Posts Tagged ‘woman human rights defender’
October 14, 2013
The Economist of this week (11 October) carries an interesting piece on peace under the title “Peace comes dropping slow”. It argues that MALALA YOUSAFZAI would have been an appropriate recipient of the Nobel peace prize, but that her admirers should be not be too disappointed that the award went instead to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. For the Western world, and indeed for many of her fellow Muslims, Malala is an extraordinary example of disinterested courage in the face of theocrats who practise tyranny by claiming a monopoly on religion and religious law. She was already famous at the age of 11 as the writer of a blog for the BBC Urdu service, giving an impression of life under the rule of the Taliban in her native Swat Valley.
She has been showered with accolades, as this blog has also shown including last week the European Union’s Sakharov prize. However, the Economist piece says that “people who really wish Malala and her cause well should be more relieved than let down. The Nobel Prize has not always brought blessings to its recipients. Mistakes made by Barack Obama as America’s commander-in-chief will be judged even more harshly because he was granted the award in 2009 as a kind of down-payment before his presidency had really got going. Mikhail Gorbachev will probably go down in history as a peace-maker, but the award (in 1990) did nothing to enhance his domestic standing which was in freefall at the time. And whatever history has to say about Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, garlanded in 1973, it will hardly describe them as doves of peace“[De Klerk and Arafat are not mentioned!]
In Northern Ireland, the article states the peace prize had in some respects a “kiss of death” [mentioning David Trimble, John Hume, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire] ….”Does 16-year-old Malala really need that? She too comes from a part of the world where international accolades can cause jealousy and cynicism as well as admiration. So she may be better off without the big prize. In any case, Malala will continue to pile up various honours and distinctions; and as with Ms Maguire, there is probably a good chance that she will use her fame to say things that disturb and provoke people, even those who are lining up to admire her.“
The Nobel peace prize: Peace comes dropping slow | The Economist.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: awards, Barack Obama, European Union, human rights awards, Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, Malala, Malala Yousafzai, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Peace Prize, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, peace prize, The Economist, woman human rights defender
October 12, 2013
On Thursday 3 October the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights [RFK Center] launched its third annual “Speak Truth to Power Student Video Contest“. This year, the contest is for the first time open to student filmmakers from all of the USA in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers, the New York State United Teachers and the Tribeca Film Institute. The video competition, originally launched in New York State in 2011, invites students to create a 3-6 minute video examining a human rights issue or violation and profiling the defenders who are fighting to restore justice.
Last year’s prize went to students of the Young Women’s Leadership School of Brooklyn, who made a film about the work of sexual slavery and trafficking activist Juliana Dogbadzi of Ghana.
Additional details can be found at http://www.speaktruthvideo.com
via Teachers, RFK Center Expand Annual Human Rights Video Contest to Students and Schools across America – The Paramus Post – Greater Paramus News and Lifestyle Webzine.
Posted in human rights | 1 Comment »
Tags: American Federation of Teachers, documentary, films, Ghana, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, human rights education, human rights films, Juliana Dogbadzi, New York State United Teachers, Paramus New Jersey, RFK, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Speak Truth to Power, student filmmakers, Tribeca Film Institute, United States, video clips, woman human rights defender
October 7, 2013
This blog tends to prioritize news on human rights defenders who are in trouble. This makes one overlook perhaps too often the contribution made by those who are working for the cause in other ways. To rectify I want to pay tribute to another woman who has contributed enormously to the creation and growth of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders: Simia Ahmadi. After 20 years she is leaving the Board of the Foundation on 7 October, just before the 20th ceremony tomorrow.
In 1992 Simia was a young, upcoming human rights worker who had just finished an internship with the UN. To her great regret she never met Martin Ennals in person. Her main motivation was that an award could be effective and volunteered to help it being set up. After successful initial fundraising she was the part-time Secretariat in the first year.
(Simia, left of first Laureate Harry Wu in 1994, Geneva)
After that, she worked several years for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). Thereafter she was Programme Coordinator of the Legal and Human Rights Centre in Tanzania and from 2006-2009 she served as FIDH’s Representative to the UN in Geneva. After her move to Kenya in 2010, she served as the Chief of Party of the Public International Law and Policy Group in Kenya. Now she devoting her considerable energy to Kahesa, of which she is the Director-Founder and undertakes consultancy work such as evaluations KAHESA is a social enterprise that produces decorative and environmentally-sound paper through the employment of mentally-challenged Kenyans. Check out her www.kahesa.com and Facebook page: Kahesa paper
For being at the cradle of the MEA and making sure that the there is no grave for long time she deserve the deepest thanks from all especially Human Rights Defenders around the world.
Posted in FIDH, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, MEA | Leave a Comment »
Tags: FIDH, Geneva, Harry Wu, human rights, International Federation for Human Rights, Kahesa, Kenya, Legal and Human Rights Centre, Martin Ennals, Martin Ennals Award, Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, Martin Ennals Foundation, MEA, Tanzania, United Nations, woman human rights defender
October 6, 2013
Foto: EPAFinally a tiny bit of good news from the Chinese front: After 2,5 years in jail the Chinese human rights defender Ni Yulan has been freed. In 2011 she won the Dutch Tulip for HRDs award. She has never been able to receive the award in person and even her daughter had not been allowed to leave the country for that purpose.
As reported by the ANP via Chinese mensenrechtenactiviste Ni weer vrij | nu.nl/buitenland | Het laatste nieuws het eerst op nu.nl.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Advocacy Organizations, China, forced evictions, harassment, Human Rights and Liberties, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Netherlands, Netherlands, Ni Yulan, prison, the Chinese human rights, Tulip award, woman human rights defender, Yulan
October 5, 2013
Malala Yousafzai has been declared the winner of an award for female defenders of human rights in war and conflict. The 16-year-old from Pakistan was due to accept the 2013 RAW in WAR Reach All Women in WAR Anna Politkovskaya Award at a London-based ceremony on 4 October. The award is named after Politkovskaya, a Russian human rights journalist and outspoken government critic, who was murdered in October 2006 – and whose assassin has still not been brought to justice. Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in April 2013, Malala began blogging for the BBC in 2009 about her life in Pakistan’s Swat Valley region and her desire to attend school freely and safely, reported the BBC. Her increasingly public profile led to her being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on her way home from school in October last year. She was then flown to the U.K. for treatment and currently lives in Birmingham, where she continues to campaign for education for girls and boys.
via Malala Yousafzai Receives Women’s Human Rights Award | TIME.com.
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Tags: Anna Politkovskaya, award, BBC, blogger, defenders of human rights, freedom of expression, human rights, human rights awards, Human rights defender, London, Malala, Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan, RAW in WAR, WAR Reach All Women in WAR Anna Politkovskaya, woman human rights defender
October 1, 2013
On 27 September 2013, Karaganda’s regional court of Karaganda confirmed the decision of the Balkhash Court to approve the forced psychiatric confinement of human rights defender and lawyer Zinaida Mukhortova on which this blog reported earlier. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: forced psychiatric treatment, Front Line Defenders, human rights, Human Rights and Liberties, Human rights defender, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, lawyer, psychiatric confinement, Psychiatry, woman human rights defender, Zinaida Mukhortova
September 18, 2013
On 17 September 2013 Pakistani education rights activist,
Malala Yousafzai, who was shot and almost killed by the Taliban, received the
Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience award in Dublin. “
I want to live in a world where free, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in AI, Amnesty international, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: AI, Ambassador of Conscience Award, Amnesty International, awards, Bono, Dublin, Harry Belafonte, human rights, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, Malala Yousafzai, media, racial discrimination, Taliban, woman human rights defender
September 17, 2013
(Sister Angélique Namaika on her bicycle to visit the girls she helps in Dungu © UNHCR/ B. Sokol)
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 »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Angélique Namaika, awards, Democratic Republic of Congo, democratic republic of the congo, displacement monitoring centre, Dungu, Geneva, human rights abuses, human rights awards, IDP, internal displacement, internal displacement monitoring centre, lords resistance army, LRA, Nansen Refugee Award, north eastern province, Uganda, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, woman human rights defender
September 9, 2013
Today I simply copy the tribute paid by a blogger, A Paper Bird, to Sunila Abeysekera (1952-2013):
The last time I saw Sunila Abeysekera was almost three years ago, over breakfast on one of her very occasional visits to New York. Some people, myself included, were trying to talk her into applying for my old job at Human Rights Watch, a post I thought far too small for her. She politely demurred, in different terms: “My life is enough of a problem,” she said, “and the last thing I need in it is a large organization.” She talked about the dangers of having your work commodified and separated from the people it’s about – either by a bureaucracy, or by the kinds of personality cults that thrive around those who get called (as she was: often, unwillingly, and accurately) “heroes.” Both distract from the simple realities of the stories you try to tell, and the stories, she said, were what counted.At the same time, she was at one of those points (they came quite frequently) where her life was in serious danger in Sri Lanka. People were threatened enough by the stories for which she was witness and messenger that they wanted to kill her. Her friends wanted her to get out, and she herself said she wanted a quiet place somewhere, to rest and think. She said that kind of thing much more often than she meant it. The resting part was something of which she was utterly incapable. She never did it, not till the very last.
Sunila died on 9 September, back in Colombo, at 61, after a long battle with cancer. I didn’t know her very well, but I thought of her as a role model as well as friend. She was scholar, activist, intellectual, feminist, and listener. Others will have more and better things to say about her. I’ll just remember this: while always subordinating herself to the stories she had to tell – – horrible stories, many of them, about rape, torture, murder in the long Sri Lankan civil war – her passion for truth and her personal compassion were always part of them. Without being that kind of person, a kind you instantly recognize but can’t possibly describe, she would never have heard them, would never have won trust or become a witness. A lot of august philosophers these days write and theorize about the role of the witness in contemporary politics and ethics, but the writing was unnecessary as long as she was alive. You could point at Sunila, and understand.
I would say “rest in peace,” but wherever she is, she isn’t resting.
via Sunila Abeysekera, witness: 1952-2013 | a paper bird.
Posted in human rights | 1 Comment »
Tags: A Paper Bird, Colombo, death, human rights, human rights def, Human Rights Watch, New York, obituary, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan, Sri Lankan Civil War, Sunila Abeysekera, woman human rights defender
September 5, 2013
On 29 August 2013, human rights defender Ms Naw Ohn Hla was found guilty of disturbing public tranquillity under Section 505(b) of the Burmese Penal Code and sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour. She had been arrested on 13 August 2013 during a peaceful protest. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: aung san suu, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma, copper mine, environmental issues, Front Line (NGO), hard labour, Human right, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, judicial harassment, Letpadaung copper mine, Myanmar, Naw Ohn Hla, Nonviolent resistance, peaceful efforts, woman human rights defender
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 