In mid 2013 True Heroes Films (THF) moved to Geneva to set up its office there. Now the NGO has produced its first newsletter for 2014 showing a remarkable range of activities for HRDs, NGOs and others:
Posts Tagged ‘women human rights defenders’
Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards 2014 to Juan Mendez, Mesoamerican Women Human Rights Defenders and Colibri
October 17, 2014Pamela Constable describes with passion in the Washington Post of 14 October 14 the work of the Colibri Center for Human Rights in Tucson as recipient of one of the three Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards of 2014. The other awards go to veteran international human rights lawyer Juan Mendez and Mesoamerican Women Human Rights Defenders, a nonprofit based in Mexico City that assists women in Mexico and Central America who are involved in defending social and human rights. Juan E. Mendez, 69, is a well-known human rights defender and now U.N. special rapporteur on torture human rights official. He was born in Argentina, jailed for defending political prisoners and then exiled after an international campaign. He worked for many years for human rights NGOs, especially Human Rights Watch.
The regional awards, given by the Institute for Policy Studies, are named for the two victims of a 1976 car bombing in which former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt were assassinated by agents of Chile’s military regime.
Kurdish Yazidi Woman Wins Anna Politkovskaya Award
October 11, 2014More on awards: The winner of the 2014 Raw in War Anna Politkovskaya award is Kurdish Yazidi member of Iraq parliament Vian Dakhil .On Monday 6 October, RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) selected Vian Dakhil who has courageously spoken out and campaigned to protect the Yazidi people from the terror of Islamic State. She is the only ethnic Yazidi in the Iraqi Parliament and, despite being injured in a helicopter crash while delivering aid to survivors on Mt Sinjar, she continues to advocate and to mobilize support for her people, for the refugees and for those trapped in towns and villages under the regime of Islamic State. “I make no secret of the fact that I’m proud to be honored with your esteemed award, but the real way to honor someone is by protecting their freedom and rights. It is by bringing our prisoners back,’ said Dakhil in her speech while receiving the award.
Previous women human rights defenders who received this award: Malala Yousafzai 2013, Marie Colvin 2012, Razan Zaitouneh 2011, Dr. Halima Bashir 2010, Leila Alikarami on behalf of the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality in Iran 2009, Malalai Joya 2008 and Natalia Estemirova 2007. See also: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards
via Kurdish Yazidi Woman Wins International Award | BAS NEWS.
Human Rights Defenders in the News
July 9, 2014Even this blog cannot keep up with all the news on individual human rights defenders. For those who want to see more, there is also: “HRDs in the News“. It is a regular news round-up in which Front Line draws together news about human rights defenders who have been appearing in the world media. In the latest edition, you can find amongst others:
- The Independent report on the detention of Egyptian HRD Yara Sallam;
- Al-Ahram Online report on the assassination of Salwa Bugaighis in Libya;
- The Guardian and The Independent report on the threats faced by environmental rights defenders in Peru
Local AI Group to read stories from Afghan women human rights defenders
May 17, 2014
(The cast in rehearsal SUS-140705-113925001)
Sometimes it is good to look at how people can support human rights defenders elsewhere. Here an example from West Sussex, UK, where – using a script compiled exclusively from the first-hand accounts of Afghan women human rights defenders – Crawley’s Pitchy Breath Theatre Group voices testimony, underlining the risks to women’s freedom posed by any resurgence of the Taliban. The reading – on Monday 19 May – will be followed by an opportunity to ask questions and discuss the issues raised with Chris Usher, Amnesty International UK’s Country Co-ordinator for Afghanistan. There will also be the opportunity to take part in actions in support of Afghan women. This event forms part of Amnesty International UK’s campaign on women’s rights in Afghanistan. The local AI Group are hoping that “Even If We Lose Our Lives” can inspire the local community and contribute to more action protecting these women and the rights they are fighting fight for.
[Afghan women are too often portrayed as faceless, passive victims who are powerless to change the grave human rights abuses which regularly affect them. The script is based on the actual accounts of three women – Parween, whose teenage son was kidnapped and killed because she runs a girls’ school, Dr D, a gynaecologist whose son was injured in a bomb blast, and Manizha, who runs the largest Afghan organisation working on violence against women and girls at great personal cost.]
via Group to read stories from Afghan women – West Sussex County Times.
Russian human rights defenders update: Tatiana Kotlyar and Elena Ryabinina
May 12, 2014On 30 April 2014, an investigative officer in Russia ordered the psychiatric assessment of human rights defender Ms Tatiana Kotlyar in relation to an ongoing criminal investigation into the allegations that she falsely allowed dozens of migrants to illegally register her own apartment as their place of residence. [Tatiana Kotlyar is the deputy of Obninsk city council and is the chair of the Kaluga movement “For Human Rights”, which specialises in the protection of minority rights, including the rights of Roma and migrants. Since 2011, Tatiana Kotlyar has been allowing dozens of migrants to register her apartment as their place of residence for free. The Investigative Officer Zimin ordered the psychiatric examination, even though Tatiana Kotlyar has no history of psychiatric difficulties and has never received psychiatric treatment. Front Line believes that the decision may be linked to the fact that the human rights defender did not require payment for providing residence registration for more than a hundred people.] For actions see: http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/25865/action
In the meantime Front Line Defenders informs us of the death of Elena Ryabinina, a much admired Russian human rights defender, on 4 May 2014 in Moscow, aged 59. Since 2002, Ryabinina had been fighting for the rights of refugees seeking asylum from Central Asian countries. She was renowned for the compassion, enthusiasm, and optimism with which she worked to achieve better rights for refugees and asylum seekers. She must have saved dozens of Uzbeks and Tajiks who sought asylum. Although she did not have formal legal training, Ryabinina developed an impressive knowledge of asylum laws, and consulted and defended people seeking political and religious asylum. She worked with the Civic Assistance Committee and the Memorial Human Rights Center and headed the Right to Asylum program at the Institute for Human Rights.
Society Without Violence, in Armenia, could do without the violence
May 5, 2014Via the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD IC) I received the information that women’s rights organization, Society Without Violence, in Armenia was attacked by extremist groups. The Society Without Violence works on women’s empowerment, peace building, raising public awareness on gender stereotypes and gender based violence, and the protection for women human rights defenders. On 15 April 2014, a roundtable (due to recent threats the event was a closed session) was interrupted by neo-nationalist extremist group members protesting the event. As the extremist groups tried to enter the conference room, some verbally attacked members of Society Without Violence, while others used physical force on human rights defenders and hotel security guards. Members of local and official media who arrived with the extremist protestors filmed the incident, but later falsely claimed that the Society Without Violence initiated the violent attack. This attack seems to be part of an increasing pattern and women human rights defenders in Armenia are targeted with threats and violence for carrying on their human rights works.
Jimmy Carter’s new book on the rights of woman and how religions have kept them suppressed
April 8, 2014Former President Jimmy Carter (89 years old!!) has incredible stamina but his latest book – A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power – is remarkable not just because of that high age but because it is incredibly blunt in describing how religions have systematically denigrated women, leading to prejudice, infanticide and horrific violence. The highlights of the interview below with KERA’s vice president of news, Rick Holter, about “the human and civil rights struggle of our time”, in too interesting to try and summarize and the same goes for the long excerpt from the book following: Read the rest of this entry »
Victims become human rights defenders against Female Genital Mutilation
March 29, 2014On 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).
UN Human Rights Council Adopts New Resolution on Human Rights Defenders
March 29, 2014This week, the UN Human Rights Council adopted its annual resolution on human rights defenders. The resolution, led by Norway and Ireland, was co-sponsored by 74 nation-states and adopted by consensus. The new emphasis – in line with the latest report by the departing Rapporteur, Margaret Sekaggya – is on the importance of domestic law and administrative provisions which protect human rights defenders from criminalization, stigmatization, impediments, and obstructions contrary to international human rights law. The misuse of national security and counterterrorism legislation to crackdown on human rights defenders is also explicitly warned against. The resolution explicitly refers to the impact of how a country’s laws can be used by a government to further or impede the work of human rights defenders within the country.
for the full text see: http://www.ishr.ch/sites/default/files/article/files/140328-res-council-25-hrds-l24-as-adopted.pdf
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 