share information on human rights defenders, with special focus on human rights awards and laureates
In the ongoing saga concerning the asylum request by Snowden, Kenneth Ross, the director of Human Rights Watch, makes on 2 August an interesting and courageous comment on Twitter: “Instead of trying to extradite Snowden, Congress should ask him to testify by video as spur to end mass NSA snooping.”
The City of Geneva and the Martin Ennals Foundation announce the 2013 edition of Martin Ennals Award, which will take place on Tuesday 8 October 2013 at 18h00 at the Uni-Dufour, Geneva. The Laureate will be announced Read the rest of this entry »
(Svetlana Gannushkina)via Russian Rights Defender Fined For Refusing Demand For Documents.
Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders condemns the brutal use of force against the Russian NGO ‘’For Human Rights’’ and its chairman Lev Ponomaryov, during the organisation’s forcible eviction Saturday night, 22 June 2013. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday I referred to the difficulty of defining human rights defenders in relation to a Nigerian politician, and here comes another, maybe more difficult one:
As the United States Justice Department prepare charges against Edward Snowden, former federal government contractor who revealed the NSA’s secret surveillance program rights violation, as ABC News reported, Russia said Tuesday 11 June that it would consider a request from him for safe haven and The Guardian reported tuesday that Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says any appeal from whistleblower Edward Snowden for asylum will be looked at ‘according to facts,’
Aleksey Pushkov, chair of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, said Snowden is a “human rights activist.” Referring to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Pushkov said, “In this sense, Snowden — like Assange — is a human-rights activist.”
“I’m willing to sacrifice all that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people all around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,” Snowden himself told The Guardian.
Russia might aid Snowden human rights activist – National Human Rights | Examiner.com.
In the series Storytellers, Deutsche Welle gives the floor to Tanya Lokshina of HRW who has worked for 15 years in of the most difficult regions: Russia itself and conflict-ridden volatile areas like Chechnya and Dagestan as well as South Ossetia.
At first glance, Tanya Lokshina may not be the kind of person you would expect to travel to some of Russia’s most dangerous areas on a regular basis. But Read the rest of this entry »
The FIDH Representative to the UN in Geneva (http://www.fidh.org) invites people to a side event entitled: RUSSIA & BELARUS: JOINT OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM, which will be held on 5 June 2013, in room VIII of the Palais des Nations, from 2pm – 4pm.
Participants:
Mr. Miklos Haraszti, Special Rapporteur on Belarus (TBC)
Olga Abramenko, Director of ADC Memorial (Russia) who was recently charged for publishing a report entitled “Roma, Migrants, Activists: Victims of Police Abuse” and submitting it to the UN Committee Against Torture.
Valentin Stefanovitch, Deputy Head of Human Rights Center VIASNA (Belarus) who will provide context on the Belarusian situation and draw comparisons with the harassment of Russian NGOs.
Dimitry Kolbasin, Head of the Information Department of AGORA (Russia) who will focus on the increasing repression of Russian human rights NGOs.
Valery Sozaev, Advocacy Manager, LGBT Network (Russia) who will specifically tackle issues facing LGBT people
On 18 May 2013, a meeting of the Komi Human Rights Commission Memorial (KHRC Memorial) was aggressively interrupted by members of the radical nationalist group “Rubezh Severa” (Northern Border). Members of KHRC Memorial had gathered in a local cafeteria in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic, Russia, to report on their work and financial situation for the period 2011-13. The meeting was public, and several journalists had been invited. As soon as the meeting began, members of the radical right group entered the room, calling the group foreign agents and waving banners, one of which read “Motherland for Sale, Reasonable Price”. Members of the human rights group managed to force the intruders out of the café and called the police, but not before two leaders, Igor Sazhin and Pavel Andreyev had ketchup thrown at their heads. The police detained the intruders and released them after administrative protocol had been completed. The incident comes just a few weeks after the KHRC Memorial received a warning from the Prosecutor’s Office on 27 April 2013, stating that some of its activities, such as its participation in protest actions were ‘political activity’. As such, the organisation is required to register as a ‘foreign agent‘ under the controversial ‘Foreign Agents’ Law, as it also receives funds from abroad. Front Line Defenders believes the attack is a possible effect of the new ‘Foreign Agents’ Law.
(Magamed Abubakarov)
Magamed Abubakarov, a Russian human rights lawyer specialized in terrorist cases in the North-Caucasus, will receive the Lawyers for Lawyers Award 2013. Magamed Abubakarov will accept the award on 31 May at the end of a seminar called ‘Lawyers controlled, independence at stake?’ in Amsterdam. Read the rest of this entry »
On 16 May 2013 Russia Today spoke with the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights Konstantin Dolgov, to find out his view on the situation as the hunger strike in Guantanamo hits its’ 100-day landmark. It is good to see Russia express its concern about this and even invoke the views of human rights defenders. Below I give some quotes from the interview. If only Russia would always be so concerned with their views! As to illustrate this the Moscow Times comes today with an article by Jonathan Earle Read the rest of this entry »
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 