UN independent experts on 26 May 2025 expressed grave concern over the continued detention of Anar Mammadli, a prominent Azerbaijani human rights defender who was arbitrarily detained on 29 April last year. “Defending human rights should never be considered a crime,” the experts said.
Anar Mammadli, Chair of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS), was arrested on 29 April 2024 amid what experts describe as a growing clampdown on critical voices and independent election observers in Azerbaijan. His arrest came shortly after EMDS reported irregularities during the February 2024 presidential elections, and after he participated in events at the UN Human Rights Council.
On 28 June 2024, the experts wrote to the Azerbaijani authorities to raise serious concerns about Mammadli’s alleged arbitrary detention, warrantless searches, restricted access to legal counsel, deteriorating health conditions in detention and a smear campaign reportedly targeting him in retaliation for his legitimate human rights work.
“There are serious concerns that Mammadli’s detention and prosecution may be in retaliation for his human rights work and his engagement with UN mechanisms,” they said.
The Azerbaijani Government responded by denying the allegations, stating that Anar Mammadli was under investigation for smuggling and money laundering. According to their response, he has been provided with all necessary legal rights and medical care during his detention.
The experts are still concerned about the legal proceedings, especially given Mammadli’s previous imprisonment in 2013, which the European Court of Human Rights deemed unlawful and politically motivated. Despite the Court’s 2018 judgment requiring Azerbaijan to quash the conviction and restore Mammadli’s civil and political rights, these remedies have allegedly not been implemented.
The experts will continue to monitor the case, particularly with regard to any potential connection to reprisals for engagement with UN human rights mechanisms.
On 20 June 2024 Swissinfo spoke with human rights defenders from Ukraine and Israel about how they operate in tough contexts. The main tasks of human rights defenders include investigating, collecting information about, and reporting rights violations. They raise public awareness to ensure that human rights are respected. But how do they work in a war zone or in an environment where a large part of public opinion is against them? SWI swissinfo met activists from Ukraine and Israel in Geneva’s Palais des Nations, where they had come to meet delegations and attend side-events during a session of the Human Rights CouncilExternal link .
“We are documenting testimonies from victims of the war in Ukraine,” says Lyubov Smachylo, an analyst with the Ukrainian organisation Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR).
MIHR’s main office is in Kyiv. It has direct access to victims and witnesses of rights violations, such as Ukrainians living in the north of the country – formerly under Russian occupation and now back under Ukrainian rule – or former prisoners in Russian jails. Smachylo, who lives between Kyiv and Paris, analyses documented testimonies of human rights violations committed by Russia. These include Russian armed forces acting with generalised impunity, the arbitrary detention of civilians – often accompanied by torture and ill-treatment – and in some cases enforced disappearances. Lyubov Smachylo from the Ukrainian Media Initiative for Human Rights. Courtesy of Lyubov Smachlyo
MIHR is one of the few NGOs able to gather information on the ground. Virtually no international organisation can go into the occupied Ukrainian regions, not even the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), for example, has only limited access to Ukrainian prisoners of war. This absence of accountability and the underreporting of abuses mean there is an increased risk of mistreatment and of perpetrators going unpunished.
Among other things, the MIHR deals with prisoners of war and civilians who have been arrested in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine or who are being detained in unknown places. Beatings and torture are rife, and some have died because of the poor detention conditions, says Smachylo.
“We know of 55 places of detention in the occupied regions of Ukraine and 40 in Russia, where a total of at least 1,550 Ukrainian civilians are being held,” says Smachylo. Contacted by SWI, the ICRC did not comment on whether it has access to the occupied regions. More More Human Rights Council: Fundamental or fundamentally flawed?
This content was published on Jun 30, 2021 The Human Rights Council, convening in Geneva, is mired in US-China rivalry, while the Council also faces criticism from developing countries. Read more: Human Rights Council: Fundamental or fundamentally flawed Increasingly hostile environment
Tal Steiner is meanwhile a human rights lawyer and director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). The NGO holds Israel accountable on its use of torture, which is not illegal in the country, although there is an absolute prohibition on torture enshrined in international human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Steiner says her NGO’s work has become particularly difficult since the Hamas attacks of October 7 and the Israeli-Palestinian war. Israel has restricted access to political prisoners, while rights defenders find themselves in an increasingly hostile environment where they are regularly branded as“defending terrorists”.
The political prisoners to which Steiner has access include Palestinians living in Israel and in the West Bank as well as Jewish Israeli citizens.
“Working on the issue of torture – or on any issue in Israel that affects human rights in terms of security – has never been easy,” she says. Tal Steiner, right, pictured with Miriam Azem, advocacy associate at the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (ADALAH). Keystone/AFP/Coffrini
Compassion for Palestinian prisoners and the view that human rights apply to everyone have been greatly diminished since the war, Steiner explains.“This means that the circle that supports our work has become smaller.”
According to her, many Israelis have opted for security above human rights. Many also harbour feelings of vengeance towards Palestinians.“We saw this, for example, at the Israeli Prison Service (IPS),” Steiner says. There, extreme overcrowding since October 7 has led to a severe deterioration in conditions, including limited access to basic needs like water, electricity, food, and medical care. Human rights groups have also noted cases of severe beating of detainees and prisoners, sexual harassment and intimidation.
Miriam Azem also took part in the SWI interview with Steiner. The international advocacy expert works for Palestinian organisation Adalah, which defends Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories in Israeli courts. “Since October 7, the attitude towards our lawyers has changed a lot,” she says. This has become apparent in disciplinary committees, which handle disputes in universities.“Since the beginning of the war, over 120 disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against Palestinian students – citizens of Israel – for statements made on their private social media accounts” she says.
She cites the example of Palestinian students with Israeli citizenship who have been accused of inciting terrorism on the basis of unfounded arguments. Adalah attorneys, who have represented 95 Palestinian students facing this charge,“were questioned regarding their loyalty to Israel”, Azem says.
According to Azem, there has been an increase in arrests and interrogations due to posts on social media. “The vast majority of these posts do not meet any criminal threshold. Nevertheless, the accusations against activists were grounded in Israel’s Counter-Terror Law, which carries severe imprisonment penalties,” she says. More More Is Geneva still the capital of peace?
In February, PCATI and Adalah, together with two other Israeli organisations, sent an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards. They called on Edwards to intervene immediately to stop torture and the systematic mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention facilities. Apart from private lawyers, these are the only four organisations that can currently visit Israeli prisons – Israel has denied the ICRC access.
“We are therefore the only ones who can report what we have seen there,” says Steiner. Around 10,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently in Israeli custody, many of them detained without trial. However, no one is allowed to visit the Israeli military camps for prisoners from the Gaza Strip. PCATI fears a“new Guantanamo” is being established there, in reference to the US facility in Cuba where prisoners were held indefinitely without trial in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
In their appeal to the UN rapporteur, the four organisations also expressed concern about the dehumanising rhetoric being used by some members of the Israeli government. The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in charge of the IPS, has repeatedly spoken out in favour of subjecting Palestinians to degrading and inhumane treatment.
In the meantime, UN rapporteur Edwards has called on Israel to investigate the numerous allegations of torture against detained Palestinians. Since the attacks of October 7, it is estimated that thousands of Palestinians including children have been detained, she has written. Edwards says she received allegations of individuals being beaten, kept blindfolded in cells, handcuffed for excessive periods, deprived of sleep, and threatened with physical and sexual violence. Burnouts and death threats
Burnout and death threats are also part of the job. Smachylo says the war which stretches through the whole of Ukraine is an added strain on a very stressful job. Activists and staff members of her organisation spend hours writing reports detailing torture and mistreatment of Ukrainian citizens by the Russian authorities. She particularly highlights the risk of burnout for those who regularly carry out missions in the field.
The Geneva-based World Organization against Torture (OMCT), which cooperates with the NGO, provides financial support for their psychological and therapeutic retreats.
Steiner, for her part, draws particular attention to the huge amount of work involved.“In view of the grief over the tragedies of October 7 and the war in the Gaza Strip, cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians is proving to be a challenge right now,” she says. For her, it is fundamental that every detainee has the right to defense.
Smear campaigns have also targeted her work. For example, the Israeli TV station Channel14, the equivalent of the rightwing US station Fox News, made a derogatory programme about PCATI and other organisations campaigning for Palestinian rights. The title:“Disgrace: the Israeli activists who take care of the treatment of Hamas terrorists”. The program led to harassment and threatening phone calls. Some of the emails Steiner received were about rape and death threats, others targeted her family.
“We are aware that we are operating in an environment that is very hostile to our work,” says Azem.“As an NGO registered in Israel, we are extremely cautious.” Steiner adds that the persecution of NGOs in Israel and Palestine has a long history. Six Palestinian human rights organisations have been classified as terrorist by Israel. And several bills currently envisage a higher taxation rate for Israeli NGOs in order to block their work.
Michelle Langrand for Geneva Solutions of 20 March 2024 has an exclusive report on the liquidity crunch and its effect on the UN human rights branch. Here her report in full:
UN secretary general António Guterres and UN human rights high commissioner Volker Türk at the opening of the Human Rights Council 55th session in Geneva, 26 February 2024. (UN Photo/Elma Okic)
As the United Nations faces its worst liquidity crisis in recent history, experts, staff and observers worry about the ramifications on human rights work. Correspondence seen by Geneva Solutions reveals concerns at the highest levels of the UN human rights branch in Geneva as they are forced to scale back their operations.
A patchwork of cost-saving measures taken over the winter holidays at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, from keeping the heat down and closing the premises for two weeks, revealed how serious the UN’s cash troubles were after states failed to fully pay their bills in 2023. The new year didn’t brighten prospects either. In January, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in New York announced that “aggressive cash conservation measures” would be taken across the organisation to avoid running out of cash by August as year-end arrears reached a record $859 million.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for a cash-strapped UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as worsening human rights crises worldwide add to its workload. The Geneva-based office acts as a secretariat for dozens of independent experts, investigative bodies and human rights committees that rely for the most part on the UN’s regular budget and few voluntary contributions from states. Between vacancies and travel restrictions, both insiders and outsiders worry that planned cuts could severely impair the UN’s crucial human rights work.
Understaffed and overwhelmed
On 12 February, just as the UN’s Geneva headquarters prepared for one of its busiest months hosting the Human Rights Council’s first session of the year, bad news came from New York. Countries had only paid one-third of the UN’s $3.59bn regular budget for 2024, and instructions from the higher-ups were that the hiring freeze imposed in July 2023 would be extended throughout 2024 across UN operations. The organisation said that $350 million would need to be shaved off through spending restrictions on travel, conference services and others.
Human rights bodies, where vacancies had been piling up in the last months, would have to continue to run with reduced staff. In a letter from 23 December, UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk had already warned Council president Omar Zniber that 63 posts in over 10 investigative mandates were waiting to be filled while recruitments had been placed on hold. Currently, there are active investigations on serious human rights abuses in Ukraine, Iran, Syria, South Sudan and Nicaragua among others.
“While no compromise has been made in terms of methodology, some of the investigative bodies have had to narrow the scope of both their investigations and their upcoming reports,” the letter reads.
The fact-finding mission on Sudan was one of the bodies immediately affected. Created in October to collect evidence on atrocities committed during the last year of bloody conflict in which thousands of civilians have been killed and millions displaced, the probe body has struggled to begin work. The independent experts composing it, who aren’t paid, have been appointed since December, but as of late February, the Human Rights Office hadn’t been able to hire a support team due to insufficient cash flow, according to a Human Rights Council spokesperson. The experts, who have been mandated for one year, are due to present their findings in September, with observers wondering whether the western-led proposal will garner the political backing it needs to be renewed.
That isn’t the only initiative struggling to get off the ground. “We have met with some new mandates, and we realised that they barely have a team, if any, to support them,” said one NGO member who collaborates with the human rights mechanisms and asked to remain anonymous. Observers say most investigative bodies, even older ones, are impacted at some level.
Kaoru Okoizumi, deputy head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism on Myanmar (IIMM) – the largest human rights probe team – said six out of 57 staff positions funded through the UN’s regular budget were vacant, significantly affecting their work. The IIMM, which also relies on a trust fund made up of voluntary donations and doesn’t depend on the OHCHR’s budget, is coping better than most.
Expert committees that oversee states’ compliance with international human rights law, such as on children’s rights and on torture, are also stretched thin. One staffer said they were required to take on more work than normally expected, for example, having to conduct research and compile information about several countries at the same time for one session. “It’s just too much!” they said, adding that their team was short of more than 10 people.
Another worker from the OHCHR’s special procedures branch, who said was covering for several vacant spots, conceded that the quality of work is affected in such conditions. “Of course, you won’t work as well after pulling all-nighters,” they said. Türk’s letter to Zniber acknowledges that the secretariat was having trouble supporting some 60 special procedures, which are UN-backed independent experts or groups of experts assigned to report to the council on a specific theme or country.
While the problem of understaffing isn’t new, and many also point to cumbersome months-long recruitment processes that are often incompatible with brief mandates, the situation has worsened. To compensate for the hiring freeze, the UN has also increasingly resorted to temporary contracts that last for a few months and can be exceptionally renewed for up to two years. The two workers, who have living on contract to contract for more than a year, said that there is fear that temporary staff may be among the first to go, along with consultants. “In the food chain of contracts, we’re at the bottom,” one of them said.
A slim year for the Human Rights Council
The UN’s human rights branch, which receives as little as four per cent of the UN’s total budget – around $142 million – just enough to cover one third of its activities, has been scrambling to cut back on spending. On Friday, in another letter seen by Geneva Solutions, Türk informed Zniber that his office would be forced to axe certain activities this year.
OHCHR spokesperson Marta Hurtado confirmed the information to Geneva Solutions by writing: “The office has developed an internal contingency plan, which provides for adjustment pending the complete availability of regular budget resources become available.”
Among the measures it proposes is postponing some activities to 2025 altogether while as many consultations and meetings as possible would be moved online without interpretation, according to Hurtado, since the UN in New York hasn’t authorised it for virtual meetings. For those that will be held in person, resources to fly in experts and civil society will also be reduced.
The UN’s recent decision that it would no longer provide online services for meetings has drawn outcry from rights campaigners who argue it curtails the possibility of civil society groups and states with little resources to participate. While the move has been attributed to matters of rules, observers can’t help but wonder if it isn’t, in the end, about the money. Echoing the concerns in the letter, Türks described the impact of these measures on participation from experts and other stakeholders as “deeply regrettable”.
Another issue raised by the UN rights chief is the difficulty that his office has been facing in providing technical assistance to national authorities. He gave the example of the Marshall Islands, which requested help in 2022 to assess the human rights impact of US nuclear testing in its territory in the 1940s and 50s. A source said that although a first visit finally took place this year, work has been delayed.
Marc Limon, director of the human rights think tank Universal Rights Group, remarked that work by the Council to help states improve their rights record through capacity-building support was unfortunately “almost inexistent” and regretted that resources couldn’t be spared for what he calls the “hard end of human rights diplomacy”. “While UN investigations must be protected, there is little threat to key commissions of inquiry due to the huge budgets allocated to them in the first place,” he said. Most probe bodies have between 17 to 27 staff while special procedures usually have one or two assistants.
The Moroccan ambassador forwarded Türk’s letter to fellow states on Monday and said a draft decision regarding the measures would be tabled for the council to consider at the end of the session at the beginning of April.
Human rights credibility at stake
One that has raised eyebrows but isn’t explicitly mentioned by the UN rights chief is limiting country visits by UN experts to one visit instead of two. Hurtado acknowledged that special procedures and other expert mechanisms, including probe bodies, would see their country visits “reduced” while not commenting on the number of authorised visits.
One UN expert, speaking under the condition of anonymity, voiced concern over the restriction. “Country visits are extremely important because they give us a real intimate understanding of a place and the state gets direct feedback on what they’re doing well and what they can do to improve, while also energising civil society,” they said, point out that experts were already barely able to conduct visits during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Limon commented that while it was a wise choice to cut back on some of the “superfluous” debates and activities, reducing special rapporteur trips to countries to one per year, an idea that he said has been floated around before, showed the office “had its priorities wrong”.
Travel restrictions could also have significant implications for criminal cases. Okoizumi said her Myanmar team only had 65 per cent of its usual travel budget, which is key for the Geneva-based group to reach victims and witnesses. “We do our witness interviews in person because we think it’s important in a criminal investigation to make sure that interviews are being conducted in a way that preserves the integrity of the testimony,” she said.
The body, set up in 2018 by the Human Rights Council, is currently working to support a case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar for violating the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice, as well as investigations on crimes against the Rohingya at the International Criminal Court and Argentina.
“These are very concrete proceedings and our ability to support them will be impacted by the number of interviews that we’re able to conduct or the analysis that we’re able to produce and share with these jurisdictions,” Okoizumi said, noting that the ICJ case is particularly time-sensitive as both parties were expected to make submissions this year.
The international lawyer said this has meant shifting resources to meet shorter-term deadlines at the risk of putting aside other objectives. “The whole point of having an investigative mechanism is to make sure that we can collect the evidence very soon after a crime happens, even if there isn’t an investigation or prosecution until many years or even decades later. So, shifting our resources in that way, overall will have a negative impact,” she explained.
Top experts within the human rights branch have also rang alarm bells about the wider repercussions of the funding crisis. In a letter seen by Geneva Solutions addressed to the president of the General Assembly, Dennis Francis, dated 23 February, 10 chairs of human rights committees warned that the liquidity crisis “severely threatens the credibility and efficiency of the United Nations human rights system”.
The experts said the treaty bodies were “being denied even the minimum staff and operational resources required to deliver their critical mandates to advance human rights” at a time of “such a severe existential crisis of multilateralism and of non compliance with international law”.
Referring to some of the measures being considered, the signatories also argue that suspending sessions “for the first time in their over six decades of history for financial reasons, together with visits to prevent torture and other human rights violations” would lead to “concrete and irreversible” harm.
“When the collective security system has failed to honour the ‘never again’ pledge of 1945, the least to do is to strengthen human rights monitoring mechanisms, so that human rights violations are documented, even when justice seems extremely challenging to serve. We note with deep regret that the opposite is being done,” the custodians of human rights law wrote.
On 12 March 2024 the recently appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, Ben Saul, warned that two decades of prolific global efforts to counter terrorism have not been matched by an equally robust commitment to human rights.
In his first report to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur painted a counter-terrorism landscape strewn with human rights violations, including unlawful killings, arbitrary detention, torture, unfair trials, privacy infringements from mass surveillance, and the criminalisation of freedoms of expression, assembly, association and political participation. For earlier posts on this topic, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/anti-terrorism-legislation/
“The misuse of counter-terrorism measures not only violates the rights of suspected criminals but can also jeopardise the freedoms of the innocent,” Saul said.
He condemned the rampant weaponisation of overly-broad terrorism offences against civil society, including political opponents, activists, human rights defenders, journalists, minorities, and students. Unjustified and protracted states of emergency continue to undermine human rights, the expert warned.
“Excessive military violence in response to terrorism also destroys fundamental rights, including through violations of international humanitarian law and international criminal law,” Saul said. “Cross-border military violence is increasingly used by states even when it is not justified under the international law of self-defence.”
“Many states have also failed to address the root causes of terrorism, including state violations of human rights – while impunity for those violations is endemic,” he said.
Saul said regrettably, the UN has been part of the problem, by encouraging authoritarian regimes to strengthen counter-terrorism laws in the absence of a rule of law culture or human rights safeguards. “The UN must also do better to meaningfully consult civil society on counter-terrorism,” he said.
Announcing his priorities for his three-year term, the Special Rapporteur said his focus would include ensuring regional organisations respect human rights when countering terrorism; all coercive administrative measures used to prevent terrorism comply with human rights; and States are held accountable for large-scale violations of human rights resulting from counter terrorism – and victims receive full and effective remedies.
Saul will also continue the efforts of his predecessor on preventing the abuse of counter-terrorism measures against civil society; protecting the 70,000 people arbitrarily detained in north-east Syria in the conflict against ISIL; protecting detainees and transferees from the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; ensuring that the UN safeguards human rights in its counter-terrorism work, regulating new technologies used in counter-terrorism; and protecting the victims of terrorism.
“Human rights in counter-terrorism are at increased risk because of rising authoritarianism, surging domestic polarisation and extremism, geopolitical competition, dysfunction in the Security Council and new tools, including social media, for fuelling dehumanisation, vilification, incitement and misinformation,” the Special Rapporteur warned.
“Double standards and selectivity by major powers in the enforcement of human rights is also eroding public confidence in the credibility of the international human rights system,” he said. “States must move beyond rhetorical commitment to human rights and instead place human rights at the heart of all counter-terrorism measures.”
Matiullah Wesa, a girls’ education advocate, reads to students in the open area in Spin Boldak district in the southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan on May 21, 2022. Siddiqullah Khan/AP
On 26 October 2023 AP reported that the Taliban have freed an Afghan activist who campaigned for the education of girls. Matiullah Wesa was arrested seven months ago and spent 215 days in prison, according to the group, Pen Path.
The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Rina Amiri,, has welcomed the release of Matiullah Wesa, the founder of the “Rah-e-Qalam” organization and an education activist, and has called for the freedom of all human rights defenders in Afghanistan. Richard Bennett, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of the United Nations, has requested the immediate and unconditional release of all individuals detained “arbitrarily for defending their rights and the rights of others.”
Ataullah Wesa, Matiullah’s brother, announced on his social media account that he had been released after 215 days. However, some human rights activists and well-known members of Afghan civil society remain in prison.
Amnesty International said that Wesa should never have been jailed for promoting girls’ rights to education.
“The Taliban de-facto authorities must release human rights defenders and women protesters Rasool Parsi, Neda Parwani, Zholia Parsi and Manizha Sediqi and all others who are unfairly kept behind bars for standing up for equality and denouncing repression,” the rights group tweeted.
The human rights situation in Belarus is catastrophic, and only getting worse, the United Nations special rapporteur on the country said on 4 July 2023, according to AFP.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Minsk is deliberately purging civil society of its last dissenting voices, Anais Marin told the U.N. Human Rights Council.
“The situation remains catastrophic. Unfortunately, it keeps on worsening,” said the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus. “The Belarusian government amended an already restrictive legislation aimed at dismantling civic freedoms, leading to a surge in politically motivated prosecutions and sentencing.
“The lack of accountability for human rights violations fosters a climate of fear among victims and their families,” Marin said. Marin has been in post for five years and reminded the council that she alerted them two years ago to the “totalitarian turn” taken by Minsk, evidenced by the “disregard for human life and dignity” during the crackdown on peaceful protesters in 2020. In her annual report, the French political scientist said more than 1,500 individuals were still being detained on politically motivated charges, with a daily average of 17 arbitrary arrests since 2020.
“I have good reasons to believe that prison conditions are deliberately made harsher for those sentenced on politically motivated grounds, by placing them in punishment cells for petty infraction to prison rules,” said Marin.
“No one has been held accountable in Belarus for arbitrarily detaining tens of thousands of peaceful protesters in 2020, nor for the violence or torture many of them have been subjected to.
“This general impunity, and the climate of fear resulting from ongoing repression, have compelled hundreds of thousands of Belarusians into exile.
Human rights defenders face ongoing persecution, she said, with more than 1,600 “undesirable organizations forcibly dissolved, including all remaining independent trade unions.
“This illustrates a deliberate state policy of purging civic space of its last dissenting elements,” she said.
Marin said independent media outlets had been labelled as “extremist organizations,” while academic freedom is “systematically attacked.”
“Ideological control and disciplinary measures restrict freedom of opinion and their expression,” she said.
Primary and secondary education is also subject to “ideological control,” with children “discouraged from expressing their own opinions” and facing “threats and consequences” for holding dissenting views.
Consequences for speaking out
As for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, individuals face challenges when trying to speak out against it or question Belarus’s role in facilitating the 2022 invasion.
“Anti-war actions led to numerous detentions and arrests, some on charges of planning terrorist attacks — a crime which can now be punished by death,” she said.
Belarus was immediately offered the Human Rights Council floor to respond to Marin’s comments but was not present.
On 11 July HRW underlined this with the case of Belarusian lawyer Yulia Yurhilevich and journalist Pavel Mazheika who ace up to seven years in prison
14 NGOs call on Bahrain to ensure that human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja is allowed adequate medical treatment, as well as the right to access and respond to allegations made by the Government of Bahrain in a response to a UN communication.
In a joint communication made public on 4 May 2023, six UN experts – including the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, and the Vice-Chair of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Mumba Malila – expressed their utmost concern at the continued arbitrary detention of human rights defender Mr. Al-Khawaja. He is a widely recognised HRD, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/4d45e316-c636-4d02-852d-7bfc2b08b78d
The UN communication addresses troubling allegations of torture, ill treatment and poor prison conditions of Mr. Al-Khawaja, including intimidation, restriction of communication with family, deprivation of basic rights, including his inability to give power of attorney to his lawyer in court, as required, shackling of hands, despite doctors’ orders to the contrary, as well as fabrication of cases against him and other political prisoners in Bahrain.
The UN communication was sent to the Government of Bahrain on 17 February 2023 and remained confidential for 60 days, as is UN protocol. The Government of Bahrain replied to the six UN experts on 17 April 2023, which was recently translated and made publicly available.
The Government of Bahrain’s response denies that Mr. Al-Khawaja has been subject to torture. This is contradicted by findings from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), which was established by the King of Bahrain and medically documented that Al-Khawaja was subjected to torture and sexually assaulted by security forces in 2011. Furthermore, the Government of Bahrain’s response fails to adequately recognize Mr. Al-Khawaja as a human rights defender or acknowledge the arbitrary nature of his detention.
On more than one occasion, Mr. Al-Khawaja attempted to receive information over the phone about the nature of the UN communication, including the Government of Bahrain’s response, but the calls were systematically cut by the authorities. Therefore, Mr. Al-Khawaja officially requested through his lawyer that he be allowed a hard copy of the mentioned documents. The signatories call on Bahrain to ensure that the request is honored.
In addition, Mr. Al-Khawaja has continued to be repeatedly denied access to a cardiologist, as well as other appointments with relevant doctors, despite being at risk of a heart attack or stroke at any time. As recently as the past two weeks, Mr. Al-Khawaja was denied two medical appointments, the most recent being on Thursday 11 May 2023.
Since 9 May 2023, Mr. Al-Khawaja has protested in the yard of Jaw Prison on a daily basis holding up two signs in front of the CCTV cameras stating “Treatment prevention is slow systematic killing” and “You commit torture and prevent treatment” in order for him and his fellow prisoners of conscience to be allowed his necessary medical appointments. He informed his family on 14 May 2023 that he has suspended his protest temporarily due to promises made by the prison administration to improve conditions and allow access to adequate treatment.
The signatories call on the Government of Bahrain to:
Immediately and unconditionally release human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, as well as all other prisoners of conscience.
Ensure that Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja is taken to the necessary medical appointments for diagnostics and treatment.
Ensure that Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja obtains the requested documents related to the UN communication and that he is allowed a written response.
Signatories:
The #FreeAlKhawaja Campaign
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
Mat Nashed in Al-Jazeera of 18 April 2022 reports how Sulima Ishaq’s work against sexual violence is now being used against her.
On March 28, Volker Perthes told the United Nations’ Security Council that Sudanese government forces had raped 16 female protesters since last December’s anti-coup protests. He added that as UN envoy for Sudan, he was working with the Combating Violence Against Women (CVAW) Unit under the Ministry of Social Affairs and civil society to mitigate sexual violence in the country.
The next week, Sulima Ishaq, head of the unit, was interrogated by security services. Her lawyers say she is being investigated for accusations of “leaking state secrets” to the UN envoy under Article 47 of the country’s criminal act.
“The information I gave to the [UN] had already been broadcasted on television channels and media outlets,” Ishaq, who is now worried that she’ll go to prison on trumped-up charges, told Al Jazeera over the phone. “But because the information was presented to the Security Council and the [coup forces] are afraid of getting sanctioned, they are [targeting] me now.”
In March, a Khartoum office – belonging to a commission investigating a June 3, 2019 incident in which security forces reportedly murdered at least 120 people to break up a sit-in – was raided by security forces.
According to Emma DiNapoli, a legal officer focusing on Sudan for Redress, a London-based non-profit advocating an end to torture worldwide, activists cooperating with the organisation have recently reported more security officers stalking them outside their homes. In some cases, this has resulted in unlawful arrests.
“None of our partners has had arrest warrants issued against them, but I think there is a general sentiment that there is higher surveillance,” DiNapoli told Al Jazeera. “Even if they are not really being surveilled, [the arrests] are having a chilling effect.”
However, experts and rights groups say Ishaq’s case represents an escalation of a broader campaign to intimidate activists and put human rights defenders on high alert.
Kholood Khair, manager of Khartoum-based think-tank Insight Strategy Partners, told Al Jazeera that the coup government is trying to make an example out of Ishaq. The authorities, she said, are particularly irked since Ishaq is a civil servant, which gives her allegations more credibility in the eyes of the international community.
In Sudan, rape victims are traditionally harassed by the public and even punished by the police, so the number of people coming forward to Ishaq was seen as a big deal, Khair explained.
“Sulima was trying to highlight that rape is a weapon of war and a weapon of repression and the number of cases [documented] shows that it is a state tactic … not a case of just individual rapists,” she said.
Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said activists have always feared that they could be targeted for documenting human rights violations against protesters. He cited the recent arrests of journalists, lawyers and doctors who appear to have been targeted for tracking unlawful arrests and killings in the country.
But the targeting of a high-profile person like Ishaq suggests that security forces are even more sensitive to scrutiny following the United States’ decision to impose sanctions on the Central Reserve Police last month, said Osman. The US cited the unit’s excessive force against protesters – including the use of live ammunition – as the reason for the decision.
Ishaq told Al Jazeera that she wished the UN envoy had been more subtle by not mentioning her unit at the Security Council meeting, given the level of repression in Sudan. “I feel that the way [the information] was stated was a little bit insensitive,” she said.
In response, Fadi Al Qadi, the spokesperson for the UN envoy, told Al Jazeera that “the special representative to the secretary-general did not name any individual in the Security Council as a source”.
And now, an atmosphere of fear is slowly enveloping the country, causing dissidents, activists and civil society to beef up personal security and take more precautions to protect themselves and sources from the eye of the authorities.
One of them is Nabil Adeeb, the septuagenarian human rights lawyer heading the investigation into the June 2019 massacre.
After government forces stormed the tribunal’s office, there were fears that evidence could be compromised and that the names of witnesses – who provided testimonies that possibly implicated specific security branches in the massacre – could be exposed.
“Our records are secure and we know that nobody would be able to access them, but we are concerned that if we resume our activities in the same place then we might expose the investigation to unwanted people since the office could be bugged,” he said.
Adeeb – who is also Ishaq’s lawyer – told Al Jazeera that she is currently being charged for defaming the security forces under Sudan’s cybercrime law, an accusation he believes has little merit.
He is concerned that Ishaq could still face more harassment and graver accusations for simply doing her job from the state, which should naturally be helping her instead. Ishaq too fears that the worst is yet to come.
”I think that I will be scapegoated to kick out Volker [from Sudan],” she said. “I will then be charged for jeopardising national security for providing [him] with sensitive information.”
Now (on Thursday 21 October 2021) the 46-strong group of countries across the wider European region has agreed to establish a new legally binding mechanism that would protect environmental defenders.
It takes the form of Special Rapporteur – or independent rights expert – who will quickly respond to alleged violations and take measures to protect those experiencing or under imminent threat of penalization, persecution, or harassment for seeking to exercise their rights under the Convention. As time is of the essence to buttress the safety of environmental defenders, any member of the public, secretariat or Party to the Aarhus Convention, will be able to submit a confidential complaint to the Special Rapporteur, even before other legal remedies have been exhausted. The agreement delegates setting up the new mechanism to the United Nations, or another international body. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/11/28/cop25-climate-defenders-also-needed-to-be-shielded/
“I remain deeply concerned by the targeting of environmental activists”, said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, welcoming the rapid response mechanism as “an important contribution to help advance my Call to Action for Human Rights”.
“This landmark decision is a clear signal to environmental defenders that they will not be left unprotected”, said UNECE chief Olga Algayerova. “It demonstrates a new level of commitment to upholding the public’s rights under the Aarhus Convention, as well as Parties’ willingness to respond effectively to grave and real-time challenges seen in the Convention’s implementation on the ground”.
While understandably all eyes are on the risks faced by those who are in the first line of sight of the Taliban such as human rights activist and women human rights defenders, a piece in India Blooms of 19 August 2021 about the “cultural disaster”, that may follow the fall of Kabul, is worth noting. The UN Special Rapporteur Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Karima Bennoune, urged countries to provide urgent assistance to human rights defenders, including those working on women’s and cultural rights, as well as artists, trying to flee the country.
“It is deplorable that the world has abandoned Afghanistan to a fundamentalist group like the Taliban whose catastrophic human rights record, including practice of gender apartheid, use of cruel punishments and systematic destruction of cultural heritage, when in power, is well documented,” she said.
The independent rights expert called for all forms of culture and cultural heritage to be protected, as well as those who defend it, and implored cultural and educational institutions everywhere to extend invitations to Afghan artists, cultural workers and students, especially women and members of minorities, to enable them to continue their work in safety.
“It is not enough for foreign governments to secure the safety of their own nationals”, said Ms. Bennoune. “They have a legal and moral obligation to act to protect the rights of Afghans, including the rights to access to education and to work, without discrimination, as well as the right of everyone to take part in cultural life.”
The Special Rapporteur said she was gravely concerned at reports of gross abuses by the Taliban, including attacks on minorities, the kidnapping of a woman human rights defender, the killing of an artist, and the exclusion of women from employment and education.
Bennoune recalled that the Taliban’s own cultural officials in 2001 had attacked the country’s national museum, destroying thousands of the most important pieces, as well as banning many cultural practices, including music.
“Afghan cultural rights defenders have worked tirelessly and at great risk since then to reconstruct and protect this heritage, as well as to create new culture. Afghan cultures are rich, dynamic and syncretic and entirely at odds with the harsh worldview of the Taliban,” she said.
“Governments which think that they can live with ‘Pax Taliban’ will find that this is grave error that destroys Afghan lives, rights and cultures, and eviscerates important advances that had been made in culture and education in the last two decades with international support and through tireless local efforts.”
Bennoune said such a policy will harm Afghans most but will also set back the struggle against fundamentalism and extremism, and their harmful effects on cultures, everywhere in the world, threatening the rights and security of all.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 