons and Villains;
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Rights;
Migrants’ Rights; and
Women’s Rights and Children’s Rights.
“This year’s programme demonstrates the risks filmmakers take to capture the stories behind the headlines, and our centrepiece film, the E-Team, reveals the tenacity and heroic efforts of human rights activists to bring war crimes to the world’s attention,” said John Biaggi, film festival director at Human Rights Watch. Read the rest of this entry »
Malala Yousafzai has been declared the winner of an award for female defenders of human rights in war and conflict. The 16-year-old from Pakistan was due to accept the 2013 RAW in WAR Reach All Women in WAR Anna Politkovskaya Award at a London-based ceremony on 4 October. The award is named after Politkovskaya, a Russian human rights journalist and outspoken government critic, who was murdered in October 2006 – and whose assassin has still not been brought to justice. Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in April 2013, Malala began blogging for the BBC in 2009 about her life in Pakistan’s Swat Valley region and her desire to attend school freely and safely, reported the BBC. Her increasingly public profile led to her being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on her way home from school in October last year. She was then flown to the U.K. for treatment and currently lives in Birmingham, where she continues to campaign for education for girls and boys.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 