The Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation, dedicated to promoting dialogue for the peaceful resolution of conflict, organizes its annual debate on 7 March 2016, from 18h30 to 20h00, together with the Graduate Institute of Geneva. The subject is: “Mass migration: how can we ensure people’s safety and dignity?“. I takes place in the Auditorium Ivan Pictet, Maison de la Paix, Geneva. The speakers are:
Peter Maurer, President, International Committee of the Red Cross
Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Anneliese Mcauliffein Al Jazeera on 6 December 2015 reported that two Chinese human rights defenders recognised as UN refugees were forcibly deported from Thailand to China last month and have appeared on Chinese state-run television and confessed to human-trafficking offenses. CCTV reported that Jiang Yefei was arrested for “assisting others to illegally cross the national border”, and Dong Guangping was charged with using a trafficking network to flee China while awaiting trial on sedition charges. It was the first time the two men were seen since being taken from a detention centre in the Thai capital Bangkok in November and deported to China.
On 11 November 2015 the Secretary-General of the United Nations, following consultations with the regional groups, announced that Filippo Grandi of Italy is to be the new United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
This is good news for the organization and the millions of refugees as Filippo brings enormous humanitarian experience with him: He was Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from 2010 to 2014 and it’s Deputy Commissioner-General from 2005 until 2010. He served as the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and has a long-standing career with UNHCR (1988-2004), notably as Chief of Mission in Afghanistan and Chief of Staff in the High Commissioner’s Executive Office. His vast field experience includes various positions in Sudan, Syria, Turkey and Iraq, having also led emergency operations in Kenya, Benin, Ghana, Liberia, the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Yemen.
Filippo Grandi was born in Milan in 1957. He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the State Universities of Venice and Milan, and from the Gregorian University in Rome.
For World Refugee Day 2015 (20 June) the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR] has released several films featuring celebrity supporters that tell the human side of the refugee plight. This years’ campaign aims to bring the public closer to the story, showing refugees as ordinary people living in extraordinary circumstances. World Refugee Day 2015 is marked against a backdrop of multiple conflicts, growing numbers of forcibly displaced people and a rising tide of intolerance and xenophobia in many parts of the world.
The films feature UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and best-selling author, Khaled Hosseini, photographer and supermodel Helena Christensen, singer/songwriter Maher Zain and actor Jung Woo-Sung . The films were recorded during recent field visits. Each supporter introduces an individual refugee and their story. These films and other refugee stories can be found on UNHCR’s Campaign website: www.refugeeday.org.
UNHCR offices in some 120 countries are planning various events including the film première of Salam Neighbor in Washington D.C.
The site www.refugeeday.org features stories from refugees who describe in their own words their own passions and interests; cooking, music, poetry, or sports. Through their testimonials UNHCR aims to show that these are ordinary people living through extraordinary times.
This post is not directly related to Human Rights Defenders, but the numbers in this press statement of 24 September 2014 are so striking that I could not resist:
A spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Refugees at the UN, Melissa Fleming, revealed that “Turkey received 138,000 [Syrian] refugees in three days, which is equivalent to what was received by Europe throughout the past three years,” Anadolu news agency reported.
On 7 March 2014 UNHCR published a series of 6 videos on female genital mutilation (FGM), Too Much Pain, with stories of refugee women who have undergone FGM and have become human rights defenders engaged to end this practice. These women explain their experiences of flight, asylum and integration in the EU. These video clips deserve much wider recognition.
In Part 1, refugee women talk about why they had to flee because of their commitment to end the practice. The other videos explain that FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The practice also violates a person’s rights to health and physical integrity; the right to be free from torture and other rights. FGM is harmful not cultural; it has life-long consequences and can be a ground for asylum. (See all videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtPw-Y91GlmWvO9wxMUW-Ey3eMY2vwWYZ )
This video complements the UNHCR publication Too Much Pain: Female Genital Mutilation & Asylum in the European Union – A Statistical Overview, and updated in March 2014 (see here: http://goo.gl/lDnCRJ).
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 »
Human Rights Defenders are involved in asylum claims in many ways. The asylum seeker may be a victim of persecution or the people who help them are human rights defenders. Anyway the new UNHCR report “Beyond Proof – Improving Credibility Assessment in EU Asylum Systems” should be a relevant tool for all of them:
With regard to the defectors sent back from Laos via China to North Korea – on which I reported a few days ago – it is interesting to note the reaction by China which has expressed anger at the criticism by two UN High Commissioners (for human rights and refugee): “We hope that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN does not make irresponsible remarks based on unspecified news,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei, but also appeared to distance itself from the repatriation by saying the refugees had passed through the country with “valid documents and visas”. “In the whole process, China has not received a request by any party to assist in the repatriation of these persons“.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 