The Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies is an interdisciplinary research centre of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Leuven, Belgium, led by prof. Jan Wouters. It carries out and supports interdisciplinary research on topics related to globalisation, global governance processes and multilateralism, and has been recognised as a KU Leuven Centre of Excellence [http://ghum.kuleuven.be/ggs/].
It has just announced a new MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). The previous edition on ‘EU and Human Rights’ reached more than 8,000 students worldwide. Starting on 21 June 2016 and running for 6 weeks, the MOOC provides a basic course on human rights using FRAME research results, targeting undergraduate students and other people interested in the topic, such as international organizations and NGO staff. It will be offered free of charge and will include a collection of videos of lectures and teaching materials.
While waiting for the breaking news of who will be the Final Nominees of the 2016 Martin Ennals Award (in 2 hours) I received the sad news that the first winner of the MEA in 1994, Chinese human rights defender Harry Wu has died at the age of 79.
Harry Wu at the official award dinner in March 1994
Yesterday, 14 March 2016 was the second anniversary of the death of Cao Shunli, a Chinese human rights defender who was detained and denied adequate medical treatment in police custody for five months, before dying in a military hospital in Beijing in 2014. This happened shortly after she was shortlisted for the Martin Ennals Award in that year. [see also https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/cao-shunli-a-profile-and-new-award-in-her-name/]. Has the situation improved…? Read the rest of this entry »
The Permanent Mission of the Netherlands in Geneva, THE Port Association (https://twitter.com/theportatcern) and Impact Hub Geneva will host their hackathon in the field of human rights, on the 26/27 February 2016. The Human Rights DiploHack event will bring together diplomats and human rights experts with tech developers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs from all over Europe and beyond, to experiment and innovate on projects that directly impact people’s lives. From the multidisciplinary expertise of the participants, teams will be formed to work on two challenges presented by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“How can Human Right Defenders collect and transport evidence in a safe way?”, and
“Does a photo or video tell the ‘truth?”.
[as a first contribution I refer to the video as evidence instructions posted by Witness on 18 February 2016
The result will be presented at the Palais des Nations, on 29 February during a side event open to the public on the occasion of the Human Rights Council (for accreditation to this side event, non-UN-badge holders are invited to contact the organizers before 24 February). True Heroes Films (THF) will be filming the event and will produce a short film to be shown at the side event.
On 4 February 2016 Penal Reform International, the Quaker UN Office, and the Permanent Representations of Switzerland and Uruguay to the UN in Geneva, invited delegates, representatives of NGOs and interested stakeholders to a briefing in the Palais des Nations in Geneva on the recently adopted revised UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the ‘Nelson Mandela Rules’.
An expert panel provided an overview of the revision process and the significance of this set of standards, and then focused on a number of critical areas of the Rules that were updated. It sought to initiate discussion on the implementation of the Nelson Mandela Rules and to start collecting recommendations and good practice in this regard.
The panel was moderated by Laurel Townhead, Quaker UN Office, and included:
· Representative of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland
· Philipp Meissner, UN Office on Drugs and Crime
· Robert Husbands, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
· Nigel Rodley, Chair, Essex University Human Rights Centre
· Stefan Enggist, World Health Organization
· Andrea Huber, Penal Reform International.
The video – prepared by True Heroes Films (THF) – is on the long side (1 1/2 hours) but is excellent for people who want to learn more about the revised standards.
It is good that an important newspaper in the US (the New York Times of 5 January 2016) carries a op-ed about the situation of human rights defenders in Israel. Under the title “Israel’s Human Rights Activists Aren’t Traitors“, Michael Sfardjan argues that smear attacks by ultra-nationalists on human rights campaigners have sunk to new lows. Michael Sfardjan is an Israeli human rights lawyer who serves as legal adviser to the Israeli organizations Breaking the Silence, Yesh Din and the Human Rights Defenders Fund. Here some long excerpts:
The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) is ‘celebrating’ its ten years of existence with the releasing a series of videos highlighting the work done.
Hassan Shire established the organization in 2005, after being forced into exile for his human rights work in Somalia. “I realized that many others shared the pain that I felt at having been forced away from my country and the sub-region,” says the Executive Director of EHAHRDP. “I began developing a project that would allow endangered human right defenders to continue their valuable work while safely staying in the region.” A decade later EHAHRDP has grown into an organization with 25 full-time staff dedicated to protecting human rights defenders throughout the region. Through capacity building and advocacy, EHAHRDP continues to empower defenders and strengthen their work, while ensuring their safety through its protection team and its network of national coalitions it established in the region.
This video explores the roots of EHAHRDP: how the idea of one human rights activist who was forced to leave Somalia became a fully functional support structure for human rights defenders across the sub-region.
At the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum on 26 May Chilean economist, Andrés Velasco, in highly personal account describes how political, economic, and social unrest led to the collapse of Chilean democracy in the 1970s. Growing up under Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship, Velasco is familiar with stories of political prisoners, torture, intimidation, and exile. Velasco argues that the extreme brutality of the military dictatorship became too difficult for most Chileans to face, allowing the violence to continue unhindered. As Velasco reminds us, however, Chilean civil society eventually united behind an incredibly creative political campaign, and succeeded in voting Pinochet out of power. Velasco ends his speech on an optimistic note, arguing that the common sense of Chileans will prevent another democratic collapse.
On 26 May 2015, Nurul Izzah Anwar, Malaysian MP and daughter of imprisoned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum. In this video he describes how she was drawn into the opposition movement in Malaysia. She tells us about rampant government corruption, the country’s defunct judicial system, and how the government targets dissidents and attempts to limit change. Anwar explains how the lack of genuine parliamentary immunity prevents Malaysian politicians from speaking against the government. She reminds us that “Malaysia’s most wanted” are the activists that challenge the government, and expresses the hope that Malaysia’s future belongs to those seeking a more democratic and fair country.
Another speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) 2015 was Charlie Hebdo columnist, Zineb El Rhazoui, who paid tribute to her colleagues slain in the January 2015 attacks [she was at the time of the attack abroad] and describes her own experience facing thousands of death threats. In her passionate defense of free speech, El Rhazoui argues that criticism of religion should be encouraged, not avoided. The personal touch in her presentation is moving.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 