In March, Margaret Sekaggya will finish her term as the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. For more than five years the Ugandan Margaret Sekaggya has served the mandate with dedication and commitment, and has played an integral role in promoting the work of and furthering protection for human rights defenders around the world.
Also it has been announced that the new Special Rapporteur will be Michel Forst , from France.
He is a lawyer by training and the Secretary General of the Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l’Homme de la Republique Française. From 2008 – 2013, he was the Independent Expert of the United Nations on the situation of human rights in Haiti. He was Director General of Amnesty International in France and worked in the human rights department of UNESCO. Mr. Forst is also a founding trustee of Front Line Defenders.
In short, Margaret Sekaggya did a great job – like her predecessor Hina Jilani – and the credentials of the new Rapporteur give all reason to hope that the level of knowledge and commitment will be maintained. Glad to report something good coming out of the Council!
With the Ugandan anti-gay law signed by President Museveni last week (in spite of the fascinating news that broke only afterwards that his own daughter came out publicly as lesbian opposing the law), attention on LGBTI rights in Africa has been mostly negative. The more reason to point to a small ‘victory’ in neighbouring Zimbabwe where a mostly independent judiciary had the courage to squash the charges against human rights defender Martha Tholanah of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ). Read the rest of this entry »
The Chair of the Martin Ennals Foundation, Mrs Micheline Calmy Rey, has today called for President Museveni to veto the anti-homosexual bill passed by the Ugandan Parliament on 20 December 2013. The Martin Ennals Foundation has also called on the Ugandan government to take effective steps to protect LGBT persons from violence and discrimination. Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera was awarded the Martin Ennals Award in 2011 for her activities in support of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender rights in Uganda.
The most recent report by the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, has been made public and will be officially presented to the Human Rights Council in March 2014. It is the last report by this Rapporteur whose mandate will terminate. The report finds that human rights defenders – especially journalists, lawyers, trade unionists and those who work to promote women’s rights and the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons – face ‘extraordinary risks’. It highlights cases of defamation, attacks, detention, torture and even killings. The report also documents an increased incidence of violations against people and communities opposed to mining, construction and development projects, with protesters attacked both by State and private security forces. ‘Human rights defenders play a crucial role in exposing and seeking accountability for violations by both governments and corporations. Their work is crucial to transparency, good governance and justice for victims,’ commented Phil Lynch of the International Service for Human Rights in Geneva.
The report also documents the worsening ‘use of legislation in a number of countries to refrain the activities of human rights defenders and to criminalise them’, with cited examples including laws to ‘curb the promotion of homosexuality’ and to restrict NGO access to foreign funds. ‘In the last four weeks alone, Nigeria, Russia, Uganda, Malaysia and the Ukraine have enacted or applied laws to criminalise human rights defenders and to silence their critical voice,’ Mr Lynch added.
In addition to documenting violations, the report makes a wide range of recommendations to ensure that human rights defenders are protected and can operate in a ‘safe and enabling environment’.
For those too busy to read the whole new UN report [PDF] here are the
The Ugandan parliament has now passed the bill that many feared would come one day. Although it does not foresee the death penalty anymore it still puts life jail terms on ‘aggravated homosexuality’. Back on 3 February 2013, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, a Ugandan LGBT activist, who was the 2011 Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights, spoke with the Martin Ennals award about the risks and problems.
PC Tech Magazine of 3 December carries a story from the Ugandan Daily Monitor about human rights defenders in the country accusing the government of allegedly recruiting two foreign firms to secretly carry out surveillance on individuals’ private digital equipment such as computers and mobile telephones in a move they say infringes on citizens’ right to privacy. The activists allege that the two firms are doing voice and data surveillance without permission from the telecommunication providers. “We are aware that the surveillance companies operate without permission from the telecommunication providers but have access to do surveillance. This is dangerous because people cannot have quality conversations and yet the government is supposed to protect people’s rights to privacy,” said Mr Geoffrey Ssebaggala, the chief executive officer of the Unwanted Witness- Uganda [UW-U]. He was speaking at the closure of a training workshop for journalists and business operators on the risks involved while using internet in Kampala. Mr Ssebaggala added: “Our preliminary inquiry shows that these companies send surveillance Malware to individual citizens’ computers as long as they have their Internet Protocol address to track peoples’ activities on computer and their telephones,” he said, revealing that UW-U in partnership with the Parliamentary Committee on ICT have started formulating a law to protect privacy. However, the executive director of the Uganda Media Centre, Mr Ofwono Opondo, said he was not aware of the recruitment of the said companies but insisted that whatever is done by the government is within the law. He explained that the move seeks to protect the public from terrorism and other criminal acts such as money laundering.
The Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD IC) celebrates International Women Human Rights Defenders Day (29 November 2013) byfocusing on 4 areas:
1. Tools for Defence The Online Directory of Urgent Responses for WHRDs is a mapping of “Urgent Responses for Women Human Rights Defenders at Risk”. The Online Directory outlines the diverse responses that exist and, where available, are specific to WHRDs. It is a tool for WHRDs to locate the best resources available for their protection, support, and wellness. Two new areas have been added: Digital Security and Training opportunities. http://urgent-responses.awid.org/
2. Training Given the risk specialized training on various aspects of safety and protection are intended to strengthen the capacity of WHRDs to respond or prevent attacks. These training programs address the gender dimension that highlight subtle risks that WHRDs miss when they are exposed to gender based violence and gender specific risks. It is important that they multiply this knowledge with other WHRDs and members of the communities they work with.
3. Digital Security Women defenders face many unique threats and obstacles both offline and online. Technology is transforming activism, and the promotion and defence of human rights but awareness there are also digital dangers to WHRD’s freedom of expression and association online and knowing how to communicate securely is important in ensuring a holistic approach to security for WHRD’s. WHRD IC hosted a train-the-trainer workshop for a global group WHRDs in digital security and is currently supporting their in-country activities. In 2014 it will assist WHRDs to access further training in digital security. Examples of attacks: – On 21 September the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network’s (LACWHN) website was hacked and disabled. The attack occurred immediately following the launch of several campaign activities on September 19th and 20th including the #28SAbortoLegal social media campaign as well as the posting of a photo album and posters. This was a deliberate attempt to silence legitimate feminist voices, suppress dissent and stifle women’s political participation in the public sphere on these issues by stigmatisation and sabotage. http://www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org/statement_whrdic_LACWHN.php <http://www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org/statement_whrdic_LACWHN.php>
– In 2012 the offices of Women’s Organization Network for Human Rights Advocacy (WONETHA) were raided, staff arrested and authorities confiscated documents, computers and other material from the centre. They demanded passwords and read emails and correspondence, which seriously compromise the privacy and security of staff and members of WONETHA. 4. Celebrate, honour, remember This tribute takes the form of an online photo exhibition <https://plus.google.com/photos/110714837166729000165/albums/5947969816908571489> launched on November 25th 2013, Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with a special slide show featuring 16 WHRDs from around the world and will end on December 10, International Human Rights Day. The tribute features photographs and biographies of women’s rights leaders from around the world. Each day of the campaign AWID will share the story of a WHRD(s) on its website as well as through Facebook and Twitter using hashtags #16days and #AWIDMembers and link back to the full online exhibit which will commemorate and celebrate the work and lives of WHRDs who have passed away since January 2011.http://www.awid.org/eng/Our-Initiatives/Women-Human-Rights-Defenders/WHRD-Tribute.
A three-day Forum on the participation of African NGOs at the 54th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights [ACHPR] and also the 28th African Human Rights Book Fair concluded on Sunday, 20th October, 2013 in Kololi. The forum brought together stakeholders dealing with various human rights issues from different parts of Africa. Various reports were presented that touched on media freedom and freedom of expression as well as on laws and principles governing media practice such as defamation, sedition and other draconian laws that prevail in many African countries. Kebba Jeffang reports in the Foroyaa newspaper of 21 October on the results:
The Pan African Human Rights Defenders Network, one of the regional partners of the MEA, on 22 October, awarded 5 activists with its Africa Human Rights Defenders Award. The winners of this first edition are:
Imam Baba Leigh from the Gambia (released on 11 May from jail as reported in this blog)
UNHCR announced today – 17 September – that the Nansen Refugee Award 2013 goes to Sister Angélique Namaika, who works in a remote north-east region of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with survivors of displacement and abuse by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Read the rest of this entry »
He is a lawyer by training and the Secretary General of the Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l’Homme de la Republique Française. From 2008 – 2013, he was the Independent Expert of the United Nations on the situation of human rights in Haiti. He was Director General of Amnesty International in France and worked in the human rights department of UNESCO. Mr. Forst is also a founding trustee of Front Line Defenders.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 