Posts Tagged ‘woman human rights defender’

Cynthia Gabriel, HRD working for Suaram, harassed in Malaysia

August 20, 2013


Cynthia-Gabriel

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), draw attention to the following situation in Malaysia.

According to the information received, on 7 August 2013, at 3.00pm, Cynthia Gabriel,  Read the rest of this entry »

Bahrain HRD Maryam al-Khawaja banned by British Airways from flight

August 10, 2013
Maryam al-Khawaja

Maryam al-Khawaja  (c) IBT
The International Business Times of 9 August reports that Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) has been prevented from boarding a British Airways flight from Copenhagen to Bahrain because of a ban issued by the government Bahrain. Why did the UK airline agreed to the ban without giving any motive for the blocking order or any advance notice?. “I had the flight this morning from Copenhagen and everything was fine. I did the online check-in yesterday,” she told IBTimes UK. “I was blocked at the boarding and told to check with the counter because there was a problem. The lady called the office in London who told her that there was a denied boarding message as a decision from Bahrain government”. Al-Khawaja holds dual Bahraini-Danish citizenship but has not renewed her Bahraini passport .  Her father Abdulhadi and sister Zainab are in jail for their role in pro-democracy protests.

 

Honduras: mining company destabilizes community and threatens HRDs

August 9, 2013

Front Line reports the continuous presence of armed security guards in the community of La Nueva Esperanza, in the department of Atlántida, threatening and intimidating the local population, resulted in the temporary kidnapping of two human rights defenders, Mr Daniel Langmeier and Ms Orlane Vidal. Both are working for the Proyecto de Acompañamiento Honduras – PROAH (Honduras Accompaniment Project), an organisation which aims to prevent or alleviate situations of risk against human rights defenders in Honduras. Read the rest of this entry »

Egyptian Human Rights Defender Ragia Omran wins 2013 RFK Award

August 8, 2013

Ms. Ragia Omran, a leading Egyptian human rights lawyer and women’s rights activist, was announced -on 2  July  2013  – as the winner of  the 2013 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, now in its 30th year. The award recognizes her extraordinary work, and initiates a partnership to support her efforts to advance the women’s rights, the rule of law, and democracy in Egypt through human rights legal advocacy. Read the rest of this entry »

Detention after solidarity action in Mahiliou, Belarus

August 8, 2013

Social activist Dyiana Yakauleva was detained by the riot police at the police station in Krylenka Street. Human rights defenders Barys Bukhel and Aliaksei Kolchyn are trying to clear up the circumstances of the detention. From 11.30 -12.30  a.m. a solidarity action, timed to coincide with the International Day of Solidarity with the Civil Society of Belarus, was held in the city of Mahiliou, Belarus. During the action, social activists handed out postcards with a portrait of the imprisoned head of the Human Rights Center “Viasna” Ales Bialiatski. The protest went peacefully but after it ended Dyiana Yakauleva was detained anyway.

via Detentions after solidarity action in Mahiliou – Charter97 :: News from Belarus – Belarusian News – Republic of Belarus – Minsk.

 

Russian Rights Defender Gannushkina Fined For Refusing Documents

June 26, 2013
Svetlana Gannushkina(Svetlana Gannushkina)
Prominent Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina has been fined for refusing to provide documents demanded by prosecutors. A court in Moscow ruled late on June 18 that the chairwoman of Moscow-based Civic Collaboration Committee must pay 2,000 rubles (50 Euro) for failing to turn over papers related to the financial activities of her organization. Gannushkina, a Soviet-era veteran rights defender, has been refusing to provide the documents to investigators since April. Prosecutors made the request under the new law requiring all nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign funding and engage in political activity to register as ‘foreign agents’. [Last week, a Moscow court rejected an appeal by Russia’s independent election monitor, Golos, against the 300,000 ruble $9,500 fine imposed on the group under the legislation.] Based on reporting by Interfax and ITAR-TASS

via Russian Rights Defender Fined For Refusing Demand For Documents.

 

Russian human rights defender Tanya Lokshina continues against all odds | Globalization | DW.DE | 12.06.2013

June 12, 2013

In the series Storytellers, Deutsche Welle gives the floor to Tanya Lokshina of HRW who has worked for 15 years in of the most difficult regions: Russia itself and conflict-ridden volatile areas like Chechnya and Dagestan as well as South Ossetia.

At first glance, Tanya Lokshina may not be the kind of person you would expect to travel to some of Russia’s most dangerous areas on a regular basis. But Read the rest of this entry »

Kazakhstan: 5 year prison sentence of human rights defender Roza Tuletaeva upheld

June 10, 2013

Roza TuletaevaRoza Tuletaeva

On 28 May 2013, the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan upheld the five-year prison sentence of human rights defender Roza Tuletaeva, Read the rest of this entry »

Abduction and physical assault of human rights defender Lydia Mukami in Kenya

June 5, 2013

On 1 June 2013 at dawn, Kenyan human rights defender Ms Lydia Mukami was abandoned in a bush after being abducted by unidentified men who had spent several hours subjecting her to physical assault. Lydia Mukami is the chairperson of Mwea Foundation, a grassroots organisation of rice farmers in the Mwea constituency that has been at the forefront of an ongoing campaign to challenge the constitutionality of Kenya’s 1966 Irrigation Act. Read the rest of this entry »

Surveillance of indigenous human rights defender Cindy Blackstock in Canada

June 1, 2013

AI Canada informs that a report released on May 28 2013 in Canada by the federal Privacy Commissioner highlights a troubling pattern of invasive and unwarranted government surveillance of Canadian human rights defender Cindy Amnesty-InternationaBlackstock. Dr. Blackstock is the Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, a prominent non-governmental organization promoting equitable access to education, health care and other services for First Nations children. Government documents obtained by Dr. Blackstock show that two federal departments monitored her personal Facebook page, tracked people who posted to her page, and sent staff to take notes on her public presentations, all in an attempt to find information that might help the government fight a discrimination complaint that Dr. Blackstock’s organization is pursuing before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The Privacy Commissioner concluded that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Department of Justice went too far in their online monitoring of Dr. Blackstock. Read the rest of this entry »