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Looking towards 2025: Blog post by OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock

February 25, 2025

In this interview, OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock shares his vision for 2025 and key priorities in the fight against torture. From the launch of the Global Torture Index to the SOS Defenders platform, he highlights the initiatives that will shape the movement and strengthen global human rights efforts, including the Global Week on Torture—an event not to be missed.

His message for 2025 is clear: “resilience and unity, not despair.”

What is your vision for 2025, and what priorities should we focus on to maximize our impact on human rights?

In my vision, 2025 is the year in which we rise to the challenge and stand up in the anti-torture movement and uphold the absolute prohibition of torture. Today, in an increasingly dangerous world where states are turning away from human rights, fostering division and weakening protections, and some questioning universal norms altogether, the message must be resilience and unity, not despair. It is essential to protect all victims of torture and to defend the universality of human rights, which is under threat.

I am convinced that our SOS Torture Network must serve as an anchor for human rights and universality. As a movement, we stand united—to protect those at risk, to support our fellow human rights defenders under threat, and to ensure that the absolute prohibition of torture remains intact.

What impact do you hope the launch of the Global Torture Index will have?

The Global Index on Torture is the new flagship program of OMCT, with its launch anticipated in June 2025. I think it is the tool we have been lacking for years, and a tool all actors working against torture can benefit from. It combines reliable data with often-overlooked narratives to make the hidden reality of torture visible. This index will allow us to measure its scope, its impact on society, and advocate for political and legal reforms. It will help identify risks and develop effective anti-torture strategies. This index is not only an OMCT tool but a collective resource to support the efforts of network members towards concrete reforms and the prevention of torture.

Why is the Global Week on Torture important and what can people expect?

Four years ago, we held the first ever Global Week Against Torture, and we saw the power and energy that such a week can create. Many of us, especially those of our members working in very complicated dire situation, often feel alone. It offers a unique opportunity to share experiences, best practices and to learn from each other and to stand in solidarity across countries and regions. The Global Week all makes us feel and understand that we are united in a struggle and reflect that the real force of the OMCT is in its SOS Torture Network.

How will the SOS Defenders platform and the SOS Database help serve human rights defenders?

One of the most important achievements in 2024 has been the launch of the SOS Defenders platform. The platform gives a face to more than 400 human rights defenders that are currently imprisoned because they stood up for human rights. We don’t forget them. We want to demonstrate to governments that the detention of these defenders is an attack on democracy and freedom, and we need to make states who support human rights understand that this is the moment to step up in their actions. OMCT, along with its SOS Torture Network must raise the alarm bells and act to protect from torture and ill-treatment in detention.

https://www.omct.org/en/resources/blog/%C3%A0-lhorizon-2025-le-secr%C3%A9taire-g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral-de-lomct-sur-lavenir-des-droits-de-lhomme

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Canada’s Hogue report – missed opportunity to tackle transnational repression

February 19, 2025

Emile Dirks, Noura Aljizawi, Siena Anstis and Ron Deibert wrote in the The Globe and Mail of 10 February 2025 about the problem of transnational repression.

The final report of the public inquiry into foreign interference (the Hogue Commission) offers a measure of reassurance to Canadians; there is no evidence that Canadian MPs worked with foreign states to undermine the 2019 or 2021 federal elections. Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s findings, however, are cold comfort to people at risk. While the commission’s work has ended, distant autocrats continue to target Canadians and Canadian residents with transnational repression, the most coercive form of foreign interference.

Commissioner Justice Marie-Josee Hogue Patrick Doyle/Reuters

Through digital harassment, assault and even assassination, authoritarians reach across borders to silence their foes abroad. Victims include activists, human-rights defenders, exiled critics and asylum seekers tied by citizenship or ancestry to repressive states like China, Russia, India or Saudi Arabia. For authoritarians, these people are not citizens, but disloyal subjects to silence.

The danger that transnational repression poses is not new. A 2020 report by the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China demanded the Canadian government address threats against pro-democracy activists, while a 2022 report by the Citizen Lab highlighted the lack of support to victims of digital transnational repression. Prior to the 2024 election, the Biden-Harris administration adopted a whole-of-government approach to ensure government agencies like the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and the FBI worked together to provide recommendations to victims on how to better protect themselves.

Researchers and civil society have long worried that Canadian authorities are overlooking transnational repression as a unique challenge that requires tailored responses. Considering the seriousness of the threat and the stark absence of action by the government, many researchers anticipated the commission’s final report would explore transnational repression as a distinct form of foreign interference. Yet, while Justice Hogue wrote that “it would be challenging to overstate the seriousness of transnational repression,” she ultimately reasoned the issue lay outside her mandate.

This was a mistake. The final report was a missed opportunity to fully explore the corrosive impact of transnational repression on Canadian democracy. A recent report by the Citizen Lab highlights the profound toll transnational repression takes on vulnerable people, especially women, in Canada and beyond. Intimidation, surveillance and physical attacks prevent victims from participating fully in civic life and create a climate of persistent fear.

Transnational repression harms victims in more subtle ways, too. Our research shows that the mere threat of an online or offline attack is enough to frighten many diaspora members into silence. Victims become wary of participating in social media or even using digital devices. They report being afraid to engage with members of their communities, leaving them increasingly isolated. It has an insidious, chilling effect on targeted communities.

Unfortunately, the future looks bleak. Democratic backsliding in the United States threatens to deprive Canada of an ally in the fight and reverse whatever measures U.S. agencies might have taken on the issue. Our research shows that suspicion of law enforcement discourages victims from contacting authorities. Proposed moves by the Trump administration – including halting asylum hearings, ending resettlement programs, and sending “criminal” migrants to Guantanamo Bay – will further erode victims’ confidence in the U.S.’s willingness to protect them.

Big Tech is also worsening the problem. Across social-media platforms, state-backed harassment of vulnerable diaspora members is rife. Elon Musk’s X tolerates and even promotes hate-mongering accounts, while Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta will stop using “politically biased” fact-checkers signals a worrying disinterest in robust content moderation. We should expect a tsunami of digital transnational repression targeting vulnerable Canadians now that tech CEOs are loosening the restraints.

Canada cannot rely on outside leadership or corporate actors to tackle this problem. What is needed is a commission on transnational repression. On Jan. 24, the British parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights launched such an inquiry. Once our House of Commons sits again we can follow our British counterparts and resume the Subcommittee on International Human Rights’s work on transnational repression. The new Parliament should launch a multiparty inquiry into the crisis, with a mandate to examine repression outside of federal elections. Crucially, it must earn the trust of victims, something the Hogue Commission lacked. The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong both pulled out of the inquiry, citing the participation of three legislators with alleged links to the Chinese government.

This is not a partisan issue. Whoever wins the next federal election will have a duty to contend with the continuing threat transnational repression poses to Canada. With global authoritarianism on the rise, the problem is only likely to worsen in the years to come.

see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/03/19/transnational-repression-human-rights-watch-and-other-reports/

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-final-hogue-report-was-a-missed-opportunity-to-tackle/

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Joint civil society statement on the fifth anniversary of the “Xiamen gathering” crackdown

February 11, 2025

On the fifth anniversary of the “Xiamen Gathering” crackdown, 34 civil society organisations (on 10 February 2025) across the world reaffirm their solidarity with Chinese human rights defenders and lawyers persecuted for advocating for human rights:

26 December 2024 marked the fifth anniversary of the crackdown on the “Xiamen gathering”, a private gathering that about 20 Chinese human rights defenders and lawyers convened in Xiamen, China in December 2019 to discuss the situation of human rights and civil society in China. In the weeks after, Chinese authorities interrogated, harassed, detained and imprisoned every participant who was not able to leave China then and subjected almost all of them, including some families and friends, to travel bans, up to the present day, under the pretext of national security.

Among those detained were legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi. Both are leading human rights defenders who spearheaded the “New Citizens’ Movement”, empowering citizens as rights-bearers to advocate for a more equal, rights-respecting and free society, and to combat corruption, wealth inequality and discrimination in access to education. In 2014, Xu and Ding were both sentenced to four years and three and a half years in prison, respectively, for participating in the New Citizens’ Movement and charged with “gathering a crowd to disturb public order”.

From 26 December 2019, and over the weeks that followed, the Chinese authorities forcibly disappeared both under Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL), a criminal procedure allowing secret detention for up to six months without access to legal counsel or family. RSDL is considered by UN Special Procedures experts to constitute secret detention and a form of enforced disappearance, and may amount to torture or other ill-treatment. While held under RSDL, both men were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, before being charged with the national security crime of “subversion of State power”. They were subsequently convicted in a secret trial and handed severe prison sentences of 14 and 12 years, respectively, in April 2023. Despite multiple calls from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and from UN Special Procedures’ experts as recently as November 2024, China has failed to address these grave violations.

These cases are emblematic of a broader and alarming trend of persecution  of human rights defenders and lawyers in China. Authorities systematically employ RSDL, harsh national security charges, torture and other ill-treatment, prolonged detention, travel bans and harassment to silence dissent and dismantle independent civil society. The use of vague charges such as “subversion of State power” or “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” has become a routine tactic to criminalise human rights work, despite UN human rights experts’ repeated call for them to be repealed. Victims often face prolonged pre-trial detention, lack of due process, restricted access to lawyer and adequate healthcare, and torture or other ill-treatment aimed at extracting forced ‘confessions’.

This systematic repression is further reflected in the cases of human rights lawyers Xie Yang and Lu Siwei, feminist activist Huang Xueqin, labour activist Wang Jianbing, and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, all of whom are currently subjected to arbitrary detention or imprisonment  . UN Special Procedures’ experts have recently described these cases as part of “recurring patterns of repression, including incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance aimed at […] silencing human rights defenders and dissenting or opposing views critical of the Government”.

As we commemorate the fifth anniversary of the crackdown, we, organisations and activists from all over the world, continue to stand in solidarity with all human rights defenders and lawyers in China who courageously advocate for justice despite knowing the risks of doing so.

We urge the Chinese government to:

  1. Immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders and lawyers arbitrarily detained or imprisoned for their human rights work, including Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi;
  2. End the systematic crackdown on civil society, including harassment, unjustified detention, enforced disappearance, and imprisonment of human rights defenders and lawyers;
  3. Amend laws and regulations, including national security legislation, the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law, to bring them fully in line with international human rights standards;
  4. Rescind the travel bans imposed on the gathering participants as well as their friends and families immediately.

Signatories:

  1. Alliance for Citizens Rights
  2. Amnesty International 
  3. Asian Lawyers Network (ALN) (Japan)
  4. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
  5. Free Tibet (United Kingdom)
  6. Human Rights in China
  7. India Tibet Friendship Society Nagpur Maharashtra (India)
  8. International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI)
  9. International Campaign for Tibet
  10. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
  11. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) 
  12. International Tibet Network
  13. Judicial Reform Foundation (Taiwan) 
  14. Lawyers for Lawyers (Netherlands)
  15. LUNGTA – Active for Tibet (Belgium)
  16. PEN America (United States)
  17. Safeguard Defenders (Spain) 
  18. Swiss Tibetan Friendship Association (Switzerland)
  19. Taiwan Association for Human Rights (Taiwan)
  20. The 29 Principles (United Kingdom)
  21. The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders 
  22. The Rights Practice (United Kingdom)
  23. Tibet Justice Center (United States)
  24. Tibet Solidarity (United Kingdom)
  25. Voluntary Tibet Advocacy Group (V-TAG) (Netherlands)
  26. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
  27. Acción Solidaria (Venezuela)
  28. Amnistía Internacional Chile (Chile)
  29. CADAL (Argentina)
  30. Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Francisco de Vitoria OP, A.C. (Mexico)
  31. CONTIOCAP – Coordinadora Nacional de Defensa de Territorios Indígenas Originarios Campesinos y Áreas Protegidas en Bolivia (Bolivia)
  32. Movimiento Autónomo de Mujeres (Nicaragua)
  33. Red Nacional de Organismos Civiles de Derechos Humanos Todos los Derechos para todas, todos y todes (Mexico)
  34. Voces de Tíbet (Mexico)

https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/joint-civil-society-statement-on-the-fifth-anniversary-of-the-xiamen-gathering-crackdown

https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/fifth-anniversary-xiamen-gathering-crackdown

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Impact of US funding freeze on human rights defenders

February 6, 2025

The suspension and, in some cases the termination, of US foreign aid is having profound and adverse human rights impacts, threatening the very existence says Phil Lynch of ISHR in his Director’s update: “Impact of US funding freeze on human rights defenders and ISHRe of many human rights defenders, organisations and institutions“.

ISHR is directly affected by the US funding freeze. The suspension of US government funds means we’ve already had to terminate, defer or reduce activities to support human rights defenders working in highly restrictive contexts.

Together with announced and anticipated reductions in support for human rights organisations from some other governments and institutional philanthropy, it has also required that we take a number of significant anticipatory cost-saving measures, reducing our capacity to support human rights defenders globally.

The US funding freeze is also very adversely affecting a number of our national NGO partners, including those supporting human rights defenders in countries such as Afghanistan, China and Venezuela, among others. If you are in any position to support these organisations we would be delighted to connect you.

As I have recently written together with incoming and outgoing ISHR Board Chairs Taaka Awori and Vrinda Grover, we simply can’t afford to give up hope in our shared work for freedom, equality and justice. But we will not win and cannot survive on starvation rations.

We need investors – governments, foundations, corporations and individuals – to join us and create the resources that enable us to be sustainable, innovative and impactful. We particularly need medium and small States to step up investment, not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because their interests are not served by the law of the jungle where might is right.

This investment needs to be made in civil society at the national, regional and international levels, as well as in the international human rights system to which frontline defenders increasingly turn when justice and accountability are denied at the national level. The realisation of human rights will provide an unmatched return on investment.

..

And we invite you to take action for a fairer future now, whether by sharing our training and information  material, amplifying our messages on social media, making a donation or in-kind contribution, or participating in our campaigns. Your every action makes a difference. 

https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/directors-update-impact-of-us-funding-freeze-on-human-rights-defenders-and-ishr

Freeze in Foreign Aid Harms Human Rights Defenders, Damages U.S. Interests

https://www.freiheit.org/sub-saharan-africa/are-trumps-policies-holding-human-rights-organisations-hostage

and later:
https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/lives-at-risk-chaotic-and-abrupt-cuts-to-foreign-aid-put-millions-of-lives-at-risk/

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American Bar Association on the Day of the Endangered Lawyer

February 3, 2025

24 January 2025 was the Day of the Endangered Lawyer.  Its purpose is to call attention to threatened human rights lawyers who work to advance the rule of law and promote human rights under governmental harassment and intimidation, often at great personal risk.  Each year the focus is on those lawyers working in one designated country.

In 2025, the Day of the Endangered Lawyer spotlights the persecution of lawyers in Belarus. Since 2020, a crackdown by the Belarus government has resulted in the targeting of lawyers and human rights defenders. Legal practitioners face increasing criminal sanctions, arbitrary detention and systemic interference in their abilities to practice law. Constitutional and legislative changes have eroded the independence of the judiciary and professional legal bodies and given the executive branch unwarranted control over the judiciary and legal profession.

Today, the ABA recognizes these human rights lawyers who champion justice and fight for the rule of law.

see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/11/06/new-study-lawyers-protecting-journalists-increasingly-threatened/

and

HRW reports on crackdown on Human Rights Lawyers in Belarus

https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/01/aba-statement-re-day-endangered-lawyer/

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UN expert urges support for Myanmar’s human rights defenders in face of military oppression

February 3, 2025

The fourth anniversary of the military coup in Myanmar is a time to mourn the loss of thousands of innocent lives at the hands of a brutal 2025military regime while celebrating the heroism of those who continue to stand up for human rights in a country under siege, a UN expert said on30januaary

“It is also a time for the international community to provide the people of Myanmar a genuine partnership to help end this nightmare,” said Tom Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar.

Andrews said four years of military oppression, violence and incompetence have cast Myanmar into an abyss.

“Junta forces have slaughtered thousands of civilians, bombed and burned villages, and displaced millions of people. More than 20,000 political prisoners remain behind bars. The economy and public services have collapsed. Famine and starvation loom over large parts of the population,” the Special Rapporteur said.

“The junta’s plans, including holding sham elections this year in a backdrop of escalating armed conflict and human rights violations, are a path to ruin,” Andrews said.

He said it was not possible to hold a legitimate election while arresting, detaining, torturing and executing leaders of the opposition and when it is illegal for journalists or citizens to criticise the junta.

“Governments should dismiss these plans for what they are – a fraud,” Andrews said.

He lauded pro-democracy activists, journalists, doctors, human rights defenders and citizens from all walks of life who have risked their lives to fight for Myanmar’s future.

“The resilience and courage of Myanmar’s people continue to amaze and inspire others around the world. I am heartened by the courageous efforts of those documenting the junta’s crimes, caring for those injured by the attacks, providing food and shelter to those displaced, and teaching children whose education was upended by the coup. These heroic efforts are compelling indicators that Myanmar’s best days lie ahead,” the expert said.

Andrews said action by member states including targeted sanctions and a crackdown on the arms trade by Singapore have contributed to a one-third drop in the volume of weapons and military supplies the junta has been able to purchase through the formal banking system since the year ending March 2023.

“When governments muster the political will, they help save lives and support freedom in Myanmar,” the Special Rapporteur said, calling for stronger action from the international community. “The failure of the Security Council to take action requires that UN Member States who support human rights coordinate strong, sustained actions that can deny the junta the means to continue its brutality against the people of Myanmar.”

He urged governments to back efforts to hold perpetrators of grave human rights violations accountable, including in the International Criminal Court (ICC), and by supporting the democratic movement and civil society as they build the foundation for a strong justice system and transitional justice processes.

“Impunity has enabled a decades-long cycle of violence and oppression in Myanmar. Ultimately, this sad chapter of Myanmar’s history must end with junta leaders being prosecuted for their crimes,” Andrews said.

https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/un-expert-urges-support-people-myanmar-they-heroically-oppose-military-oppression

https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/america-first-in-action-trumps-aid-freeze-erodes-an-already-anemic-response-to-myanmar-crisis

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Rapporteur dismayed by continued criminalisation of human rights defenders after her visit to Algeria

February 1, 2025

On 30 January 2025 Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said that Algeria continues to restrict and harass human rights defenders for their peaceful activities, an independent human rights expert said today.

“More than a year after I visited Algeria – at the end of 2023 – I am deeply disappointed to see that human rights defenders in different fields of work, some of whom I met, are still being arbitrarily arrested, judicially harassed, intimidated and criminalised for their peaceful activities under vaguely worded provisions, such as ‘harming the security of the State’,” said Mary Lawlor. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/12/07/mary-lawlor-returns-from-algeria-visit/]

“The case of Mr. Merzoug Touati, an independent journalist and human rights defender who has been subjected for years to trials on spurious charges, is among the most alarming cases I have recently examined,” Lawlor said.

“Since 2024, he has been detained three times. During his latest arrest, in August 2024, his family was reportedly subjected to ill-treatment. He was then allegedly physically and psychologically tortured while in police custody for five days. He continues to be judicially harassed even after his release,” the expert said.

“No less concerning is the arrest of three human rights lawyers and a young whistleblower between February and July 2024,” Lawlor said, highlighting the cases of Toufik Belala, Soufiane Ouali and Omar Boussag.

Belala was summoned for interrogation three times since April 2024 and finally accused of publishing false information that may threaten the security of the State, before being freed under judicial control.

The human rights lawyer Soufiane Ouali was taken from his home during a violent dawn raid by police in July 2024, and placed in custody along with 14 others, including the young whistleblower Yuba Manguellet. They were charged under Article 87bis of the Penal Code, a vaguely worded counter-terrorism provision that is often misused to crackdown on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

Other restrictive articles of the Penal Code have been used to accuse human rights lawyer Omar Boussag of ‘incitement of an unarmed gathering’ and ‘contempt of an official body’ following the publication of his posts on Facebook.

“These are not the only cases,” Lawlor said. “The environmental rights defender Karim Khima has been pursued for years in court for organising protests against a housing development on land with historical remains and for the protection of the ecosystem around Lake Mezaia, which is threatened by the planned construction of an amusement park. Fortunately, he was finally acquitted.”

Lawlor also drew attention to the case of the ‘Collectif des Familles de Disparus,’ an organisation set up during the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s to seek answers to the forcible disappearance of persons. This year, the organisation has repeatedly been prevented from holding events by huge contingents of police forces surrounding its office in Algiers. Its female lawyer and members, many of whom are mothers of disappeared persons, have been manhandled and forced to leave the location on these occasions.

“I want to repeat that I met nearly all of these human rights defenders,” the Special Rapporteur said. “Not one of them was in any way pursuing violent acts. They all must be treated in accordance with international human rights law, which Algeria is bound to respect.”

She said that during her visit to Algeria, she also met with many public officials in an atmosphere of constructive exchange. “I am therefore doubly disappointed to see that restrictions against human rights defenders are continuing,” Lawlor said.

https://reliefweb.int/report/algeria/algeria-special-rapporteur-dismayed-continued-criminalisation-human-rights-defenders-after-her-visit

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/01/algeria-special-rapporteur-dismayed-continued-criminalisation-human-rights

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Vietnamese Human Rights Defender Bach Wins 2024 Baldwin Medal of Liberty

January 28, 2025

Human Rights First announced on 24 January 2025 that climate rights activist and lawyer Dang Dinh Bach, jailed in Vietnam since June 2021, is the winner of the 2024  Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty. The Baldwin Medal will be presented at an event in the United States later this year to someone on Bach’s behalf, unless he is freed from prison and able to travel to receive the award in person.

For more on the Baldwin Medal and its laureates, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/F23B5465-6A15-4463-9A91-14B2977D9FCE

Bach is the co-founder and former Executive Director of the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Center (LPSD), a public interest law firm advising communities on cases of environmental harm, including industrial pollution, involuntary displacement due to hydropower construction, and pollution from coal plants.

Taken from his home in June 2021, he was held in pretrial detention for seven months, with limited contact with his family or his lawyers, and the LPSD was shut down by authorities following his arrest. The UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found Bach’s imprisonment to be arbitrary and in “violation of international law,” and called for his immediate release. United Nations Special Procedures experts have noted reports of his being attacked and beaten in prison.

“I’d like to express honor and gratitude for this recognition of Bach’s life and work,” said Tran Phuong Thao, his wife. “The Baldwin Award represents the critical importance of human rights and rule of law in building a just and sustainable world – values my husband has fought for both outside and inside of prison. It is through solidarity and support from the international community that the movement he has helped to build continues to grow and inspire others.”Press

Jailed Vietnamese Human Rights Defender Wins Baldwin Medal of Liberty

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The Carr Center Launches a Global LGBTQI+ Network

January 28, 2025

Changemakers Network

The Carr Center’s Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program is excited to announce the launch of the Global LGBTQI+ Changemakers Network, which will serve as a hub for learning, research, and collaboration on global LGBTQI+ challenges.

The global network is a community of activists and professionals dedicated to advancing LGBTQI+ rights in 142 countries around the world, with the goal to create a vibrant space where ideas, knowledge, and opportunities are shared to strengthen and support one another in this crucial work at such a critical time.

The network will offer educational opportunities, including exclusive online and in-person webinars and workshops to highlight cutting-edge research and global success stories; research collaborations that will partner participants with Harvard students, faculty, and fellow advocates on impactful research projects; and creative partnerships with affiliates of the Carr Center’s Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program. The three core parts of the network’s offerings include:

  • The Global LGBTQI+ Changemakers Network: As referenced above, members of this network will receive access to a regular series of online trainings on a broad range of topics of interest to the movement. These will be available exclusively to this network, and by invitation, to a broader audience.
  • Foundational Curriculum Track: Sixty participants, selected by application, will take part in a series of in-depth, interactive online courses running from February to August 2025. This program is designed to work in tandem with the other offerings in this network. 
  • In-Person International LGBTQI+ Activism Summit: From the advanced online curriculum cohort, 20 participants will be invited to join our International LGBTQI+ Activism Summit in Fall 2025. Learn more about the 2024 International LGBTQI+ Activism Summit that took place in Fall 2024.

The Global LGBTQI+ Changemakers Network is launched by the team at the Carr Center’s Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program, including:

  • Diego Garcia Blum, Program Director; 
  • Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Program Faculty Chair; and 
  • Jean Freedberg, Founding Practitioner Affiliate

The first Changemakers Network event will take place on Thursday, January 30, 2025. This webinar, “Illiberal Playbooks: Preparing for Attacks on LGBTQI+ Rights in the U.S.,” will explore lessons learned from Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria on the Illiberal Playbook, and how these tactics may be employed in the United States. Registration is still open for the event by clicking the link. For members of the Changemakers Network, a follow-up workshop and discussion session in the style of classes at Harvard will follow, and Changemakers will be notified how to attend. 

Through the Changemakers Network, we can learn from each other, sharpen our strategies, and push forward in the fight for dignity and justice. The movement needs all of us, and none of us can do it alone.

Are you or someone you know actively engaged in the LGBTQI+ movement and interested in joining this global community? To learn how you can be part of the Global LGBTQI+ Changemakers Network, stay informed by subscribing to the Carr Center’s weekly newsletter, and complete this form to nominate yourself or someone you know.

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr/publications/carr-center-launches-global-lgbtqi-changemakers-network

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Right Livelihood is looking for a full-time Head of Research

January 17, 2025

Right Livelihood is looking for a full-time Head of Research. The role will be based at one of our offices in Stockholm or Geneva and will lead the selection and research of new Laureates for the Right Livelihood Award.

About Right Livelihood

For over 40 years, Right Livelihood has honoured courageous people solving global problems, creating a community of change-makers committed to peace, justice, and sustainability. By recognising the actions of brave visionaries and building a continuous relationship with these change-makers, Right Livelihood boosts urgent and transformational societal change. With offices in Stockholm and Geneva, Right Livelihood has 20 staff and an annual budget of EUR 4 million. Every year, an international jury chooses the new Laureates: to date, 198 Laureates from 77 countries have been awarded for their impactful contributions. Read more about our approach.

Purpose of the role

You will oversee all aspects of the research and selection of new Laureates for the Right Livelihood Award, taking a leading role in implementing our strategic outlook, as well as developing and managing the research team. In this position, you will be collaborating with colleagues in the entire Right Livelihood team and communicating with nominees for the Award as well as external experts and other contacts. It is expected that you stay on top of global developments related to the work. It is your responsibility to ensure high quality in the research and present accurate, comprehensive, and timely research findings about the candidates. 

The Head of Research will report to the Deputy Director and lead the work of the research team, which currently has two staff members. 

Main responsibilities

  • Lead and develop the annual selection process of Laureates towards the goals defined in the organisational strategy and operational plan.
  • Provide leadership to the research team, manage and guide the research work, and be responsible for the research budget.
  • Coordinate and conduct investigative research about nominees for the Award, both remote and on-site, and lead the writing of the report presented to the jury, including all relevant research findings.
  • Ensure high-quality research to allow the jury to assess nominations from multiple perspectives.
  • In coordination with colleagues, make sure that our work is informed by current trends in global affairs and civil society movements.

Required experience and qualifications

  • Professional experience in leadership roles
  • Professional experience in conducting investigative research in fields such as activism and social transformation 
  • Experience with conducting interviews with a wide range of people, e.g. victims of environmental or human rights violations, both on-site or online
  • Full professional proficiency in English, including experience with research report writing

Terms of employment

This position will be located preferably at our head office in Stockholm or at our Geneva office. Regular international travel is expected in this role. This is a permanent full-time position with a probationary period.

Right Livelihood is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. We therefore strongly encourage applications from all backgrounds, identities and abilities to help us create a diverse, balanced and inclusive working environment.

Starting date

By agreement, preferably April 2025.

How to apply

We use a competency-based process for this recruitment. Therefore, you will not be asked to attach a letter of motivation to your application. Instead, we will ask you to complete the online application form accessed through the link below, attach your CV and submit a work sample. Instructions for the work sample are outlined here and in the application form.

go to application form

If you have further questions about the position or the application process, please contact us at jobs@rightlivelihood.org.

The deadline for applications is February 12, 2025 (EOD).

Come work with us: We’re looking for a Head of Research

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