Posts Tagged ‘repression’
January 24, 2015
Human rights lawyers and their clients stage a picket at the Supreme Court to mark the ‘Day of the Endangered Lawyer’ (photo courtesy of NUPL)
Human rights lawyers in the Philippines on Friday 23 January 2015 protested publicly against the growing death toll within their ranks as they marked the “Day of the Endangered Lawyer” by trooping to the Supreme Court. The protest spearheaded by the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers [NUPL] and joined by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines was joined by lawyers’ and support groups that staged pickets or held dialogues at Philippine embassies and consulates in 23 cities in 11 European countries.
Figures show that, since attacks on legal professionals began being recorded in 1977, “100 lawyers have been attacked (57 since 2001) while 50 lawyers have been killed (41 since 2001).” “Nineteen judges have been murdered, 18 since 2001”
“Government must simply do its job: protect its citizens, categorically condemn these attacks on lawyers as human rights defenders; seriously and credibly investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators; and uphold human rights because the attacks on lawyers is not only an attack on the individual lawyer, it is an attack on the legal profession, and most fundamentally — in the context of the targeted assaults on human rights and public interest lawyers — an attack itself on the rights and interests of the mostly poor and oppressed in our country”
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/103685/a-deadly-profession–human-rights-lawyers-count-the-costs-on-day-of-the-endangered-lawyer
A petition <http://www.advocatenvooradvocaten.nl/wp-content/uploads/Petition-Day-of-Endangerd-Lawyer-2015.pdf> signed by lawyers organizations from Asia, Canada Europe and the United States calls on the Aquino government to prevent extrajudicial killings and all forms of harassment of lawyers and to end impunity by prosecuting perpetrators of rights violations. The petition also calls on the Aquino government to protect the safety of lawyers as provided for in the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1990. Underlying causes for extrajudicial killings. The practice of labeling (classifying victims as ‘enemies of the state’), the involvement of the military in politics, the proliferation of private armies and vigilante groups and the culture of impunity have been identified by national and international fact-finding bodies as the main root causes for the alarming rate of extrajudicial killings, including the extrajudicial killings of lawyers, in the Philippines.
Away from the capital human rights violations against indigenous people and their human rights defenders also continue as demonstrated in 2 film documentaries:
“Gikan sa Ngitngit nga Kinailadman” (From the Dark Depths) records grave rights violations using interviews and recollections of the survivors and witnesses. The cases featured in the film remains unresolved; the perpetrators waiting for the next human rights defender to hunt. The film shows the atrocities of the military and paramilitary troops, including the armed agents of the agro-industrial corporations in the hinterlands of Mindanao.
-The first case presented in the film is the assassination of Gilbert Paborada—a Higaonon farmer in Bagocboc, Opol, Misamis Oriental. Daisy Paborada, the wife of Gilbert, and Joseph Paborada, his brother, reiterates how the struggle of their community against the entry of palm oil plantations of A Brown Company led to Gilbert’s death.
-The film also shows interviews about the harassment of the Lumad community in Opol as they suffer from the goons of A Brown Company. The harassments and intimidation breed the culture of fear and terror among the people who opt to protect their ancestral domain vis-à-vis the environment over money.
PHOTO taken during the shooting of “Gikan sa Ngitngit nga Kinailadman” in the mountains of Pantaron in Bukidnon. (RMP-NMR)
Dalena is also the director of Alingawngaw ng mga Punglo (Echo of Bullets) that exposed the criminal acts of the military under the infamous General Jovito Palparan, also known as ‘The Butcher.’ Palparan now is in jail, facing allegations of murder against human rights defenders.
Sr. Maria Famita Somogod, regional coordinator of Rmp-Nmr, said the film highlights political repression. The spate of human rights violations featured in the film is the reaction of the government to quell the legitimate dissent of the lumads against the entry of agro-industrial corporations in their ancestral domain. Somogod said the dissent of the lumads and farmers is legitimate. Their demands are to protect their ancestral domain against the encroachment of foreign corporations in the hinterlands. “Instead of seeds, bullets. Instead of food, bombs. Instead of peace, forcible evacuation. Instead of life, death,” Somogod said, adding this is what the ordinary lumads and farmers get for protecting the land of promise.
In the words of the author Anjo Bacarisas, in Sunstar of 25 January: at the end of the film one asks: How should we stop this appalling cruelty against the lumads and farmers?
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cagayan-de-oro/feature/2015/01/25/underbelly-land-promise-388461
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, L4L | Leave a Comment »
Tags: agro-business, corporate accountability, Dalena, Documentary film, Echo of Bullets, extrajudicial killings, From the Dark Depths, harassment, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyers, impunity, Independence of Lawyers, Indigenous People, Lawyers for Lawyers, Lumad community, Maria Famita Somogod, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, Philippines, repression
December 2, 2014
On 1 December 2014 a group of 7 NGOs (Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, International Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Open Technology Institute (at New America), Privacy International, Reporters sans frontieres) sent an Open Letter to the “Wassenaar Arrangement” (for what this is see link at the end). The key issue is that the alarming proliferation of surveillance technologies available to repressive countries adversely affects political activists, human rights defenders, refugees, dissidents and journalists.
Here is the text of the letter:
“We, the undersigned organisations, call upon the 41 Governments that compose the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies, to take action and address the alarming proliferation of surveillance technologies available to repressive countries involved in committing systematic human rights violations. This trade results in unlawful surveillance, which often leads to further human rights violations including invasions of privacy, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the silencing of free expression, preventing political participation, and crushing offline and online dissent.
Surveillance technologies are not simply harmless tools. In the wrong hands they are often used as a tool of repression. Evidence is continuing to reveal the extent of this secretive trade that puts countless individuals at direct risk from human rights abusing governments. More and more stories emerge showing these damaging and often unlawful technologies affecting political activists, human rights defenders, refugees, dissidents and journalists, with some technologies placing entire populations under surveillance. Governments with internationally condemned human rights records such as Bahrain, Ethiopia, Egypt, Turkmenistan, Libya, Syria and Iran have all purchased surveillance technologies from private companies, and have used them to facilitate a variety of human rights violations. Some revelations in France, Germany, the UK, and the US have led to police and judicial investigations following calls from NGOs and members of the Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports. Remarkably and despite mounting evidence of associated abuses, surveillance technology companies still openly market their products at ‘trade fairs’ across the UK, France, US, Brazil and the UAE among other countries.
Although steps were taken in 2013 to address this largely unregulated global market, governments cannot let the momentum halt. Governments have now included additional technologies associated with intrusion software and IP monitoring to the Lists of Dual Use Goods and Technologies and Munitions, and are aware of the impact surveillance technologies can have on human rights. There is now a pressing need to modernise out of date export controls. In addition, technologies such as undersea fibre-optic cable taps, monitoring centres, and mass voice / speaker recognition technologies urgently need to be examined for their impact on human rights and internal repression, particularly when the end user is a government known for committing human rights violations. Technologies evolve at a rapid pace and governments that abuse human rights take advantage of weak regulation, the product of poor understanding of the technologies and their capabilities.
In the current system, human rights and digital rights groups, as well as external independent experts, are excluded from contributing their expertise and knowledge to the Wassenaar Arrangement forum. The additional expertise and knowledge that civil society can bring to the debate is invaluable to this end. Discussions should not continue in a closed-forum manner and we urge governments to engage with civil society organisations to help ensure that accurate and effective controls are developed which reflect modern technological developments and do not impede legitimate scientific and security research.
Any export policy relating to surveillance technologies should place human rights at its heart. Governments must exercise a strict policy of restraint and should refuse to grant export licenses for surveillance technology destined for end-users in countries where they are likely to be used in an unlawful manner i.e. not compliant with human rights legal standards. Governments should consider the weakness or absence of an appropriate legal framework in the recipient country to ensure the transfer would not pose a substantial risk of the items being used to violate or abuse human rights. Governments should also be transparent in what they export, and to whom and support the development of an international legal framework to address the sale and trade of surveillance technologies.”
An Open Letter to the Members of the Wassenaar Arrangement | Human Rights Watch.
The Wassenaar Arrangement (41 participating States) has been established in order to contribute to regional and international security and stability, by promoting transparency and greater responsibility in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies, thus preventing destabilising accumulations. Participating States seek, through their national policies, to ensure that transfers of these items do not contribute to the development or enhancement of military capabilities which undermine these goals, and are not diverted to support such capabilities.
from: http://www.wassenaar.org/introduction/index.html
Posted in AI, FIDH, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, RSF | 1 Comment »
Tags: Civil society, corporate accountability, digital security, Human Rights Defenders, Information and Communication Technology, mass surveillance, repression, right to privacy, Wassenaar Arrangement
September 26, 2014
The United Nations human rights High Commissioner for human rights today condemned the recent brutal, cold-blooded slaying by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) of Iraqi human rights defender Sameera Salih Ali Al-Nuaimy, as well as the continuing detention, sexual exploitation and sale of hundreds of women and girls in areas captured by the militant group. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OHCHR, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: arbitrary execution, conflict, High Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Defenders, human rights of women, Iraq, ISIL, killing, Middle East, Mosul, repression, Sameera Salih Ali Al-Nuaimy, UN, WNN, woman human rights defender, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
September 12, 2014
reports that on 9 September 2014, the Specialised Criminal Court reduced [SIC and sick] the sentence of human rights defender Mr Fadel Al-Manasef after it was reconsidered by the Specialised Criminal Court of Appeal. The human rights defender was originally sentenced (http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/25761) to 15 years’ imprisonment and a subsequent 15-year travel ban, as well as a fine of approximately €20,000). The Court reduced the sentence to 14 years’ imprisonment, to be followed by a 14 years travel ban, while maintaining the initial fine. Hard not to be cynical.
[Fadel Al-Manasef is a writer and blogger, and a founding member of Al Adalah Center for Human Rights, a Saudi Arabian NGO that documents and monitors human rights violations and provides support to victims of human rights abuses. He has been in detention since his arrest on 2 October 2011. – https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/fadel-al-manasef/]
Posted in Front Line, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: blogger, Fadel Al-Manasef, freedom of expression, Front Line (NGO), Human rights defender, illegal detention, jail, repression, Saudi Arabia
September 11, 2014
I have posted extensively on the ‘foreign agents” law in Russia (and a few other countries that got inspired by this bad example) [see: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/foreign-agent/] and the article below in the Moscow Times is an excellent piece that sums up the current repression AND the resilience of the human rights defenders. Election-monitoring watchdog Golos won a rare victory among Russian NGOs on Tuesday 9 September when a Moscow court ruled it should not after all be labeled a “foreign agent.” But rights activists warn that the battle against the “foreign agents” label is only the tip of the iceberg in a far broader pressure campaign being waged by the authorities. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: ADC Memorial, Boris Altshuler, Civil society, foreign agent law, foreign agents, freedom of association, funding restrictions, GOLOS, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Moscow Times, repression, Russia, Valentin Gefter
September 8, 2014
During the current session of the Human Rights Council there will again many side events in Geneva. I will refer to some of them not only in the hope that you may able to attend, but also to illustrate the concerns of the NGO movement:
On Tuesday 9 September from 12.00 to 13.30 (Palais des Nations, Room XXI) there will be a side-event organised jointly by Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Human Rights Watch, FIDH, ISHR and the International Bar Association. Speakers are:
- Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
- Souhayr Belhassen, Honourary President, International Federation for Human Rights FIDH
- Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Program, Amnesty International
- Phillip Tahmindjis, Director, International Bar Association Human Rights Institute
- Moderator: Yves Magat, Journalist, Télévision Suisse Romande
Posted in Amnesty international, FIDH, HRW, human rights, ISHR | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Amnesty International, Civil society, Egypt, FIDH, Geneva, Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch, impunity, International Bar Association, International Bar Association Human Rights Institute Moderator, ISHR, Kenneth Roth, NGOs, Philip Luther, Phillip Tahmindjis, repression, side event, Souhayr Belhassen
September 4, 2014
Two British human rights workers investigating the plight of migrant labourers constructing facilities for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup have disappeared and are feared to be held incommunicado by the Gulf state’s security forces reports the Independent. Krishna Upadhyaya and Ghimire Gundev vanished on Sunday 31 August after sending texts to colleagues saying they were being followed by plain clothes police officers and feared they arrest as they tried to leave Qatar on flights that day. The two men, who are of Nepalese extraction and both carry British passports, had been in the Qatari capital Doha to record interviews with Nepali labourers and investigate conditions in accommodation camps. They were working in cooperation with Nepalese diplomats in the city.
The Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), employing the men, said it believed its employees were being held by the Qatari police and were at risk of maltreatment or torture: “We are deeply concerned that our employees, both British citizens, may have been subjected to enforced disappearance and are currently at risk of torture.”
[Qatar has been strongly criticised for the working conditions of its 1.4m migrant labourers as it races to spend £123bn on new infrastructure ahead of the 2022 World Cup. More than 400 Nepalese, the vast majority of them in Qatar to work on construction projects, died in the Gulf state between January 2012 and this May – a death rate of one worker per day. Qatar has insisted that none of the deaths occurred on World Cup sites. Qatar has been criticised for routinely holding detainees incommunicado for weeks or months at a time. Amnesty International has described the tactic as “standard practice” and said it can be followed by lengthy further detention without charge or trial.]
British human rights investigators disappear in Qatar, after being followed by plain clothes police – Middle East – World – The Independent.
Posted in films, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: 2022 FIFA World Cup, 2022 World Cup, Documentary film, Forced disappearance, Ghimire Gundev, Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), investigation, Krishna Upadhyaya, labour rights, migrant labour, Nepal, Qatar, repression, The Independent, UK
August 21, 2014
The family of MEA 2013 Final Nominee, Mona Seif, continues to be under the greatest strain in Egypt. Front Line Defenders reports that on 18 August 2014, her brother, human rights defender Mr Alaa Abd El Fattah, began a hunger strike to protest his detention [http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/AlaaAbdElFattah] and said that he will remain on hunger strike until he is released. Her sister human rights defender Ms Sanaa Seif also continues to be imprisoned. [https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/26336]. Her father, human rights defender Ahmed Seif El-Islam is in the Intensive Care Unit of Qasr el-Eini hospital. Her family had tried several times to visit the father, but in vain.
Posted in Front Line, Human Rights Defenders | 4 Comments »
Tags: Ahmed Seif Al Islam, Ahmed Seif El-Islam, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Egypt, family, freedom of expression, freedom to demonstrate, Front Line (NGO), Human Rights Defenders, Hunger strike, illegal detention, MEA final nominee 2013, Mona Seif, prison, repression, Sanaa Seif, woman human rights defender
March 31, 2014
On the Human Rights Watch website, 29 March 2014, Aryeh Neier, remembers fondly Zbigniew Zbyszek Romaszewski, a physicist, who in 1979 volunteered to lead an underground Helsinki Committee in Poland under the just concluded Helsinki Accords. Romaszewski died in Warsaw on 13 February 2014 at the age of 74.
“When martial law was imposed in December 1981, some 30,000 people were arrested and imprisoned. Romaszewski and his wife Zosia were among them. Some time after the imposition of martial law, we learned that the Polish Helsinki Committee had found a way to continue to operate secretly. They managed to smuggle highly detailed reports to Helsinki Watch. Their first report, produced under the difficult conditions of search, seizure and secrecy, was 182 pages long. Helsinki Watch published it in English translation under the title “Prologue to Gdansk.” They were a leading source of information on human rights practices in Poland in that period. In March 1984 – after we had no person-to-person contact with anyone in Poland for more than two years – I traveled to Warsaw. Before I left, I learned that Amnesty International had designated Zbigniew Romaszewski a prisoner of conscience. Arriving in Poland, I hoped to see Zosia Romaszewska, who had recently been released from prison. Her husband was still in prison. I could not say for sure that I would see her because it was not possible to make advance appointments. All I could do was to turn up at people’s apartments and hope that I would find them there. During my visit to Warsaw I met many persons who had been imprisoned, and also family members of those still imprisoned, who had been entirely cut off from such contacts. This included Zosia who I was able to spend several hours with. I was able to publish a number of articles in the US on the vitality of the Solidarity movement. During a visit to Warsaw in 1985, my colleague Ken Roth spent time with both Zbigniew, who by then had been released from prison, and Zosia. They graciously spent many hours with him. In this difficult period, when the country was still recovering after the imposition of martial law, Zbigniew and Zosia were the key source of information on the struggling dissident movement which remained very much alive despite the Soviet-backed General Wojciech Jaruzelski’s efforts to crush it. Later on, I got to know Zbigniew Romaszewski and, a couple of times, brought him to conferences in other parts of the world to speak about how a human rights movement could cope with a repressive regime. He became a Senator in Poland and Chairman of the Polish Senate Human Rights and Rule of Law Committee. The organization he founded, now the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland, is going very strong. The last time I visited Warsaw – about a year-and-a-half ago – its legal staff included 23 lawyers. It is in the forefront of human rights advocacy in Europe.”
via Remembering Zbigniew Romaszewski, Polish Human Rights Pioneer | Human Rights Watch.
Posted in HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Aryeh Neier, dissidents, Helsinki Committee, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland, Helsinki Watch, Human Rights Watch, in memoriam, obituary, Poland, Polish Helsinki Committee, repression, Zbigniew Romaszewski, Zosia Romaszewska
March 6, 2014
Last year was the worst for human rights since 2008, says the 2013 annual report from Chinese Human Rights Defenders [CHRD]. The signature “Chinese Dream” of the new leadership has instead become a “nightmare,” it says. “The Chinese government’s assault on activists last year indicates just how far authorities under the rule of President Xi Jinping are willing to go to suppress an increasingly active and emboldened civil society,” said Renee Xia, the international director of CHRD. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: 2008 Summer Olympics, annual report 2013, China, Chinese government, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, CHRD, Civil society, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyers, New Citizens’ Movement, President Xi Jinping, Renee Xia, repression, universality, Xu Zhiyong
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 