In the series Human Rights Defenders against Torture, OMCT published on 7 December “Nicaragua: Meet Vilma: Still not ready to stop fighting against torture in Nicaragua”. Vilma Núñez de Escorcia , 77, has been heading the Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (CENIDH) for the past quarter of a century, assisting civil society’s underprivileged populations and building the capacity to protect and promote human rights. The first female magistrate in Nicaragua appointed Vice-President of the Supreme Court from 1979 to 1987, Vilma pegs her commitment to fighting for justice to the fact that she was born outside marriage - a terrible thing at that time, which meant that she was barred from the best religious secondary school and could not inherit as much as each of her “legitimate” siblings. She is now thankful for what she then considered as a “misfortune” as it made her realize how the legal system treated people differently. This realization made her want to train as a lawyer specializing in human rights and penal law. “I didn’t’ want anyone else to suffer discrimination so I chose to become a lawyer, to understand and stop it,” she explains.
A new publication “Gendering Documentation: A Manual for and about Women Human Rights Defenders” (http://www.omct.org/files/2015/12/23505/gen_doc_manual_final.pdf) has come out to mark International Women Human Rights Defender Day (29 November) and International Human Rights Day (10 December). It has been produced by the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition. The manual will be posted in pdf format in coming days on the website of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition: www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org.
Gendering Documentation: A Manual For and About Women Human Rights Defenders is designed for use by those who document Read the rest of this entry »
To portray the work of human rights defenders working on the ground to prevent torture, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) shares profiles of 10 persons between 1 and 10 December, International Human Rights Day.
These stories, such as those of Yavuz in Turkey, Olga in Russia, and Justin in DRC are hosted on OMCT’s website and social media, including the new LinkedIn page, as well as on Facebook and Twitter accounts, starting today. People are encouraged to like and share the posts. I will also highlight some of them in future posts.
Yesterday I reported on Human Rights Watch honoring Yara Bader as the representative of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression. Now I am catching up on the release of her husband and the founder of the Centre, Mazen Darwish, after more than three years in jail. A verdict in his case is expected later this month. Darwish was arrested, along with two colleagues, in February 2012 during a raid. HusseinGhreir and Hani al-Zaitani were freed last month (17 July and 18 July 2015, respectively) as part of an amnesty that was to have included Darwish, but his release was delayed.
Many NGOs (i.a. Frontline, the Observatory, AI and HRW) and Governments have welcomed the release but warn that Mazen Darwish, and his colleagues Hussein Ghrer and Hani al-Zaitani, have been charged with “publicising terrorist acts” and are still to be tried before the Syrian Anti-Terrorism Court. They invariably call for all charges against them to be dropped. “Mazen, Hussein and Hani are not terrorists, they are human rights defenders,” FIDH President Karim Lahidji said “All charges against them must be dropped immediately”. “We urge the Syrian Anti-Terrorism Court to acquit them during the verdict hearing on August 31, as their judicial harassment has only been aimed at sanctioning their human rights activities”, OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock concluded.
[On May 15, 2013, in its Resolution 67/262, the UN General Assembly called for the release of the three defenders. In January 2014, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also found that the three defenders had been arbitrarily deprived of their liberty due to their human rights activities and called for their immediate release. Finally, UN Security Council Resolution 2139, adopted on February 22, 2014, also demanded the release of all arbitrarily detained people in Syria.]
Human rights defenders in Bahrain are operating in a shrinking space, says the Observatory in a report published on 25 June 2015. The report documents the judicial harassment of 11 human rights defenders including lawyers, teachers, doctors or bloggers. All have suffered or been threatened with imprisonment, torture or statelessness as a consequence of their activities in defense of human rights. Read the rest of this entry »
On 15 June 2015, 0ver 200 human rights NGOs urge the Democratic Republic of Congo to show respect for freedom of expression and assembly by freeing the “Filimbi activists“. Expression, Assembly The two activists were arrested three months ago, on 15 March during a pro-democracy youth workshop in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Fred Bauma and Yves Makwambala were arrested at the workshop organized to launch “Filimbi,” a platform to encourage Congolese youth to peacefully and responsibly perform their civic duties. Read the rest of this entry »
OMCT and FIDH (within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) in cooperation with the ISHR organise on 16 June (16:00-17:30, room XXII, Palais des Nations – Geneva) a side event on Attacks and Reprisals against Human Rights Defenders, focusing on the issue of reprisalsand accountability. As readers know by now, I believe that this is the topic which the human rights movement HAS TO TAKE more serious lest all progress of the last decades will be lost. My blog contains quite a few posts on reprisals (https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/reprisals/), but the key one is: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/zero-tolerance-for-states-that-take-reprisals-against-hrds-lets-up-the-ante/.
It is encouraging to see the range of human rights actors that have taken to using the Baku Games, starting today, as an occasion to draw attention to the human rights record of Azerbaijan. One of the more creative is the FIDH‘s launch of “REAL BAKU 2015,” an online video game, to denounce the arbitrary imprisonment of dozens of human rights defenders:
Investigative journalist Rafael Marques de Moraisis due to appear in court today in Angola for sentencing. On 25 May the Public Prosecutor in his trial requested that the judge convict him of criminal defamation and sentence him to 30 days in prison, only four days after the announcement of the Lunda Provincial Tribunal that charges against Mr. Marques de Morais had been dropped!“ After more than two years of continuous judicial harassment, solely based on Mr. Marques de Morais human rights activities, this last decision makes yet another mockery of justice in Angola ”, said Karim Lahidji, FIDH President.
[Mr. Marques de Morais is a well-known Angolan journalist and editor of an Angolan anti-corruption website,who has been facing continuous judicial harassment since the publication in 2011, of his book, “Blood Diamonds : Corruption and Torture in Angola”, in which he documents and denounces the corruption, allegations of homicides, torture, forced eviction of civilian settlements and intimidation of inhabitants of the diamond-mining areas of Angola’s Lundas region by some state agents and business entrepreneurs.]
He is same Rafael Marques de Morais, who was quoted in my post of 19 December 2013 about Mariah Carey performing for the President that “the presidency was happy to cover the capital in posters of her performance, but on November 23 the presidential guards murdered an activist in custody for posting fliers. Those fliers were a peaceful protest of the murder of other activists disappeared by state police. How does Mariah Carey, the artist and humanist, who so often speaks about human rights, feel about that?…..The Angolan Red Cross gala raised $65,000. Mariah Carey’s transportation alone cost several times that number. It’s absolutely shameless,” added de Morais. [from https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/mariah-carey-needs-better-informed-staff-and-donate-her-1-million-fee-to-human-rights-defenders-in-angola/#more-4223] Read the rest of this entry »
Lewis Hamilton has just won the Bahrain Grand Prix [which was canceled in 2011 amid violent clashes after an uprising demanding political reforms]. It was the occasion for F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone to says that the Azerbaijan “Baku European Grand Prix” will make its début in 2016, despite concerns over the country’s human rights record. Earlier this week, the sport’s official website carried a notice stating that “The Formula One Group is committed to respecting internationally recognized human rights in its operations globally.” Asked if the human rights situation in Azerbaijan had been checked out with a view to hosting next year’s race, Ecclestone said “We have” before adding “I think everybody seems to be happy. There doesn’t seem to be any big problem there.”
One wonders where he got this idea as the Human Rights Watch report (and that of other NGOs, such as FIDH/OMCT, see link below) on Azerbaijan for 2015 was damning:
To portray the work of human rights defenders working on the ground to prevent torture, the 
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 