On 8 June 2016 Human Rights Watch asked the Egyptian authorities to stop persecuting a lawyer and two judges who engaged in the suspicious activity of proposing an anti-torture law!!!
Posts Tagged ‘United Nations Convention Against Torture’
Egyptian regime should be investigating those who torture, not those who draft anti-torture laws
June 8, 2016Vilma Núñez de Escorcia, 77, still not ready to stop fighting against torture in Nicaragua
December 7, 2015In 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.
She remembers her first encounter with torture Read the rest of this entry »
Amazing what can get you into trouble in Egypt..
May 25, 2015
reports that on 21 May 2015, human rights defender Mr Negad El Borai was interrogated by an investigative judge in North Giza Court, Egypt, in relation to the drafting of a new anti-torture law! On 11 March 2015 United Group convened a meeting to discuss its draft law for the prevention of torture with other experts. The preparatory committee included judges Hisham Raouf, president of the Cairo Court of Appeal, and Assem Abdel-Gabbar, vice president of the Court of Cassation! A complaint was reportedly filed by the Supreme Judicial Council against the two judges prior to Negad El Borai’s interrogation. The draft law aims to bring Egypt’s domestic law in line with the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The investigative judge summoned Negad El Borai for another interrogation session on 26 May, i.e. tomorrow. This probably gives the investigative judge time to think of something to charge him with! Read the rest of this entry »
OMCT launches again its 10 days campaign for and with Human Rights Defenders
November 26, 2014
As from 1 December the Geneva-based NGO OMCT will launch, for the 3rd year in a row, its Campaign “10 Days of Activism against torture and ill-treatment“(coinciding this year with the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention against torture). Through 10 videos, 10 human rights defenders will speak out against torture and discuss the importance of the UN Convention against Torture and its implementation in their respective countries under the slogan: “Nothing Can Justify Torture Under Any Circumstances!”. I will try and cover most of them, but you can also go to the OMCT website:
New AI video clip on Torture
May 28, 2014On 14 May 2014 Amnesty International published a new campaign video on torture. It is specially interesting as a very short summary – in images – of the history of the anti-torture campaigns started by AI under the leadership of Martin Ennals more than 40 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Russian court declares ADC Memorial formally as “foreign agent” – others to follow
December 16, 2013
On December 12, 2013, the Anti-Discrimination Centre (ADC) “Memorial” was officially declared a “foreign agent” by the Leninsky District Court of St Petersburg, and was ordered to register as such with the Ministry of Justice, according to information received by the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. Today, the court unexpectedly established that all the activities of ADC “Memorial” fall under the definition of “performing the functions of a foreign agent”. Accordingly, for the first time, a court has directly labelled a human rights NGO a “foreign agent”, and did not just order it to register as such. This decision could pave the way to increased harassment of all human rights organisations in the Russian Federation. Read the rest of this entry »
Civil proceedings against ‘Memorial’ under Russia’s Foreign Agents Law continue
November 17, 2013On 11 November the Prosecutor’s Office brought a civil lawsuit against Memorial before the Leninsky District Court of St Petersburg after administrative charges against the same organisation ‘ for failing to register as a ‘foreign agent‘ were dismissed by the same court. The Prosecutor’s Office initiated the civil suit on the basis that its failure to register as a ‘foreign agent’ would violate the interests ‘of an undefined group of persons’. Frontline Defenders follows this and other cases in which the ‘foreign agent’ harassment of NGOs in Russia continues. The details of the case are illuminating, including the involvement of a preposterous ‘expert“: Read the rest of this entry »
20 Members of the US Congress Urge Bahrain to finally accept visit by to U.N. Special Rapporteur
June 11, 2013Twenty Members of Congress are urging Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa to reconsider his decision to postpone indefinitely the visit of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, who has twice been denied access to the Kingdom Read the rest of this entry »
Igor Kalyapin, the 2nd OMCT Portrait against Torture and Impunity
December 3, 2012The second portrait in the series of 10 HRDs against Torture is: Igor Kalyapin, founder and chair of Russian NGO Committee Against Torture (CAT).
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The main obstacle we have is the same to the reason of torture: lack of effective investigation and absolute lack of will to investigate. Every case is a challenge and we never know for how many years we have to commit ourselves to deal with each of them.
Do you feel threatened because of your activities? Do you face any interference in your work? If this is the case, can you kindly precise.
Recently, we have started to face threats: our lawyers are targeted, some of them are approached by state agents, some of them were arrested, some of them were insulted. I myself now am facing a real threat to be accused of a crime that I have never committed (speaking out of investigational secret).
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Public campaigns (as illustrated in the picture), support of the victims of torture, write support letters, can play a very important role in the fight against torture.
http://www.omct.org/human-rights-defenders/events/2012/12/d22055/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 