HUMAN RIGHTS defenders across the world face increased danger and restrictions in their work, with at least 24 killed last year, according to report by Dublin-based human rights body Front Line.
“Despite the high level of commitment given to the protection of human rights defenders in theory, the sad reality is that the effective space for human rights defenders to work is steadily shrinking,” said Front Line director Mary Lawlor.
Launching the report yesterday, Margaret Sekkagya, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, noted that “those who fight every day for the full respect of human rights continue to be oppressed”.
The annual report, which was launched to coincide with Front Line’s 5th Dublin Platform, a gathering attended by more than 100 activists and campaigners, details how authorities in several countries increasingly use legislation to harass human rights defenders.
“This has resulted in the use of trumped up charges ranging from terrorism, subversion, and hooliganism to fraud, defamation and tax evasion,” the report states.
It notes that outright targeting and killing of human rights defenders was on the rise last year.
Killings and attempted killings were documented in Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, the Russian Federation and Sri Lanka.
“In many cases the authorities were directly implicated. In most cases they failed to carry out effective investigations and the murders remained unpunished,” the report says.
It refers to the “unprecedented series of killings” of human rights defenders in Russia last year, noting that the Russian authorities appeared “more annoyed by the international outrage the killings caused, than committed to conducting serious investigations”.
During 2009 Front Line issued 249 urgent appeals related to human rights defenders at risk in 56 countries.
The organisation also provided 154 security grants.
In total, more than 500 human rights defenders benefited from Front Line’s protection support.
Participants at the Front Line Dublin Platform, which is being held at Dublin Castle this week, yesterday heard vivid testimony from human rights defenders who have been threatened, harassed, jailed and tortured because of their work.
The biannual conference brings together activists and campaigners working on issues ranging from the rights of women, indigenous people and sexual minorities, to environmental protection and land rights.
The delegates come from countries including Afghanistan, Nigeria, Burma, Iran, Chile, and Russia.
Workshops held during the event will address issues such as recovering from trauma, the risks faced by women human rights defenders and the importance of digital security.
Human rights defenders
SURAYA PAKZADhas received death threats for her work highlighting gender-based violence in Afghanistan. Abused women seek refuge and legal assistance from her Voice of Women organisation.
"These kinds of activities are still sensitive and new in Afghanistan," she says. "In our male-dominated society they don't like it because still the definition of a good woman is to . . . preserve the reputation of the male members of her family."
Pakzad is worried that progress on women's rights may fall victim to efforts to engage the Taliban in order to secure peace.
"If peace comes that way, it will be a peace without justice," she says. "We are worried that the issue of women could be sacrificed for peace . . . We had peace in the Taliban time but there was no freedom for women. We don't want to see this repeated."
PATRICK NAAGBANTONwas a friend of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian environmental activist executed in 1995. Like Saro-Wiwa, he campaigns to highlight the impact of extractive industries in the Niger Delta region as part of his work with the Nigerian Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development.
"The most fundamental issue for us concerns the abuses carried out by transnational companies in collaboration with the Nigerian authorities," he says. "Our environment has been devastated by their reckless activities . . . This experience has fundamentally radicalised me."
Naagbanton has been threatened by security forces and government officials and has been arrested several times as a result of his work. "When I leave my home every morning, I think to myself that this might be the last time I see my family."
YURI GIOVANNI MELINI'shuman rights work in his native Guatemala has made him many enemies. For more than two decades, he has campaigned for environmental protection and indigenous rights. His organisation Calas (Centre of Legal Action in Environment and Social issues) provides education and advocacy to victims of human rights abuses.
In 2008, Melini survived an attack in which he was shot seven times. The attack took place after a legal challenge he brought that resulted in changes to some of Guatemala's mining laws.
"I never thought of giving up."
A former doctor, Melini says a deep respect for nature underpins his work.
"We have to defend these resources which are a blessing for mankind as well as the inheritance of generations yet to be born."