front line defenders 2013 book of testimonies 0

BOOK OF TESTIMONIESfrom Human rigHts DefenDersthe seventh dublin platform WWW.FRONTLINEDEFENDERS.ORG

SEVENTH DUBLIN PLATFORM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

WHAT DOES FRONT LINE DEFENDERS DO?front Line, the international foundation for the Protection of Humanrights Defenders is an international non-governmental organisation(ngo) established by charitable deed trust. it was founded in Dublin in2001 with the specific aim of protecting human rights defenders at risk,people who work, non-violently, for any or all of the rights enshrined in theuniversal Declaration of Human rights (uDHr). front Line Defendersaims to address the protection needs identified by defenders themselves.

front Line Defenders provides rapid and practical support to at-riskhuman rights defenders including:

n grants to pay for the practical security needs of human rightsdefenders;

n provision of training and development of resource materials on securityand protection, including digital security;

n international advocacy on behalf of human rights defenders atimmediate risk;

n rest and respite, including the front Line Defenders fellowship;n opportunities for networking and exchange between human rights

defenders, including at the biennial Dublin Platform;n the annual front Line Defenders award for Human rights Defenders

at risk;n an emergency 24 hour phone line for human rights defenders

operating in arabic, english, french, spanish and russian;n temporary relocation of human rights defenders in emergency

situations.

front Line Defenders promotes strengthened international and regionalmeasures to protect human rights defenders including through supportfor the work of the un special rapporteur on the situation of humanrights defenders. front Line Defenders seeks to promote respect for theun Declaration on Human rights Defenders. front Line Defenders hasspecial consultative status with the economic and social Council of theunited nations, partnership status with the Council of europe andobserver status with the african Commission on Human and Peoples’rights. front Line Defenders received the 2007 King Baudouininternational Prize for Development.

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FRONTLINE TRUSTEES

Denis O’Brien (Chairman)denis o’brien is Chairmanof the digicel Group. mro’brien is one of ireland’sleading entrepreneurs withextensive investmentsacross several sectors.

he founded the Communicorp Group whichhas a portfolio of media and broadcasting-related companies in ireland and seven othereuropean countries. in 2000 he established theIris O’Brien Foundation to assist disadvantagedcommunities in ireland and internationally.

Mary Lawlor (director)mary lawlor has beenconstantly inspired by thework of human rightsdefenders who put theirvision of a civil and justworld for all ahead of their

own safety. in 2001 she set up front line, theinternational foundation for the protection ofhuman rights defenders to provide round theclock practical support and deliver fast andeffective action on behalf of human rightsdefenders at risk.

Hina Jilani is aninternationally knownhuman rights lawyer andadvocate for human rightsdefenders. she was theunited nations specialrepresentative on the

situation of human rights defenders from 2000to 2008. she and her sister asma Jahangir co-founded the first all female legal practice inpakistan and she is also one of the founders ofthe human rights Commission of pakistan.

Jim Conway is the founder and Chairman ofthe print & display Group,one of ireland’s largestprint companies. he alsohas a number of othermedia interests in irelandand eastern europe.

Kieran Mulvey is Chiefexecutive of the irishlabour relationsCommission andConsultant with theinternational labourorganisation and the

european union.

Michel Forst is secretaryGeneral of the frenchnational ConsultativeCommission on humanrights. he was secretaryGeneral of the parissummit and director of

the french section of amnesty international.

Noeline Blackwell isdirector of flaC (freelegal advice Centres), anindependent humanrights organisationdedicated to therealisation of equal

access to justice for all.

David Sykes isinvestment director ofisland Capital ltd andworked in various banksand stockbrokersincluding trinity bank anddolmen stockbrokers.

Maria Mulcahy wasinvolved with “people inneed” from 1988 – 2000.she was responsible fororganising the rtetelethons, which raised€28 million. she was

director of fundraising for the 2003 specialolympics World Games.

LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

Hanan Ashrawi founder and secretaryGeneral of the palestinian initiative for thepromotion of Global dialogue and democracy.

Robert Badinter president of the osCe Courtof Conciliation and arbitration and a member ofthe french senate. he was previously frenchminister for Justice.

Bono founder member of the irish rock groupu2, and a prominent human rights advocate.

Desmond Tutu anglican archbishop who roseto worldwide fame during the 1980s as anopponent of apartheid. nobel peace prizewinner in 1984.

Adolfo Pérez Equivel leader of servicio paz yJusticia and the 1980 nobel peace prizerecipient.

Indai Lourdes Sajor founder and formerexecutive director of the asian Centre forWomen’s human rights.

His Holiness The Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatsotemporal and spiritual leader of the tibetanpeople and nobel laureate.

Copyright 2013

Quotations have been edited for brevity andclarity. the insertion of quotations does notreflect the order in which participants spoke.

photography by Kamil Krawczak

FOREWORD

the front line defenders dublin platform brinGs toGetherhuman rights defenders from every part of the globe – from africa, asia,the americas, europe and the middle east – and despite the differencesof culture, creed and language they are united by one thing – a fiercecommitment to the struggle to defend the human rights of their community.

for me, at the heart of the dublin platform are the testimonies of thedefenders themselves, men and women, who in voices of quiet dignityshare with us their experience of struggle and survival in the face ofconstant repression and vilification.

listening to these testimonies is a deeply humbling experience andwhen i hear someone telling of the threats to themselves, theircolleagues or their familiy, i remember why we started front linedefenders in the first instance – because human rights defenders arespecial people, because their idealism has the potential to change theworld and because their steadfast commitment and special kind ofcourage renews our sense of hope in the future.

to all those human rights defenders who attended this, and previous,dublin platforms i want to repeat, you – who give words like dignity,rights, justice and equality their human form – know what it is like toconfront entrenched and seemingly invincible repression, fromgovernments and non state actors alike. You stand on the side of thevictim, challenge the power of tyrants, the greed of multinationals andthe corrupt governments in their thrall. We in front line defenderssalute you.

over the last two years, dreadful persecution against hrds,hascontinued unabated. hrds are targeted for documenting anddenouncing abuses by governments and militias. they are targeted forexposing the corruption that forces countries rich in resources to theirknees, and entrenches poverty and inequality amongst their people.and they are targeted for pushing for reform in the hope of creatingfairer and more just societies. and in the case of women and lGbtidefenders, they are targeted for who they are and what they do inchallenging discrimination and cultural stereotypes.

it is hard not to become angry and cynical at the inaction ofgovernments on some cases. as Confucius said “faced with what isright, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage”.

When you wake up tired and bone weary from the systematicpersecution, and the psychological pain you absorb from the sufferingof others, know that we are here for you and our only objective is tomake your lives safer and more bearable. ”

“1DUBLIN CASTLE, OCTOBER 2013

“I REMAINEDPATIENT.

I STRUGGLEDAND I SURVIVED.”

MASOODA PARVEEN,KASHMIR

Your steadfast spirit defies injustice and alleviates pain. You have cometo terms with fear and have tamed stress. You work with fierce resiliencewithout stopping to bemoan the cruelty and depravity with which youare often faced. i am awed and inspired every single day by yourcourage. it is your dignity and your tremendous spirit that vibrates inevery one of these words from paul Cobbitt a hrd at risk in the uswho participated in a previous dublin platform. he said:

“now my dear brothers and sisters, i have witnessed the passion andcommitment of each of you. i realise that we struggle in solidarity ratherthan solitude. through our commitment, i realise we must build a worldwhere justice is the rule rather than the exception.

Justice will come as quietly as a new dawn, and i will rejoice in seeingher radiant reflection in each one of you.

We Can and we must persist.”

Mary Lawlor,Executive Director,Front Line Defenders

SEVENTH DUBLIN PLATFORM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS2

TABLE OF CONTENTSCONTRIBUTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Americas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Asia Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Europe & Central Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Middle East & North Africa . . . . . . . . . . 64

AfricaDemocratic Republic of Congo:Jean de Dieu MulikuzaAction for Access to Human Rights

Democratic Republic of Congo:Rebeca MasikaThe Association of Disinherited Persons United for Development

Eritrea:Elizabeth ChyrumHuman rights defender

Gabon:Paulette Oyane-OndoCentre for Promoting Democracy and the Defence of Human Rights in Gabon

Kenya:Phyllis OmidoCentre for Justice, Governance and Environmental Action

Madagascar:Noromanana LalaharivonyChildren’s rights activist

Malawi:Rafiq HajatInstitute for Policy Interaction

Mauritania:Biram Dah AbeidInitiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement

Nigeria:Rev. David UgolorAfrica Network for Environment and Economic Justice

Rwanda:Elisabeth MukajamboRwandan League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights

Senegal:Awa WadeDemocratic Union of Teachers of Senegal

Somalia:Abdiaziz IbrahimJournalist

Somalia:Mohamed Sheikh MohamedIniskoy for Peace

Tanzania:Dr. Stephen UlimbokaDoctors Community & Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition

Zimbabwe:Nkosilathi Emmanuel MoyoZimbabwe Organization For The Youth In Politics

The AmericasArgentina:Félix DíazThe Qom Potae Napocna Navogoh Community

Brazil:Astronadc PereiraPolice Force

Canada:Cindy BlackstockFirst Nations Child and Family Society

Dominican Republic:Solange Manuela Dandre PieDominican Haitian Women’s Movement

Ecuador:Carlos Pérez GuartambelConfederation of Kichwa People

Guatemala:Oscar MoralesCommittee in Defence of Life and for Peace

Guatemala:Yolanda OqueliThe Northern Metropolitan Front and the Peaceful Resistance “La Puya”

Guyana:Candace McEwanGuyana Trans United

Haiti:Patrice FlorvilusDefenders of the Oppressed

Honduras:Gilda SilvestrucciJournalist

Honduras:Hedme CastroACI-Participa

Mexico:Alma Rosa García GuevaraFray Juan de Larios Diocesan Centre for Human Rights

Mexico:Nataniel Hernández NúñezDigna Ochoa Human Rights Centre

Peru:Jaime Cesar Borda PariHuman Rights Without Borders

United States of America:Deon HaywoodWomen With a Vision

CONTRIBUTORS

3DUBLIN CASTLE, OCTOBER 2013

Asia PacificBangladesh:Ashrafun Nahar MistiWomen with Disabilities Development Foundation

Bangladesh:Shahed KayesSubornogram Foundation

Cambodia:Mam SonandoBeehive Radio

China:Liu DejunHuman rights defender

China:Liu YiuEducation Centre for Culture, Society and Human Rights

China:Wang JianfenChinese Women’s Rights Defenders Empowerment Network

China:Ye JinghuanHuman rights defender

India:Prashant PaikaryPratirodh Sangram Samiti

Indonesia:Donal FarizIndonesia Corruption Watch

Indonesia:Toni AlmunaViolet Grey

Kashmir:Masooda ParveenHuman rights defender

Laos:Ng Shui MengHuman rights defender

Malaysia:Azwan IsmailSeksualiti Merdeka

Malaysia:Mohd Faizal MusaWriter

Nepal:Badri Prasad BhusalHuman rights lawyer

Philippines:Sr. Ma. Famita N. Somogod, MSMRural Missionaries of the Philippines

Republic of Korea:Dong-Kyun KangGangjeong Village Association

Thailand:Teeranet ChaisuwanSouthern Peasants Federation of Thailand

Vietnam:Nguyen Lan ThangJournalist

Europe and Central AsiaBelarus:Iryna KhalipJournalist

Belarus:Tatsiana ReviakaBelarussian Human Rights House

Georgia:Natia GvianishviliWomen’s Initiatives Supporting Group

Kosovo:Arben FejzaCenter for Equality and Liberty

Moldova:Stepan PopovskiyRepublican Social Movement for Defence of Property & Social Rights of Peasants

Russian Federation:Andrei Bulanov & Rafik RoganyanInvatur

Russian Federation:Igor YassinRainbow Association

Serbia:Višnja ŠijaiYouth Center CK13

Tajikistan:Dilrabo SamadovaAssociation of Young Lawyers ‘Amparo’

Turkey:Halil SavdaConscientious Objector

Turkey:Oyku SezerHebun LGBT Organisation

Middle East & North AfricaAlgeria:Farida OuaghlissiNational Coordination of the Families of the Disappeared in Algeria

Algeria:Omar Farouk SlimaniAlgerian League for the Defence of Human Rights

Bahrain:Ali AbdulemamBlogger

Bahrain:Said Yousif AlMuhafdahBahrain Center for Human Rights

Kuwait:Nawaf AlhendalNational Committee for Monitoring Violations

Oman:Habiba Al HinaiOmani Group for Human Rights

Tunisia:Imed OuertaniTunisian Organisation for the Defence of Persons with Disabilities

Western Sahara:El Ghalia DjimiSaharan Association of Serious Violations of Human Rights Committedby the Moroccan State

Yemen:Samia Al AghbariHuman rights defender

mY name is Jean De Dieu muLiKuza. i worK witH Agir pourl’accès aux droits de l’homme (aDH: action for access to Humanrights) in DrC. as a result of having denounced the injustices of theCongolese state by taking legal action at the Bukavu regional Courtagainst the national electricity company (sneL) for overcharging forelectricity in the provinces of south Kivu and north Kivu (under thenumber rC 7206), i was the victim of death threats from officials andagents of this Congolese state-run company, as well as from thesecurity services.

sneL has about 45,000 clients across these two provinces in theeast of the Democratic republic of Congo (DrC). the breach of thelaw being condemned here relates to the fact that sneL customersin south and north Kivu pay seven times more than customers inother provinces such as Kinshasa, Katanga, Bas-Congo, Bandunduand the two Kasaï provinces. indeed, 1 kwh costs 83 Congolesefrancs in the east of the DrC, whereas in the west and in Katanga,it costs only 12 Congolese francs.

Just as a reminder, as i was going home on 18 october 2008approaching 9.30pm, i was followed to within a kilometre of myhouse by people in a car who i did not recognise. 20 metres from myhouse i decided to let them pass, as had i continued on the samepath i would have found myself in a cul-de-sac. Having gone pastme, they stopped ahead. as they were getting out of their car,another car appeared from the opposite direction which allowed meto quickly turn back and spend the night at a friend’s.

some time later, three other people who i again did not know cameto see me individually. the first told me he had been at a meetingwhere some sneL officials were planning to attack me, because thelegal action i had taken had the aim to incite a revolt of the 45,000sneL customers in south and north Kivu. the two others camespecifically to tell me to renounce my legal action against sneL, andthat refusing to do so would be seriously dangerous. But humanrights organisations who are members of the network for theprotection of victims, witnesses and human rights defenders(Viwine) as well as the human rights section of monusco (unitednations mission for the stabilisation of Congo) went to meet thesuspected perpetrators of the threats against me to dissuade them.a press release was also issued at the time.

to finish, i want to point out that in view of the insecure circum-stances in which human rights defenders in the east of the DrC findthemselves, i personally try to take the necessary precautions,making sure that i do not go out late at night and if, once in a whileit is necessary, somebody is there to accompany me.

it should also be added that the legal action that was beguncontinues, with the aim of exhausting all domestic remedies. and asa result, an annulment of the judgement rCa 4081 rendered beforethe supreme Court of Justice still needs to be obtained, before, ifnecessary bringing it before the african Commission for Human andPeoples’ rights.

SEVENTH DUBLIN PLATFORM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS4 ”“

I PERSONALLY TRYTO TAKE THENECESSARY

PRECAUTIONS,MAKING SURE THAT IDO NOT GO OUT LATE

AT NIGHT AND IF,ONCE IN A WHILE IT

IS NECESSARY,SOMEBODY IS THERETO ACCOMPANY ME

JEAN DE DIEU MULIKUZAAction for Access to Human RightsDEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

REBECA MASIKAThe Association of Disinherited Persons United for Development

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

”“

THEY CAN STARTAGAIN LIKE ME.

DESPITEEVERYTHING I WENT

THROUGH, I AM STILLSTANDING AND THEYCAN DO IT AS WELL

it was aBout 11Pm wHen it starteD. mY HusBanD, ourfour children, my little sister and i, we could hear the neighboursscreaming. there was nowhere to run to because on one side of thevillage there was jungle, full of wild animals and on the other therewas water, and we didn’t have a boat. the shooting went on and on.

finally, they came into the house and took everything. then they toldus to sit on the floor... me and my husband, naked. they tied him tothe bed by his hands and feet and they asked him for money. Hegave them all the money but even though they had taken everythingwe owned, they would not let him live. He asked them “now thatyou have everything, why do you want to kill me?” and then he askedthem “at least kill me with a gun, and not with a knife”. they said,“no, we're not going to shoot you. we're going to kill you piece bypiece”... and they did.

i cried “Leave him... even like this i can take him to the hospital”. myhusband said “mama Yvette, what are you going to do? even if isurvive you have no money to take me to the hospital. Better to letthem finish me off”. then they threatened to kill me too and theystarted to cut me. my husband said “Do whatever they want so thatyou can stay alive for the children”.

when they had finished they told me to put all the pieces togetherand lie on top of them. then they raped me on top of my husband'sbody. i counted to 12 and while i was counting i heard the childrenscreaming. my daughters of 15 and 13, and my little sister, theystarted raping them all. finally, i lost consciousness. i don't knowhow they buried my husband.

when i awoke, i discovered that i had been in hospital for 6 months.they were giving me drugs for my head but the damage from therape was not properly treated. my children came to visit and theirstomachs were swollen. one said “remember when they killed Dad?they raped us as well and that's why our stomachs are big”. theyboth had babies and i also look after these children.

when i left the hospital, i found that my house and possessions hadbeen sold by my husband's family. they threw me out and said thati had planned it all. that the men who raped me were men i had beensleeping with and that i had wanted them to kill my husband. thenmy brother's family came... they wanted me to marry my husband'sbrother and i refused, so they took my two younger girls away.

in 2000, a lady visited who was looking for people to help with otherwomen who had been raped. i started to help to find women whohad been raped, but i didn't tell them anything of my own story. ibrought women to isle africa which was a shelter for women whohad been raped. Here women could see a doctor and get treatment.

i had a lot of physical problems resulting from the rape and finally in2006, i decided to talk to the doctor, and i had an operation. all thetime i kept on going out into the mountains to find women who hadbeen raped. on one of these trips i met a rebel group who asked“Do you know a woman called masika?” i responded no. then theytold me that if i were to meet her, i should tell her that when theycaught up with her, they would rape her any way they could. then,one of the other women pointed me out as masika, and they raped me.

after that i decided that i had to do something empowering formyself and for other women. to help women move from the statethey are in today and reconnect with the women they were before.we want to show them that just because they have been raped, thisis not the end. You can start again and build something fresh andnew... you can be something. i set up a group called the associationof Disinherited Persons united for Development (association desPersonnes Déshéritées unies pour le Développement – aPDuD). wesupport each other, working in the fields and growing food to sell tofund different projects. some of the girls are too young to go to workthe fields, so we teach them to sew. others have some schooling, soi look after their babies and i send them to school. there is one girlwho had a baby when she was in school and now she is in university.

they can start again like me. Despite everything i went through, i amstill standing and they can do it as well.


mY name is eLizaBetH CHYrum, a Human rigHts DefenDerfrom eritrea.

after thirty years of armed struggle, eritrea was freed from ethiopianoccupation in 1991, but instead of an end to human rights abuses,this proved to be the beginning of a ruthless oppression from within.for the last 22 years, the country has been governed by an elite thatcauses so much suffering to its people. Citizens’ rights have beenviolated in every possible way, there is no constitution in place, noparliament to make a collective decision and no rule of law.

Human rights defenders and human rights organisations are notallowed to work in eritrea. so, i am based in London, and yet i havenot been spared from abuses, hate campaigns, defamation, deaththreats and intimidation. the independent media outlets were shutdown in september 2001, and ten independent press journalistswere arrested.

today, i wish to focus on those ten journalists. their only crime wasdoing their jobs as journalists, printing the truth and informing theirpeople. they tried to defend the rights of ordinary eritreans byreporting on what was really happening in their country. so far, fourout of ten have died in detention and the remaining six were reportedto be in poor health. since their imprisonment:

– they have not been visited by their family or lawyers;– their two hands are cuffed in front during the day and behind their

backs during the night. they eat while handcuffed, and they sleepwhile handcuffed. they have been handcuffed 24/7 for the lasttwelve years. the only time they are not handcuffed is when theywash and that could be once a week or once a month;

– they are detained in solitary confinement, and they have not seeneach other since their detention in september 2001;

– those who are alive do not know about the deaths of theircolleagues;

– their guards are not allowed to converse with them; – they are not called by their names, but by numbers. this is so the

prisoners do not know who is held in which room. – they are detained in an inhospitable place, where temperatures

can reach between 45 and 55 degrees Celsius. they have noventilation, and they are locked inside their room all of the time;

– they are not allowed to have a radio, television, books ornewspapers;

– family members cannot seek for their whereabouts, as there is nolocal legal remedy and there is no independent judiciary system;

article 19 took the journalists’ case to the african Commission in2003. in may 2007, the Commission made a decision, and theeritrean government was held in violation of the african unionCharter, and was urged to bring the journalists to a speedy and fairtrial, and to lift the ban on the press.

the Commission has also recommended that the detainees bereleased and compensated. six years after the african Commission’sdecision and recommendations, the fate of the six journalists is stillunknown. since then, more state media journalists have been jailedand some have died in detention.

eritrea has over 10,000 prisoners of conscience in 300 prisons in thecountry. However, as this platform is for human rights defenders, ijust want to bring the plight of the eritrean journalists to yourattention, so that they are part of this platform and they are alsoremembered.


CITIZENS’ RIGHTSHAVE BEEN VIOLATEDIN EVERY POSSIBLEWAY, THERE IS NOCONSTITUTION IN

PLACE, NOPARLIAMENT TO

MAKE A COLLECTIVEDECISION AND NO

RULE OF LAW

ELIZABETH CHYRUMHuman rights defenderERITREA

PAULETTE OYANE-ONDOLawyer: Centre for Promoting Democracy and the Defence of Human Rights in Gabon

Legal Council of the Network of Human Rights Defenders in Central AfricaGABON

”“

ALL SORTS OFCOMPLETELYUNFOUNDED

STORIES THAT HAVEABSOLUTELY NOLEGAL STANDINGARE CONSTANTLY

MADE UP ABOUT ME,ALL WITH THE AIM OF

INTIMIDATING MEAND ENDANGERINGMY RIGHT TO WORK

mY ProBLems Began wHen i oPPoseD tHe amenDment ofthe Constitution in December 2009. it was gabon’s 14th amendmentto the Constitution since 1991, in spite of the african Charter onDemocracy (to which gabon subscribes) that forbids african unionmember states from changing their constitution without havinggained prior popular consensus by referendum. without suchconsensus the government’s change is non-constitutional. the non-constitutional amendment that was put to the national assemblyhad on no occasion been the object of popular consensus. itherefore told the Prime minister that he could not put the constitu-tional amendment bill to the national assembly because in doing so,the government was committing an anti-constitutional offence.

i was well aware that in reminding the government of one of its inter-national, and particularly african, engagements, that i had unleasheda tsunami. i should remind you that this was the first time since gabonhad existed, that someone had told the government they were doingsomething wrong. gabon has been under the same political regimefor the last 50 years and is not used to being contradicted.

throughout 2011, the state of gabon undertook land grabs on a vastscale, razing entire neighbourhoods. these were mostly areas thathoused poor people. some were at work when they received a calltelling them that a state bulldozer was demolishing their house,flattening everything in its path – tables, chairs, beds, plates – theentire contents of a house.

i spoke out against these actions, telling the state that it was violatingthe terms of the african Charter on Human and Peoples’ rights,which it has ratified, and that the african Commission for Human andPeoples’ rights forbids land seizures, in part because this is an attackon property, which is sacred, but also because it is an attack on theright to housing which is a human right.

today, gabon has made international commitments to put a housingpolicy in place, but instead of doing this it has deliberately causedpeople to be homeless. my ngo has recorded nearly two thousandhomeless people and five deaths caused by the state of gabon.some were killed by suffering a heart attack on finding out that theirhouses had been razed to the ground whilst they were at their placeof work. i began a campaign to explain to people that having a homeis a human right. i also took the state of gabon to court for grossviolation of human rights.

at 6am on 1 may 2011, five convoys comprising of five hundredgendarmes and policemen armed to the teeth besieged my village.the villagers were awoken by gunshots and explosions of tear gas.they ransacked my home and barbarically desecrated the grave ofmy father who had died in 1992. in my tradition we have an absoluterespect for the dead. in this way, they wanted my community toreject me because i was putting them at risk by opposing thegovernment. following that, they unleashed an aggressive mediacampaign against me, and two or three times a week the papers,which are controlled by those in power, engaged in mudslinging totry and harm my credibility.

in addition to this, i am the victim of systematic harassment. all myactions are under constant surveillance and my telephone calls aretapped. my right to work, which is a human right, is constantly underthreat. indeed, i have broken all records for being the lawyer moststruck off the bar. all sorts of completely unfounded stories that haveabsolutely no legal standing are constantly made up about me, allwith the aim of intimidating me and endangering my right to work inorder to reduce me to begging. But, as things stand, i am survivingand i continue to denounce and fight against all the human rightsviolations that come to my attention. i am currently engaged in fourcases against the state of gabon at the african Commission forHuman and Peoples’ rights.


i am a CommunitY organiser in momBasa anD founDerof the Centre for Justice, governance and environmental action(CJgea), an organisation focused on promoting environmentaljustice in Kenya’s coastal region. originally with a background inbusiness, i founded the CJgea in 2009 in order to address environ-mental and human rights challenges facing the urban poor in Kenya.

The Owino Uhuru case – Lead (Pb) smelters inresidential areas. Arrogance or corporateirresponsibility?

early in 2009 the urban poor community woke up to thick, chokingpungent plumes of smoke. in the days to follow the children becamesick with coughing, fevers, fatigue and head aches. the treesshrivelled and died, the chicken and other livestock and petssuccumbed to the smoke and thick, filthy and smelly flu gasses andeffluent directed into the community from the smelter. one day whileKelvin played in the football field his ball strayed into the drain. theact of fetching his ball left him with a scar that would cause him andhis grandmother sleepless nights.

i entered the scene mid-2009 and educated the people about Lead(Pb) poisoning, human rights, the right to life, dignity and a cleanenvironment. the Lead (Pb) smelter spewing toxic fumes andeffluent, exposed the community to sickness and loss of life.

Because of the urgency of the issue, CJgea engaged in crushcapacity building sessions and lobbying, but it seemed to fall on deafears. in 2009, 5% of the children tested positive for severe leadpoisoning. By 2011, Kelvin’s blood lead level was at 32ppm, muchhigher than the world Health organisation upper limit of 5ppm.

Both employees and community members succumbed to thepoisoning. Push and pull between CJgea and the government onthe issue forced the government to convene a public forum toaddress the issue. the forum in part recommended, “the eia licenseshould be revoked and be re-issued if at all upon the consensus ofall the stakeholder licensing authorities.”

Arraigned in court on charges of “Illegal gathering” and “incitingviolence”.

CJgea came under attack from the government. Police raids wereconducted on our offices and my son and i were accosted andabused by gunmen while entering my house in late 2011. i wasaccused of funding illegal groups and being a terrorist. in 2012 whileplanning a public demo to lobby and protest the injustice, i wasarrested alongside 17 other CJgea employees and communitymembers.

Kelvin is yet to access justice.

CJgea was weighed down under the burden of cash bails andrampant arrests. Kelvin was by now suffering seizures, forgetfulness,fainting and by 2012 toxic BLL levels of 38 ppm. in partnership withasf, CJgea was fundraising for class act litigation for Kelvin andthe people of owino uhuru.

front Line Defenders issued urgent appeals and news items aboutme that led to my acquittal in november 2012. front Line Defendersalso handled the lawyer’s bills and security for me and my family.

sadly in the greatest show of impunity with arrogance in 2013 thesmelter still operates under the protection of the local political class.


CJGEA CAME UNDERATTACK FROM THE

GOVERNMENT.POLICE RAIDS WERECONDUCTED ON OUR

OFFICES AND MYSON AND I WEREACCOSTED AND

ABUSED BY GUNMENWHILE ENTERING MY

HOUSE

PHYLLIS OMIDOCentre for Justice, Governance and Environmental ActionKENYA

NOROMANANA LALAHARIVONYChildren’s rights activist

MADAGASCAR

”“

IT IS THE WISH TOSTRIVE TOGETHER

TOWARDS A BETTERWORLD, THE SAMEVISION OF A WORLDOF JUSTICE, PEACE

AND TOLERANCEAND OF SHARED

EXPERIENCE, THATHAS BROUGHT US

TOGETHER

maDagasCar Has neVer HaD to exPerienCe BLooDY CiViLwar, nor has it witnessed armed conflict or massacres of its people.Blessed with exceptionally rich natural resources, thousands ofhectares of cultivable land, infinite lakes, idyllic beaches and a youngpopulation, our island is a wonderland. But in a country with apoverty rate of 81%, racked with never-ending political crises anderoded by corruption on a national scale in all sectors, i amconscious that peace is hanging by a thread and our people arefacing the worst. the challenges are great and human rightsdefenders have an important role to play. for the first time,madagascar is participating in the Platform for Human rightsDefenders organised by front Line Defenders. for me the DublinPlatform has been an inspiring encounter, bringing hope to theactivities of human rights defenders in my country.

i have never been put in prison, nor have i experienced torture, as somany human rights defenders in this world have. every day, i dowitness the struggles that the population and in particular childrenmust face. in hearing the testimonies of the human rights defendersat this meeting, i saw the images they spoke of, i felt the pain theydescribed, i understood the difficult conditions in which they live, iunderstood the seriousness of the conditions in which they work.together we have all shared our experiences. Listening to andsharing the experiences of human rights defenders, it feels as thoughwe too have experienced them, and that we might do so again in thenear future.

over the three days of the Platform i have been at the heart of anexceptional community of individuals, animated by the same joys,fortunes, smiles, delights, feelings and aspirations. the 7th DublinPlatform represented a show of solidarity and a call to hope.

this was possible despite differences in language, culture and age.it is the wish to strive together towards a better world, the samevision of a world of justice, peace and tolerance and of sharedexperience, that has brought us together. the spirit of sharing andthe determination to denounce the injustices that human rightsdefenders in the world must face, have given me renewed determi-nation to continue with my work.


The Quest for Dignity Lost

mY name is rafiq HaJat anD i am tHe exeCutiVe DireCtorof the institute for Policy interaction (iPi), a research based advocacythink tank that aspires to bridge the chasm between policyformulation and grassroots aspirations.

malawi is a landlocked country in southern africa, ranked as the sixthpoorest country in the world. we shed the shackles of colonialism in1964 and then suffered for thirty years under the despotic authori-tarian regime of Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda, called the Life President. Hewas deposed when the populace voted overwhelmingly for multi-party democracy in a referendum held in 1993 and the first multi-party elections were subsequently held in 1994.

since then, malawi has struggled with the pursuance of humanrights, social justice and good governance towards the consolidationof a truly participatory democracy that adheres to the rule of law andthe constitution. there has been some progress, but it is rapidlyundermined by vested interests who pursue the amassment ofpower laced with corruption, patronage and neo-patrimonialism.

on 20 July 2011, i was privileged to be part of a Cso grouping whichorganised and led mass demonstrations to protest against misgov-ernance and the lack of essential services. the then President, Dr.Bingu wa mutharika ordered the police to "shoot to kill" and twenty-four unarmed people were slaughtered during the next two days.

subsequently, the President declared in public, that he would ‘smokeus out’, and we would feel the full fury of his wrath. we had to go intohiding in fear for our lives, hounded everywhere by machete-wieldingstate sponsored thugs. my offices were petrol bombed and all mypriceless archives were burnt to ashes. i was virtually at my last gaspin December 2011, when the norwegian government stepped in andtook me to Bergen, norway, where i worked with the Christianmichelson institute for the next six months. my profound thanks goto front Line Defenders, and others who also stepped in withinvaluable support to sustain us during those dark days.

Bingu died of a heart attack on 5 april 2012 - may god give him whathe deserves!

i returned to malawi in July 2012, to find the country euphoricallyexpecting great changes under the stewardship of Joyce Banda butsadly, since then, we have descended into a vicious cycle ofcorruption and abuse of power.

after fifty years of independence and billions of dollars in aid, we stillhave a per capita income of 165 dollars per annum, 80% of ourpopulace still earn less than 1 dollar per day, 67% of our people arestill illiterate, only 6% have access to electricity and less than 1%have access to tertiary education.

we now have a kleptocratic oligarchy instead of our cherisheddemocracy. unfortunately, this cycle of poverty and ignorancedehumanises people and that is our greatest challenge - the retrievalof dignity lost... will you walk with me on this quest?


WE HAD TO GO INTOHIDING IN FEAR FOR

OUR LIVES, HOUNDEDEVERYWHERE BY

MACHETE-WIELDINGSTATE SPONSOREDTHUGS. MY OFFICES

WERE PETROLBOMBED AND

ALL MY PRICELESSARCHIVES WEREBURNT TO ASHES

RAFIQ HAJATInstitute for Policy InteractionMALAWI

BIRAM DAH ABEIDInitiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement

MAURITANIA

”“

IN THE EYES OFTHESE OPPRESSORS,WHO ARE RESISTANT

TO CHANGE, THECLAIMING OF RACIAL

EQUALITY ANDEQUALITY OF BIRTH

STATUS AMONGCITIZENS IS A

COMPLETE TABOOAND SHOULD BE

PUNISHED

i Bring You a message of reCognition from tHe memBersof my organisation, L'initiative pour la résurgence du mouvementabolitionniste en mauritanie (initiative for the resurgence of theabolitionist movement) (ira-mauritania). i also remember yourunwavering support for our leaders and activists, who are trapped inan environment of rigid and growing hostility marked by thecontinued ban on our ngo, a loss of work in the public and privatesectors and harassment in all forms, as well as aggression, beatings,arrests and imprisonments. at the smallest non-violent protest onour part, the mauritanian legal and security apparatus accuse us ofgross coercion. in the eyes of these oppressors, who are resistant tochange, the claiming of racial equality and equality of birth statusamong citizens is a complete taboo and should be punished.

Yes, calling for the laws which penalise slavery to be applied to thedominant arab-Berber group poses a problem for the state, whoseleaders and elites originate from the very same system that interna-tional opinion obliges them to ostensibly condemn. it is this dilemmathat leads to our repression as a social group that is in direct andopen opposition to the repetition of injustice.

in this regard, my thoughts move to the mauritanian town of rosso,where two ira-mauritania activists, abdallahi ould Hmeyid andslama ould seyid, have been imprisoned since 30 september 2013,both of them punished for having participated in a peaceful demon-stration calling for the enforcement of the law that criminalisesslavery in mauritania. the rally followed a complaint that was broughtbefore the gendarmerie of Boutilimit (a town to the east ofnouakchott) by 18-year-old noura mint aheymed, a victim of slaverywho was supported and assisted by ira-mauritania.

the perpetrators - brothers Cheikh and amar sidi ould ely mhaymed(respectively a businessman and a member of the ruling politicalparty) and the rest of their family - have yet to be punished. nourawas taken away form her mother at the age of four. since then, shehas been subjected day and night to a life of forced labour, corporalpunishment and solitude. for 15 years she has been deprived ofschooling and starved of parental warmth and comfort. as is thecase with all higher authorities in mauritania, which are quick tooppose the enforcement of the law on slavery and protect supportersof slavery, ahmed ould ghalla, the officer at the gendarmerieresponsible for receiving complaints, and Judge ould rabbani, whowas responsible for examining the matter, hastened to dismiss the

case by falsifying the victim’s testimony. in response to this sham,ira-mauritania mobilised a number of its activists to stage apermanent sit-in in front of the gendarmerie.

the reaction of the current mauritanian power structure was theviolent repression of our activists, who for more than a month havebeen subjected to assaults from the police and the gendarmerie.these authorities have attempted to silence our peaceful, legal andlegitimate demands through violence, intimidation and imprison-ment. in addition to the two activists that remain in prison, i wouldlike to stress that other ira-mauritania members were seriouslyinjured on 6 october, when police and gendarmerie units stormedthe sit-in venue and employed the liberal use of batons, kicks,punches and tear gas. this attack led to the hospitalisation of Babatraoré, sabbar ould mousse, Cheikhna ould mahmoud andnamoury ould Bilal.

Dear friends, we are in an excellent position to bear witness to theeffectiveness of urgent appeals, diplomatic lobbying and otheractions that front Line Defenders carries out for the benefit of humanrights defenders who are in danger around the world.

we are pleased that front Line Defenders, like all other ngos, in-ternational bodies and democratic states around the world, takesan increasingly critical standpoint on the crimes of slavery andracism, which are directed towards eighty percent of the mauritanianpopulation – people whose only fault is having been born black anddescended from slaves. ngos and state institutions must use all oftheir diplomatic influence to counter the persecution of human rightsdefenders, a practice in which mauritania has proven itself to be achampion in recent years. in 2012 alone, seven ira-mauritaniamembers, including myself, were charged with three crimes carryinga death sentence, after we protested against slavery by setting fireto copies of the “Black Code”, which is still taught in our religiousschools and is still applied by the ruling elite to the detriment of morethan 20 percent of our people, the Hratin community.

our fight is your fight. Let us pursue it together, for the sake of ahumanity that is ethical and fair.


i am reVerenD DaViD ugoLor, exeCutiVe DireCtor ofafrica network for environment and economic Justice (aneeJ), anngo based in Benin City, edo state, nigeria. on 27 July 2012, i wasarrested by the nigerian police, accused of being the mastermindbehind the assassination of my friend, Comrade oliatan oyerinde,who until his untimely death was the private principal secretary tothe edo state governor, Comrade adams oshohmole, and a closefamily friend. Comrade oliatan oyerinde was a senior staff memberof the nigeria Labour Congress (nLC) before he joined thegovernment of edo state and we had a very good relationship.

on 4 may 2012, when he was assassinated, i was the first familyfriend to be contacted by his wife. i went to the house which wasabout five minutes drive from my own and saw him in a pool of bloodafter several gunshots from unknown gunmen. immediately, i carriedhim into my Hilux pick-up truck, with the assistance of his wife, andwe drove to the government Central Hospital. unfortunately, beforethe doctor and nurses on duty could respond he passed away. westarted crying and later returned back to oliatan’s house to pick uphis family and bring them to my house for safety.

following pressure from the edo state government, Presidentgoodluck Jonathan ordered the inspector general of Police tocommence an investigation into those behind the killing of Comradeolaitan oyerinde. the police investigation team was led by theDeputy inspector general of Police (Dig). the police asked me in forinterrogation and on 27 July 2012 a team of heavily armed policeinvaded the premises of the international secretariat of aneeJ,holding staff and visitors hostage for more than three hours. thepolice officers who had invited me to the state police command, alsobrought me to my office in handcuffs and to my house.

i was kept at three different inhuman detention facilities for a periodof forty-one days, 27 July to 11 september 2012, in clear disobedi-ence of a ruling of the court of competent jurisdiction which orderedmy immediate and unconditional release. During my detention i waskept in a police prison without a toilet and i had to defecate andurinate in a bucket all day and in the process i contracted skindiseases. i had to resort to another court process to secure myrelease from prison custody and i was granted bail by a High Courtin Benin City, edo state.

a few days later, the Department of state security service (Dss) ofthe federal government of nigeria, paraded six suspects who weredifferent to the four suspects presented by the police, who gavegraphic details of how they had plotted and hatched the killing ofComrade oliatan oyerinde. it will interest you to note that when theDss paraded their suspects before the media and the public, theywere specifically asked if they had any knowledge of David ugolorand they all responded negatively. that drama changed the wholestory around my frame up by the nigerian police.

i was framed by the nigerian police for being the mastermind behindthe assassination of oyerinde, claiming that one of the suspects intheir custody, garuba masamari alleged that one David hadpromised his gang of four a total of 20 million naira (80,000 gBpounds) and that i paid them only 200,000 naira (800 gB pounds).it was on the strength of this trumped up allegation that i wasarrested and detained under gruelling conditions.

when i and nine other suspects were eventually charged to amagistrates’ Court in Benin City, on 31 august 2012 the presidingmagistrate remanded all the suspects including me at oko Prison inthe state capital. on our way to the prison and even at the prison,garba maisamari, the purported accuser and two others; Danjumamusa and muritala usman confessed to me that they were torturedby the nigerian police officers to deliberately implicate and point atme. they told me that my photograph was brought to them to studytwo weeks before i was arrested. Before then the police had pho-tographed me. these three men were shot by the police, while aspoke was poked into Danjuma musa’s penis in a desperate bid toimplicate me. today, still in prison, Danjuma musa has difficulty inpassing urine as a result of the police torture.

in november 2012 i was discharged and acquitted by themagistrates Court following the advice of the ministry of Justice /Department of Public Prosecution (DPP), as there was no evidencelinking me to the crime outside maisamari’s accusations, which ofcourse he has since recounted. i was just being persecuted by thefederal government of nigeria following my dogged campaignsagainst corruption in the oil and gas sector, in favour of credibleelections that are inclusive of all stakeholders, for better, transparentand accountable use of oil resources and a better deal for ourkinsmen in the oil-rich niger Delta.


I WAS JUST BEINGPERSECUTED BY THE

GOVERNMENT OFNIGERIA FOLLOWING

MY DOGGEDCAMPAIGNS AGAINSTCORRUPTION IN THE

OIL AND GASSECTOR, IN FAVOUR

OF CREDIBLEELECTIONS THAT ARE

INCLUSIVE OF ALLSTAKEHOLDERS

REV. DAVID UGOLORAfrica Network for Environment and Economic JusticeNIGERIA

ELISABETH MUKAJAMBORwandan League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights

RWANDA

”“

THE FRAGILITY ANDFEAR OF RWANDAN

CIVIL SOCIETY ISREFLECTED IN WHATHAPPENED AROUND

THE UNIVERSALPERIODIC REVIEW

OF RWANDA INSEPTEMBER 2010

La Ligue rwanDaise Pour La Promotion et La Défensedes Droits de l’Homme (rwandan League for the Promotion andDefence of Human rights) (LiProDHor) experienced some diffi-culties in July 2013. according to its statutes, after two years andduring a general assembly it must elect a new Board of Directors,whose two-year mandate may then be renewed once. in July 2013,it held what was called a “Consultation meeting”.

not all the members of LiProDHor were invited to participate andthose who were invited were contacted by telephone, rather thanreceiving invitations. the meeting was chaired by the formerPresident of LiProDHor, who had already completed his mandate.it was then turned into a general assembly meeting, during whichparticipants were asked to dismiss the current Board of Directorsand elect a new one. at that point, a number of participants left themeeting on the grounds that they had been told the session wouldbe a Consultation meeting, rather than a general assembly. othersremained in the room and elected the new Board, whose results wereaccepted by the rwanda governance Board, despite the fact thatthe meeting had been held in violation of the LiProDHor statutes.

the meeting had been organised subsequent to LiProDHor’swithdrawal from the Collectif des Ligues et Associations de Défensedes Droits Humains (CLaDHo) (umbrella association for Humanrights organisations), which had occurred because CLaDHo hadbeen creating conflict among its members, rather than strengthen-ing them. this withdrawal had not pleased CLaDHo andLiProDHor eventually rejoined the association.

the fragility and fear of rwandan civil society is reflected in whathappened around the universal Periodic review of rwanda inseptember 2010. (Ligue des Droits de la Personne dans la Régiondes Grandes Lacs) (LDgL) the League for the Defence of Humanrights in the great Lakes region member organisations were invitedby the League to participate in a meeting to analyse the implemen-tation of the recommendations that had been submitted to rwandaduring the universal Periodic review.

invited organisations nominated agents or members to represent themin this capacity. multiple meetings were held and participants discussedthe progress made with regard to the recommendations. at the end ofthe meeting, they agreed upon recommendations to be submitted tothe government so that they could be taken into consideration.

interestingly, there were disagreements among the participants whenthe recommendations were issued, insofar as some participantsclaimed not to have taken part in the work or not to have sent rep-resentative members or agents. other organisations said that theyhad participated but that they did not agree with the recommenda-tions. Certain organisation representatives went on national radiosaying that legal action should be taken against LDgL. among themost insistent were the executive secretary of CLaDHo and theexecutive secretary of HaguruKa, a rwandan ngo aimed atdefending the rights of women and children.

only three organisations were in agreement with the recommenda-tions, while the others came together to counter them, saying thatthey had not participated in the work. this occurred despite theexistence of evidence to the contrary, notably the invitation lettersissued to the organisations, the attendance lists, receipts signed bythe participants when they had received their travel expenses andconfirmation by the venue where the meetings were held.


as a femaLe traDe unionist anD DefenDer of tHe rigHtsof women and children, i was honoured and pleased to take part inthe seventh Dublin Platform. for me, it has been a real space forexchange, sharing and learning. the quality of the dialogue lived upto my expectations and the variety of testimonies at times broughtme to tears. and i was particularly impressed by the professionalismand thoroughness of the logistical organisation.

i have just come from a congress which confirmed that the africantrade union movement is rooted in the patriarchal system and careslittle about the rights of women. this Platform for human rightsdefenders has encouraged me to pursue the struggle. i’d like tothank front Line Defenders and i trust that we will continue this col-laboration for the promotion of human rights around the world.

our organisation, the Union Démocratique des enseignantes etenseignants du Sénégal (Democratic union of teachers of senegal)(uDen), is a member of the international association of educators forworld Peace. we organised the first african Congress on educationfor Peace and Human rights in 1995.

along with other senegalese organisations, we do advocacy workto promote respect for people’s rights in general and trade unionrights in particular. we are also developing programmes to promoterespect for the right to education, in particular for girls living in ruralareas.


THIS PLATFORM HASENCOURAGED ME TO

PURSUE THESTRUGGLE. I’D LIKETO THANK FRONTLINE DEFENDERSAND I TRUST THAT

WE WILLCONTINUE THIS

COLLABORATION FORTHE PROMOTION OF

HUMAN RIGHTSAROUND THE WORLD

AWA WADEDemocratic Union of Teachers of SenegalSENEGAL

ABDIAZIZ IBRAHIMJournalistSOMALIA

”“

I HAD TWO VERYGOOD LAWYERS...THEY THOUGHT

ABOUT JOURNALISMAND HUMAN RIGHTS

AND HOW TO DEFENDTHOSE RIGHTS.

UNFORTUNATELY,THEY WERE KILLED

IN A SUICIDE ATTACKON 14 APRIL 2013

mY name is aBDiaziz iBraHim. i am a freeLanCe JournaList.i speak on behalf of somali human rights defenders and journalists.i have had many experiences in both my professional and personallife which have affected me. given that i have been working as ajournalist in somalia in some of the worst years of our country’sconflict, one of the experiences which has affected me the most isa recent one. this year, in January 2013, i was arbitrarily arrested,detained and wrongfully sentenced after i interviewed a victim ofrape by government forces. i interviewed the woman two days beforemy arrest and she gave me details about her abuse.

the head of the somali Criminal investigations Department calledme on the mobile phone of the victim. He asked me for my nameand he told me he knew me and that he wanted to see me. i went tohis office and after a couple of minutes he told me i was under arrest.He showed me a report published on al Jazeera website and askedme if i’d written the article. i told him i hadn’t but he didn’t believeme. there was no official letter, or anything. they told me that i’dmade the article up for al Jazeera, that it was propaganda and thatthey were going to search my home and my office. they searchedboth places and then kept me in a cell at the criminal investigationfacility for 17 days. During this time police and intelligence officialsdid not allow my lawyers, family members or journalists to visit me,as they carried out further investigations. then they sent me to thecentral prison in mogadishu. this case has created longer securityconcerns for me.

for two months i was in detention, primarily in the Criminal investi-gation Division (CiD) and later in mogadishu Central Prison simply fordoing my work and for having interviewed a woman who had beenraped. i was very worried during my imprisonment, as i sat in veryhorrible conditions in a cell with over 45 others, includinggovernment soldiers and fighters from the islamist group al-shabaab. it was crowded and i could not sleep. guys from al-shabaab would come up to me and tell me things that weren’t goodfor me to hear. one of them told me, “if i was out of this prison theni would never let you live in this world”.

i had been sentenced to a year in jail. we appealed and it wasreduced to six months. then we appealed again, i was found notguilty and i was released. i had two very good lawyers – human rightslawyers who were well respected in mogadishu. they thought aboutjournalism and human rights and how to defend those rights. un-

fortunately, they were killed in a suicide attack on 14 april 2013. myexperience made me realise just how weak and corrupt the somalipolice and somali justice system are, and just how many injusticesordinary somalis are suffering at the hands of the authorities. whileon a personal level this was an incredibly challenging experience,professionally it made me further committed to making sure that thevoices of those abused by the government would be heard.

my case received a lot of attention both in somalia and internation-ally and it created a lot of negative attention for the government.During my detention i received threats from the security services,and there were four officials from CiD who told me they would not letme get away with all the negative attention my case was creatingeven when i was released. also, several members of the police andjudiciary lost their positions in part as a result of my case and i amlikely to be an easy target for them. this whole experience wasincredibly stressful and a strain both on my health and my psycho-logical state of mind.

threats against journalists and other human rights defenders insomalia are an everyday reality, and i have lost many colleaguesalong the way. it is often difficult to know which side of the conflictthe attack might come from, whether from the government or fromthe militias. at least four journalists and a prominent human rightsactivist have been murdered since January of this year. Human rightsdefenders, journalists and activists in somali regions continue toexpose human rights violations through investigation, reporting anddocumentation. the people recently killed include prominent humanrights activists, lawyers, journalists, religious leaders and whoeverhas the courage to speak out and defend the rights of others.

we request that you carry out investigations to make sure that thelives of journalists and other human rights defenders are protectedand that the perpetrators are brought to justice.


mY name is moHameD sHeiKH moHameD from somaLia.i’m the Director of the iniskoy for Peace organisation. Being a humanrights defender in somalia is a difficult task, and the situation we arein is risky at all times, in all places in the country.

somalia, a country torn by civil war since 1991, has seen violence,extremism, insecurity and a failed government for decades, andhuman rights defenders have been sucked into this mess. since1991, many human rights defenders have faced problems, and someof them have been killed, wounded, kidnapped, arrested andtortured. others have fled the country because of this great insecurityand remain outside as refugees and asylum seekers. in theory thereis law and a constitution in somalia, but in reality it is notimplemented. alshabaab have burned all of the humanitarian andhuman rights organisation in the areas where they were operating.amongst the alshabaab these organisations are called spies.

Personally i have faced risks at different times as a result of my work.in 2009, i narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when unknownmen with pistols attacked me and shot me in the neck while i washeading to the office. fortunately i survived the attack. they took mymobile and my laptop, and i was hospitalised for two months. But icould not stop my involvement in human rights issues. once i wasfeeling in good health, i took up my human rights work again. in2010, i was forced to relocate from Baido to mogadishu when thethreats to my own security continued to grow. once i camemogadishu, i continued my work, never stopping it.

in 2010, alshabaab arrested one of my colleagues after theyattacked his house, and he was jailed for more than seven months.During this time they tortured him badly and accused him of being aspy. sadly, one day his son died, and alshabaab allowed him to goto bury his son with two alshabaab watching over him. theopportunity to escape presented itself that day and with the help ofour chairperson and other people, he managed to escape. Hereceived support from front Line Defenders and other organisations,and relocated in uganda. alshabaab tortured and beheaded the twomen who were supposed to be watching him, and the people whohelped him in his escape were also at risk for their lives, and theyalso had to leave the country.

recently, on 21 July 2013, one of our human rights monitors wasarrested by alshabaab. He was attacked at his house, in the middle

of the night, and he is still in the hands of alshabaab. they haverefused him all visitation rights, including from his wife, children andparents. His life is in danger. there is a negotiation taking placebetween the alshabaab and his clan, and we pray to allah to protecthim and get his freedom back.

Never stop working on human rights issues in Somalia!


FORTUNATELY ISURVIVED THEATTACK. I WAS

HOSPITALISED FORTWO MONTHS. BUT ICOULD NOT STOP MY

INVOLVEMENT INHUMAN RIGHTS

ISSUES. ONCE I WASFEELING IN GOOD

HEALTH, I TOOK UPMY HUMAN RIGHTS

WORK AGAIN

MOHAMED SHEIKH MOHAMEDIniskoy for PeaceSOMALIA

STEPHEN ULIMBOKADoctors Community & Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition

TANZANIA

”“

I CALL ON THEINTERNATIONALCOMMUNITY TOSUPPORT THEMOVEMENT IN

FIGHTING IMPUNITYBY REMINDING THEGOVERNMENT OF

TANZANIA TOACHIEVE JUSTICE

FOR VICTIMS

tHe situation of Human rigHts DefenDers in tanzania isappalling, and this can be exemplified by a string of recent incidents.

as the chairman of the Doctors Community and a member oftanzania Human rights Defenders Coalition, i have been involvedin the welfare of patients and doctors since 2005. i was abducted on27 June 2012 from a meeting set by the state house representativeto discuss the way forward on patients and doctors welfare. sincethen, there has never been an inquiry regarding the abduction, severetorture and my final dumping in the forest. my colleague in themeeting has never been subjected to any inquiry. the governmentofficial employee, by the name of mr. ramadhani ighondu, has neverdenied that he had no hand in the abduction, neither was hesubjected to any inquiry ever since. the government has neverallowed free reporting of my abduction, banning indefinitely a weeklynewspaper called mwanahalisi which attempted to report theincident and the government has still up to the time of writing allowedan independent body/committee to investigate the incident.

three months later, in september 2012, a tV cameraman workingfor an independent channel, mr. Daudi mwangosi was killed by apolice officer who fired a tear gas canister at him at close range.authorities filed murder charges against the police but the case isstill pending. trends and evidence would appear to indicate that it isdeliberately being delayed, in order to off-set the public outcry. todate, one year after the killing, not a single journalist in iringa,including the journalist who took many photographs at the time ofmwangosi killing, has been called for interrogation by police officerswho are handling the investigation and prosecution process. worsestill, until now, the state has not opened charges or disciplinaryaction against the six other officers of whom video and photographstaken at the seen of the crime illustrate that they were involved inthe incident. in addition, michael Kamuhanda who was regionalPolice Commander at the time, has been promoted to Deputy Com-missioner of Police.

six months later, on 5 march 2013, assailants carried out a horrificattack, beating and torturing mr. absalom Kibanda, Chairman of thetanzania editorial forum. they lopped off the top of his right ringfinger, pierced his left eye and pried out several teeth and fingernails.to date, no one has been arraigned and no serious investigationshave taken place.

furthermore, daily Kiswahili newspapers mwananchi and mtanzania,have been suspended for fourteen days and ninety days respectively.the current draconian laws give the power to the ministerresponsible for information to ban a newspaper or any media outletat his discretion. the law empowers the minister to act as chiefeditor, to prosecute, judge and execute the sentence. this is contraryto the rule of natural justice and the tanzania Constitution.

i, together with the Coalition of Human right Defenders in tanzania,call on the international community to support the movement infighting impunity by reminding the government of tanzania toachieve justice for victims. furthermore, i call upon this Platform toremind the government of tanzania of its commitment to interna-tional human rights laws in guaranteeing good governance and torepeal or amend all oppressive laws which curtail the freedom of themedia.


mY name is nKosiLatHi emmanueL moYo (26), a human rightsdefender based in the small mining town of Kwekwe in the republicof zimbabwe. Here i am leading a civic group named the zimbabweorganization for the Youth in Politics (zoYP) as the Director.

Kwekwe is a known hot spot for political violence and gross humanrights violations in zimbabwe and those trying to defend humanrights (like me) are branded as threats to the state. it was on the 16november 2011 that i organised a peace meeting at Kwekwe theatreHall in my community. the purpose of the meeting was to call forpeace and respect of human rights, not only in Kwekwe butzimbabwe as a whole. i notified the police about this gathering as isrequired by our law in zimbabwe (Public order and security actknown as Posa).

on the day of the event i received a call from the police informing methat they had banned the meeting from taking place and i told themthat the meeting was already in progress and i needed a clear reasonwhy the police thought of banning such a peaceful gathering. aftera few minutes i saw anti-riot police arriving. they surrounded us andstarted to disperse the gathering, their leader ordered that i shouldbe arrested and his officer handcuffed me and dragged me to thepolice station.

upon my arrival at the police station i was thrown behind bars whilstthey were trumping up a charge against me. Later on i was told thati was being charged with contravening section 25 of the Public orderand security act: convening an illegal political gathering that is ofthreat to national security. the following morning i was taken to courtwhere i was released on bail of 100 us dollars. the case took about11 months on trial as the state was failing to prove its case. then inoctober 2012, after a year of being traumatised by being called tothe court regularly, i became the second person in the history ofzimbabwe to be convicted under this dubious law, after Presidentrobert mugabe, who had been jailed by the colonial administrationfor contravening the same law prior to 1980.

after the civil society made noise condemning my arrest, i was laterreleased after paying a fine of 500 us dollars. then in January 2013,i organised another meeting for human rights defenders in mbizocommunity. a group of thugs, allegedly from the state-sponsoredterror groups, besieged the gathering and disrupted the meeting.Death threats were made against me and my colleague Jasper

maposa who is Programmes manager at our organisation. we wentinto hiding for some weeks in fear for our lives and had it not beenfor the support of front Line Defenders only god knows where wewould be today. i, on behalf of our organisation and human rightsdefenders in Kwekwe will remain indebted to front Line Defenders.


I BECAME THESECOND PERSON IN

THE HISTORY OFZIMBABWE TO BE

CONVICTED UNDERTHIS DUBIOUS LAW,AFTER PRESIDENTROBERT MUGABE,

WHO HAD BEENJAILED BY THE

COLONIALADMINISTRATION

NKOSILATHI EMMANUEL MOYOZimbabwe Organization For The Youth In PoliticsZIMBABWE

FÉLIX DÍAZThe Qom Potae Napocna Navogoh Community

ARGENTINA

”“

WHAT IS HAPPENINGALL OVER THE

WORLD IS VERYWORRYING, THEINHERITANCE WEARE LEAVING FOR

OUR FUTURE, ACONTAMINATED

WORLD, WITHOUTHOPE, WATER, LAND

OR NATURALRESOURCES

mY name is féLix Díaz anD i am tHe LeaDer of tHe qomPotae napocna navogoh community, in the province of formosa, inthe argentine republic. i am very happy to be able to be here toattend an event which is so important for us as indigenous peoplesof argentina. to be able to carry our message and our voice to thisregion and to put forward our complaints regarding the lack ofguarantees for our human rights, which have always been vulnerable,despite the existence of many constitutional rights which wereestablished to guarantee our existence.

we are truly worried by what is happening to the indigenous peoplesliving in each province of argentina, because we are the victims ofpersecution, due to the lack of political will to guarantee our humanrights. we do not want them to see us as enemies of democracy, ofthe country or of justice; we want them to recognise our rights.

we want to be part of this country, but with the freedom we deservebefore the state, as the argentine state recognises the pre-existenceof indigenous argentine peoples, and we are very keen to be part ofa collective construction so that we can defend our human rights, ourmother earth, who protects us in every moment and throughout thehistory of humanity.

we are truly worried by the lack of recognition for the territory that isthe essence of our life. it gives us the opportunity to develop ourculture and survival, through gathering, hunting, fishing and spiritu-ality. for us, the territory is like life itself because it is where ournatural resources are, which we, the indigenous peoples, are beingdeprived of, because they are in private hands or in protected areas,such as national parks. and we are like spectators watching theextraction of our natural resources and we continue, like beggars,to struggle against the lack of water, healthcare, education, etc.

we indigenous peoples have the right not to suffer more discrimina-tion. we should be treated as no different to the rest of thepopulation.

what is happening all over the world is very worrying, the inheritancewe are leaving for our future, a contaminated world, without hope,water, land or natural resources. for this reason we give our life,because we want life to reproduce and we want to have the freedomwe are due. we hope that during this time we are given to live, we willsee an opening of a dialogue that must be started with the rulers of

each country. we respect and will continue to respect each institutionthat joins and works with our people, because what we want is tohave justice, freedom, peace and love all over the world.


mY name is astronaDC Pereira. i work for the Brazilian Policeforce. i am a psychologist and a member of the Human rightsCouncil of my state, Paraiba.

Violence in my country has a name, a colour, a territory and a socialclass. Victims of violence are generally young, black, live in disad-vantaged neighbourhoods and are poor.

the Brazilian police acts with extreme brutality. the police force isdiscriminatory, reactionary, militarised, corrupt, violent and inefficient.it does not generally investigate or resolve homicides and all theother violence that takes place. i am here to call for the demilitarisa-tion of the police force in Brazil. the un has already made thisrecommendation to the Brazilian government. i am here to denouncethe situation in Brazil.

Between June and september this year, the Brazilian people wentout onto the streets to protest against endemic corruption. thepolice acted with violence against the demonstrators, teachers,young people and workers. i am here to ask for the internationalcommunity’s help to put pressure on the Brazilian government todemilitarise its police force and to carry out a thorough reform of thecountry’s criminal justice system.

the current system frequently punishes, kills and tortures poorpeople. we want a democratic and fair justice system and a policeforce that is not corrupt or violent, that is democratic and thatprotects our people. the people should be the police and the policeshould be the people!

i am here to denounce that there is no security at all and no supplyof drinking water in some regions of Brazil. there is a devastatingdrought in the semi-arid interior of the north east, but the governmentcontinues to ignore the situation. there is no secure water supply.there is a lack of basic sanitation and this spreads disease amongthe population. the lack of quality education leads to more povertyand violence. the quilombola communities are the descendants ofslaves in the colonial period. there are 500,000 such communities inBrazil, but only 170 have land rights.

the indigenous peoples of Brazil suffer at the hands of the farmowners, others who claim ownership of the land with false titledeeds, drug traffickers and organised crime. there is a lot of violence

in mato grosso do sul and the government is against the indigenouspeoples. in this region, cattle, sugar-cane and soya have more rightsthan indigenous children because sugar-cane and soya areproduced by big companies. the indigenous peoples of minasgerais, the Machacadias, are being wiped out and women’s rightsare violated.

in Paraiba, human rights defenders, including the priest and federaldeputy, Luiz Couto, and our colleague Valdenia Paulino, aresubjected to constant death threats and can only go out with a policeescort. organised crime, death squads and people who cannottolerate human rights have threatened to kill them. anothercolleague, fernando Perissê, from the town of sousa, campaignsagainst corruption. He is being unfairly prosecuted and 22 chargeshave been laid against him. He needs us. He needs front LineDefenders, because he does not have the money to pay for a lawyer.our colleague guiany, who campaigns against state violence in theprisons of Paraiba, is being tried on trumped-up charges. Hecampaigns for human rights so why does the state persecute him?

in the state where i live, there were 171 complaints against policeofficers in the last five years. this is a high number, but there aremany more problems. People are afraid to make an officialcomplaint.

i am grateful to all of you. my people, my home and my familywelcome you with open arms.


BETWEEN JUNE ANDSEPTEMBER THIS

YEAR, THE BRAZILIANPEOPLE WENT OUTONTO THE STREETS

TO PROTESTAGAINST ENDEMICCORRUPTION. THE

POLICE ACTED WITHVIOLENCE AGAINST

THEDEMONSTRATORS

ASTRONADC PEREIRAPolice ForceBRAZIL

CINDY BLACKSTOCKFirst Nations Child and Family Caring Society

CANADA

”“

THE EQUALITY OFFIRST NATIONS

CHILDREN AND OURCOLLECTIVE

FREEDOM DEPENDON COURAGEOUS

PUBLIC DISSENT ANDPEACEFUL ACTION

WHEN OURGOVERNMENTENGAGES IN

DISCRIMINATORYBEHAVIOUR

first nations CHiLDren on reserVes get fewer PuBLiCservices than all other Canadian children. this has been going onfor decades and, despite available solutions and the wealth of thecountry, there is no real promise of equality on the horizon. in 2007,the assembly of first nations and the organisation i work for, thefirst nations Child and family Caring society (Caring society), fileda human rights complaint against the Canadian government allegingthat its lesser provision of first nations child welfare services wasdiscriminatory.

a month later both organisations experienced government fundingcuts and two years later hundreds of pages of government recordswould show that the Canadian government had been systematicallymonitoring my personal facebook page, recording what i said atgatherings and meetings and obstructing my ability to support firstnations organisations advocating for equitable funding for theirchildren.

government documents say they are undertaking these antidemo-cratic tactics to try to find “other motives” for the child welfare case.the Privacy Commissioner found Canada’s access to my personalfacebook page and the collection of postings made by me and byothers, including children, to be a violation of Canadian privacy lawand yet there is still no guarantee that the Canadian government hasstopped.

the government documents suggest that the online spying activityis systematic as there are forms for government officials to fill out toaccess the personal social media pages of any citizen. equallydisturbing, testimony by government officials at the CanadianHuman rights tribunal indicates that there are no effective measuresto monitor government officials once they gain access to thesepersonal media sites. as one official testified at the Canadian Humanrights tribunal, once on facebook a government employee is freeto harvest information from any of the 1.2 billion users in the world.moreover, there are widespread reports that the Canadiangovernment has an official “enemies list” which includes environ-mental organisations standing up against the government’s resourcedevelopment agenda.

the Privacy Commissioner has recently launched an investigationinto numerous reports that government scientists are being muzzledand that indigenous peoples organisations in Canada have

repeatedly cited examples of government spying on participants ofpeaceful protests.

many people come to Canada to flee oppression by their owngovernments but Canada is increasingly becoming a place whereyou are only free if you agree with the government.

although deeply disturbed and sometimes afraid of the Canadiangovernment, i will not be silenced. the equality of first nationschildren and our collective freedom depend on courageous publicdissent and peaceful action when our government engages indiscriminatory and oppressive behaviour.


Being a Human rigHts DefenDer in tHe DominiCanrepublic is almost like being part of a genocide, and even more sowhen you defend the rights of Haitian nationals and theirdescendants in the country. for years, human rights defenders inthe Dominican republic have suffered discrimination and variousattacks from sectors known as Nacionalistas or defenders of thehomeland.

Defenders such as solain Pie (sonia Pierre), the prominent humanrights activist in the Dominican republic, who during her life sufferedmany attacks by the government and forces of power in the country.these attacks carried on against her children, of which i, solangemanuela, am the eldest.

in 2008, when my mother was still alive, she received a call duringwhich she was told that they were pointing a gun at my head, thatthey knew the location of the school my siblings were at and thatthey would kidnap us, they would rape us and then they would kill us.

from the prominent work of my mother in the defence of the rightsof migrants and their descendants in the Dominican republic, i, asher daughter, became involved in the work of the movimientode mujeres Dominico Haitianas (Dominican Haitian women’smovement) in defence of young Dominicans of Haitian descent inthe country. as a result i have also suffered from the threats andrights violations that this work carries in the Dominican republic.

in July 2012, through my work, i was detained together with anotherfemale companion at the Junta Central y Electoral (Central electoralBoard), without any explanation. a soldier without identification tookus to a room where there were three men, who never identifiedthemselves, and who began to ask us questions about our work. weexplained who we were and we asked them to identify themselves,which they never did. they made it very clear to me that they knewwho i was and that they knew how we work and that they had ordersfrom their superiors to investigate us.

in april 2013 i was interviewed by the national newspaper ListínDiario, where i spoke about the situation of Dominicans of Haitiandescent, which caused uproar in the country; the comments werevery aggressive and threatening. the title of the interview was “elrelevo de sonia Pierre” (the work of sonia Pierre).


MY MOTHERRECEIVED A CALL

DURING WHICH SHEWAS TOLD THAT

THEY WEREPOINTING A GUN AT

MY HEAD, THAT THEYKNEW THE LOCATIONOF THE SCHOOL MYSIBLINGS WERE AT,

AND THAT THEYWOULD KIDNAP,

RAPE AND KILL US

SOLANGE MANUELA DANDRE PIEDominican Haitian Women’s MovementDOMINICAN REPUBLIC

CARLOS PÉREZ GUARTAMBELConfederation of Kichwa People

ECUADOR

”“

ON 8 JANUARY 2009,MORE THAN 30

SPECIALOPERATIONS POLICE

AGENTS (GOE)DETAINED ME

WITHOUT AWARRANT, FORPROTESTING

AGAINST THE MININGLAW, PUSHING,DRAGGING ANDTORTURING ME

in 2002, tHe HarmonY of tHe CommunitY in tHe ViLLagesof the lower part of Kimsakocha was abruptly interrupted by thepresence of foreign miners that were after gold. from then on, therewere conflicts between extractivists and communities, interests andrights – some relating to the gold, others relating to the water. theindigenous resistance consolidated, then the persecution of theleaders began.

on 8 January 2009, more than 30 special operations police agents(goe) detained me, the “leader of the resistance”, without a warrant,for protesting against the mining law, pushing, dragging and torturingme. my companions, in an effort to prevent my capture, were alsoassaulted with gas and were hit by the police.

i filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s office, which declinedjurisdiction and sent it to the police jurisdiction; the police chiefarchived the case, despite the fact that there was sufficient evidenceprovided, thereby allowing impunity. then i pursued a lawsuit againstthe state in the administrative Court, which, two years later, orderedthe case to be archived. the case is now with the inter-americanCommission on Human rights (iaCHr).

on 4 may 2010, they detained me together with two companionsduring a peaceful protest. the following is noted in the police reportas the cause of the detention; “sedition, disturbance of public order,assault of police officers and destruction of public property, stoppingand hindering public services”. that afternoon, the criminal court,accepting the accusation of the Public Prosecutor’s office, orderedmy preventive detention for the crime of sabotage and terrorismaffecting public services. on 24 august 2010, the first Court ofCriminal guarantees of azuay, despite strong political pressure,confirmed our innocence.

the Public Prosecutor’s office appealed the ruling and the ProvincialCourt sentenced us to one year in prison but, since it was “a socialand altruistic struggle in the defence of water”, reduced the sentenceto eight days. we did not accept it. we appealed and on 14 august2012 the national court convicted us as defenders of water. finally,on 21 march 2013, we paid the penalty in the prison of Cuenca,thereby proving the criminalisation of social protest in ecuador.

the effects of the sentence are manifold:- our records are stained, like criminals. - i could not practice law for the duration of the sentence and i am

stigmatised as a lawyer with a criminal record. - the legal precedent is harmful for the indigenous movement and

the ecuadorian population. my sentence was only the beginning ofthe sentences brought against more than two hundred peoplecriminalised for social protest.

- in ecuador people are afraid of resisting for fear of criminalisation.- President Correa sent a new comprehensive criminal code to the

national assembly, which was approved in the first debate andwhich contains new criminal offences and the increase and accu-mulation of sentences.

- the submission of the people to the ruler may come to be totaland absolute, with this the rights to resistance, civil disobedienceand legitimate self-defence disappear, along with other relatedhuman and collective rights guaranteed under the Constitution ofecuador and international instruments.

Kimsakocha is located 20 km from the city of Cuenca (ecuador’s third city), where the

sources of two of the four rivers are located and where the water is used for domestic

use and food sovereignty.


mY name is YoLanDa oqueLi anD i Come from fromguatemala where it is extremely difficult to be a human rightsdefender. Personally i have had to survive an armed attack -something which has marked me forever. i am the mother of twosmall children and the hardest thing i have ever had to deal with isthe trauma caused to my children by knowing that someone hadtried to kill their mother.

Because of that attack i still have a bullet lodged in my body, veryclose to my spine. i am in pain all the time but that pain serves toremind me that i have to continue the struggle. we are resisting amining project organised by a multinational company operating inguatemala. it's very difficult because we are being invaded and theyare taking away our space and our right to live with dignity.

this project is being organised by companies from Canada and theunited states who have arrived in our community to impose thisproject on us without any consultation whatsoever. our rights havebeen completely violated even though our resistance is completelypeaceful. we don't believe in violence but we do believe in our rightto keep speaking out to defend our rights based on the law.

unfortunately, in our country the law is not respected, but is insteadused to target human rights defenders. the law is like a snake, onlybiting barefoot people, and we the community of human rightsdefenders walk with the barefoot people. a recent phenomenon hasbeen the launching of a campaign of criminalisation against humanrights defenders. apart from having to endure physical attacks thatthe government and multinationals carry out, we also have toconfront the justice system because we are accused of beingterrorists. they accuse us of being communists. they accuse us ofanything they can think of.

Personally i have three cases pending against me, one of which is forkidnapping which carries only one penalty... imprisonment.

i believe that being here today is a great opportunity for us all ashuman rights defenders to be able to build connections beyond ourcountries and our individual spaces. i believe that the only way wecan overcome the atrocities that are inflicted upon us is by unitingour struggles and by feeling that if something happens to one of us,it happens to all of us. in guatemala we can no longer speak out...persecution is silencing us.

the greatest fear for me and, for most human rights defenders inguatemala, is thinking about our children. since they tried to kill me,and i thank god that i am still alive, my greatest fear is that they willkidnap my children. it is not easy in my country to say that i am ahuman rights defender. there are many good people in guatemalabut there aren't many of us who raise our voices and speak out,because we know what will happen to us. still, i believe that we havean obligation as human beings not to let this happen and to say“enough” to these human rights violations.

there are many children in guatemala who have already lost theirparents. the only crime they committed was to raise their voices todemand justice. when you realise the monster you are facing, whenyou see the government and the multinationals against you, it's veryhard. it's very hard when you know that the only thing facing you isdeath or prison.

the former Human rights ombudsman came to visit me in hospitalat the time of the attack and asked me if i thought it was worth it totake such huge risks. it was hard for me to hear that from a humanrights defender, from an ombudsman in my country, but withouthesitation i told him yes. i said that i do it for my children.

i want to tell you that the situation in guatemala is getting worseevery day. although the President invited us, the members of the LaPuya protest, to meet him personally to begin a dialogue. But whathe says is one thing, and what he does is something else . we knowthat this is part of the strategy to wear us down, to learn more aboutus and to be able to attack us further. we have no confidence in thisdialogue. Last week in Barillas in Huehuetenango, a place that hasalso been peacefully resisting, the President sent in the police andthe army to suppress us. guatemala is known internationally for thistragedy. i don't blame the people who rise up like that. it is driven bytheir desperation and their anguish at demands to be heard falling ondeaf ears, and the government and the authorities who areresponsible for the well being of all guatemalans forever ruling infavour of the multinationals.


IN OUR COUNTRY THELAW IS NOT

RESPECTED, BUT ISINSTEAD USED TOTARGET HUMAN

RIGHTS DEFENDERS.THE LAW IS LIKE A

SNAKE, ONLY BITINGBAREFOOT PEOPLE,AND WE WALK WITH

THE BAREFOOTPEOPLE

YOLANDA OQUELIThe Northern Metropolitan Front and the Peaceful Resistance “La Puya”GUATEMALA

OSCAR MORALESCommittee in Defense of Life and for Peace

GUATEMALA

”“

I HAVE RECEIVEDTHREATS BY

TELEPHONE, TEXTMESSAGE ANDANONYMOUS

THREATS WHERE IAM CLEARLY ASKEDNOT TO OPPOSE THE

MINING PROJECT

i am an agronomist, a ProDuCer of Cow’s miLK anDcheese, and i am President of the Community Development Council(CoCoDe) in my community. three years ago i joined the Comité enDefensa de la Vida y por la Paz (Committee in Defense of Life and forPeace) to join the people in peaceful resistance to chemical metalmining (the escobal mining project of tahoe resources andgoldcorp). at the first meeting, i started to express my idea ofcarrying out a neighbourhood consultation to give our people theright to express an opinion for or against this mining project, inaccordance with the law and iLo Convention 169.

so, i took on the role of a human rights defender. i studied andunderstood from the poorly prepared environmental impactassessments that the san rafael mine was applying for an operationlicence. i looked into mining, studied it more in-depth and found agreater need to consult our people, to decide on the future of ourcommunity. this is because our rights to decide, to be informed, toaccess to water and to live a normal life in a safe environment wereabout to be violated. this is currently happening.

i am the promoter and proposer of the neighbourhood consultationwhich has been denied to our people on two occasions. on thesecond attempt for neighbourhood consultation i took on the role ofVice-President of the specific council for neighbourhood consulta-tion. this is where the vilification of my character began.

- in april 2012, Karen elizabeth Coordon, an employee and legalclerk for the mine made accusations of usurpations of functionsand qualities, bribery, coercion and counterfeiting of materialbefore the public prosecutor, stating that i do not belong to thecivil society of san rafael Las flores. this accusation is stillpending and under investigation.

- in June 2012, mr rolando de Jesus Valdez issued an injunctionagainst me claiming that i had been expelled from the specificcouncil for neighbourhood consultation.

- on 5 august 2012, at least fifteen women working in the sanrafael mine, and students at the silvermith’s school of the sanrafael mine, filed charges of femicide and acts of violence againstwomen against me. they argued that as i was publicly opposed tothe mine and that the san rafael Las flores company referred tothem as ‘miners’, it bothered them and disrupted their family life.they all requested to join the specific committee of neighbour-hood consultation. this accusation is still pending.

- i have received threats by telephone, text message andanonymous threats where i am clearly asked not to oppose themining project.

- my telephone lines have been tapped without any order from acompetent judge.

i have been defamed publicly by local authorities, stating that ireceive fees from abroad to oppose the mining project.

on 2 may 2013 my house was raided by order of a competent judge.they were looking for explosives from the san rafael miningcompany in my home and i fled to a safe place for twenty-three daysbecause the PnC authorities said that they had a warrant for myarrest.

on 28 may 2013 a manager of the mine presented at least fouraccusations against me which are under investigation in the publicministry.

my name has appeared in at least five locations and mappingdocuments of the state of guatemala.

although there was no neighbourhood consultation, i am a pioneerof and have organised eight community consultations in good faithin our community. 98% of those in attendance have voted againstchemical metal mining.

in addition, i have opposed the mining licence of the san rafaelmining project, which was not recognised and i have now made anappeal against the denial of opposition before the ministry of energyand mines. i have also filed an injunction action against the JuanBosco mining licence, which intends to open another mine in ourterritory. i am currently drafting a monograph about the extractionindustry and chemical metal mining in san rafael Las flores at therequest of the Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado deGuatemala (office of Human rights of the archbishop of guatemala(oDHag).


Being a memBer of tHe LgBt CommunitY anD witH tHeimpediment of the laws against this community, we are often timesfaced with varying levels of harassment, violence and inhumaneconditions particularly by our law enforcement officers (police). withthe continuous experiences of harassment and imprisonment idecided in 2009 to become a human rights defender. six other trans-women and i were imprisoned for a lengthy period of time. it wasduring a discussion while we were incarcerated that we recognisedthat our laws discriminated against us. we had refused to pay anybribes to the law men, thus we were placed before the court. themagistrate was not very helpful and in her judgement she alluded tous that we were men and should not be dressed in female attire. shewent on to say to us that we need Jesus Christ and in her finaldecision she placed on us a fine (90 us dollars each) after which wewere released from confinement.

at that point i realised that i had to be involved in human rightsactivism to represent this population. i met Joel simpson sometimeduring that period and he was a human rights activist with Studentsagainst Sexual Orientation Discrimination (sasoD). in a brief con-versation with Joel i disclosed to him that there needed to besomething we should do to repeal the laws that discriminate againsttrans persons. He promised that he could seek assistance in gettingthis matter addressed and he said that he would speak to a fewattorneys-at-Law in garnering their pro bono support to look at thesituation. it took us one year to get the lawyers to put the mattertogether for us and to file at court. it was within that one year that myname was mentioned at media Houses and in discussionselsewhere. i came in for a lot of criticism after the religiouscommunities, faith based organisations, law enforcement officialsand citizens got hold of the information that was discussed anddisclosed in our court appearances.

we were fortunate to file a challenge against the Constitution ofguyana on the basis of striking down laws that prohibit men fromwearing female attire. this matter was heard before several Justicesbefore it was placed before the Chief Justice, mr. ian Chang. JusticeChang ruled that while cross-dressing is not a criminal offence, itmust not be for an improper purpose. He did not say what “improperpurposes” are. this matter has since been appealed.

the criticisms levelled against me since 2009 have created in me thezest and zeal to fight on for a better society where all are respected.

i have never stopped advocating for LgBtiq rights and i have beeninvolved with other organisations that have an interest in humanrights. i look at some of the most marginalised people in my countryand i will continue to work with them. i often support the sex workers’programmes, stop violence against women marches and campaignsfor differently able persons. i will continue to work with and for thesecommunities in making our livelihoods respected by all and so thatothers can be happy for us to be ourselves.


WE HAD REFUSED TOPAY ANY BRIBES, THUS

WE WERE PLACEDBEFORE THE COURT.

THE MAGISTRATE WASNOT VERY HELPFUL

AND IN HERJUDGEMENT SHE

ALLUDED THAT WEWERE MEN ANDSHOULD NOT BE

DRESSED IN FEMALEATTIRE

CANDACE MCEWANGuyana Trans UnitedGUYANA

PATRICE FLORVILUSDefenders of the Oppressed

HAITI

”“

WE ARE CITIZENS OFTHE WORLD. LET’S

GO FORWARDTOGETHER… OFFER

YOUR HAND ANDTAKE MINE, ANDLET’S CREATETOMORROW’S

WORLD, “A WORLDOF JUSTICE AND

SOLIDARITY”

firstLY i wouLD LiKe to unDerLine tHat i am from apeasant family. my mother, who is illiterate gave birth to sevenchildren, of which i am the third. in 1987, i was miraculously savedfrom a massacre of children and parents who were defending theirrights and access to land, orchestrated by the Haitian bourgeoisie inmy native province of Jean rabel. i was one of 12 children who hadbeen tied up with ropes, to be decapitated one after the other. theystarted decapitating them one by one, but when they got to the 11thchild, bizarrely one of the criminals asked for me to be spared, as heknew my father. following that, we spent several weeks in a caveand my parents went in search of refuge in another town, gonaïves.

there, they devoted themselves to selling fruit, in order to meet theneeds of the family, and safeguard our education. at 14, i started towork with a group of farmers not far from gonaïves. i accompaniedthe farmers and taught them to read and write, and when i returnedfrom working, i used to borrow my friends’ exercise books so i couldcopy their notes. at this time, i also participated in setting up acommunity radio station which is still running today. at the age offifteen i started philosophy classes and left my native town to live inPort-au-Prince, in one of the largest slums in the Caribbean. uponfinishing my studies i decided to become a lawyer and a socialworker. i took the competitive exams for entering the state universityin Port-au-Prince and i was admitted to the faculty of Law.

after graduating, i decided to devote all my time to helpingvulnerable people, oppressed by the capitalist system. since then, ihave been defending workers, farmers, trade unionists and thewomen’s movements. after the earthquake, i decided to open anoffice called Défenseurs des Opprimées-Opprimés (Defenders of theoppressed), and this same year my office launched a school forpermanent training in human rights. the legal experts are specialisedin defending land and housing rights, and following this, we decidedto expand our support to LgBti people, which is an extremelysensitive subject in Haiti.

my office also works with those who were internally displacedfollowing the 2010 earthquake, supporting them against evictionthreats and arbitrary expulsions. it is in these circumstances, thatbetween april and now i have escaped at least seven attempts onmy life and police surveillance operations attempting to assassinateme. i have had to move, change office and on occasions hide myface. in august, charges of arson and conspiracy were brought

against me by the government prosecutor. i was summoned twiceand did not attend, but the people showed up for me. thousands ofpeople demonstrated in front of the court. the government lawyerwho had filed the complaint against me announced he would dropthe charges, although so far this is only verbally, and not formallythe case.

as a result, i am still under the threat of arrest. one of my lawyers isprohibited from leaving and is subject to a warrant of arrest, andanother is receiving death threats. on the day i was supposed toappear in court, they were also scared of being arrested themselves,but the people were not scared, front Line Defenders was notscared, amnesty international was not scared. they were with me.organisations from everywhere wrote to the government and to thePresident of the republic. i would like to take this opportunity tothank all of the organisations who have come out in solidarity withme. my case is currently at the inter-american Commission onHuman rights. the united nations special rapporteur for thesituation of human rights defenders will be contacted.

my situation is still a complicated one, and i am still being threatenedwith arrest. the more they threaten, the more energy they give me tocontinue in my struggle. we need to make our struggle a globalstruggle until we reach victory. we are of different races, but we areone people. stand up for your rights… brothers and sisters, humanrights defenders, defending the world’s oppressed... oppressionknows no borders, and likewise our battle should stop at nothing…we are citizens of the world. Let’s go forward together… offer yourhand and take mine, and let’s create tomorrow’s world, “a world ofjustice and solidarity”.


to sPeaK aBout wHat we Do as JournaLists in HonDurasis to refer to the 29 deaths of reporters after the coup d’état in 2009.the government argues that there are no deaths linked to the pro-fessional practice of journalism, but to this day there is no proofrelated to those deaths. neither has there been any clear investiga-tion into the death threats that i received along with my threechildren. even less so for my colleagues who embarked on a struggletogether with those individuals who have died or who were victimsof violence and persecution.

i am a member of a group of journalists who defend life and freedomof expression. the majority of us are women, and in December 2011when we were peacefully protesting outside a government building,we were beaten and had tear gas fired at us by the military.

i am one of eight million Hondurans living in fear of the violence thathas taken hold of my country, where on average 21 people a day aremurdered, the majority of whom are young people. in the month ofaugust alone, 110 people under the age of 23 were murdered.

i belong to the Lenca people who live their life fighting because theyrespect their ancestral rights and will not concede their land to theextractive industry.

i am also one of thousands of rural farmers who are dying as a resultof their fight against the power of the landowner who is protected bythe army and the police. more than one hundred rural farmers havedied, without any investigation.

i am one of the people who has to hide in their houses from veryearly in the day, because it is risky to go out into the streets both atnight and during the day.

and there is no war. this is a country in which corruption haspermeated all spheres of life, where justice does not exist for thewhite collar murderers. they blame drug trafficking, and they investmillions of dollars in combating it. But there is no progress. Violencecontinues to flourish in the streets. our people continue to bemurdered, without explanation and with no-one in prison.

this is what we, as independent journalists, are denouncing andquestioning on a daily basis. for this, they threaten us and call uscommunists. However, it doesn’t matter that they call us that as we

work with the truth, and for the peace of a nation. it is also a joy toshare a brief testimony from a country in which the majority of peopleare noble and good, but a few are keeping them prisoner.


I AM ONE OF EIGHTMILLION HONDURANS

LIVING IN FEAR OFTHE VIOLENCE THATHAS TAKEN HOLD OFMY COUNTRY, WHERE

ON AVERAGE 21PEOPLE A DAY ARE

MURDERED, THEMAJORITY OF WHOMARE YOUNG PEOPLE

GILDA SILVESTRUCCIJournalistHONDURAS

HEDME CASTROACI ParticipaHONDURAS

”“

WHEN I WAS IN AMEETING, MY

HUSBAND PHONEDME FROM THE

LANDLINE AT OURHOUSE AND TOLD ME

THAT HE HADGOTTEN A CALL AND

THAT EVERYTHINGTHAT WAS BEING

DISCUSSED AT THEMEETING WAS BEINGPASSED ON TO HIM

i, HeDme Castro, Human rigHts DefenDer, freeLY anDvoluntarily give this testimony:

- 17 march 2011: Brutal police repression towards protesters. thepolice and the army were attempting to enter the building in aviolent manner, as a result of which i asked them if they wouldallow people to be evacuated, particularly a woman with a baby.in response they began throwing tear gas bombs and when icomplained they said to me, “who the f*** are you?” and struck mewith batons. i shouted at them that i had precautionary measures,they responded “we give a f***” and continued to hit me.

- april 2011, 9.00am: there was a large ford van at aCi Participa,with tinted windows and no number plates, parked in the middleof the entrance gate to the office with an armed woman and apolice officer inside.

- 20 may 2011: we made several visits to accredited diplomatic staffalong with Jabier zavala of Protection international. one of our co-ordinators informed us that he had received calls from my mobilenumber, in which he could hear the conversations we were havingwith diplomats and international organisations.

- 25 may 2011, 11.30am: Leaving the Committee of relatives of theDisappeared in Honduras (CofaDeH) my son was stopped by twomobile patrol units. they arrested him and seized his motorbike.He was detained for two hours.

- 8 august 2011, 12.40pm: a double-cabin dark blue car with greystripes and with no number plates followed my daughter forseveral minutes.

- 19 september 2011, 8.40pm: my son together with his wife andfive year-old son were stopped by a mobile patrol unit with twopolice officers, Pagoada and Cáceres, alongside it. immediatelyafterwards, my son, his wife and my grandson had guns pointedat them and were removed from the vehicle. then, almostimmediately, eight mobile patrol units and two patrol carsappeared: mi 22, mi 169, mi 142, mi 96, mi 118, mi 52, mi 12, mi13, mi 46 and t 44, amounting to a total of 20 police officers,heavily armed and with their badges covered with the exception ofPagoada, Juárez, Cáceres and the officer martínez.

- 8 December 2011, 12.30 pm: my eldest son was stopped by amobile patrol unit, without number plates, with two police officersin uniform whose jackets prevented him from seeing their iD. theytook his vehicle documentation and his licence from him and leftwithout giving him an explanation.

- 19 January 2012: at the aCi Participa annual assembly, i receiveda call on my mobile phone and passed the phone to LeoValladares. those who were speaking mentioned military ranksand spoke of a kidnapping. the assembly was abruptly suspendedand those attending were evacuated.

- 7 may 2012: my daughter received a call on her mobile phone. itwas from my mobile number and the person calling her was a man.

- 15 may 2012: attack on my daughter. Her mobile phone wasstolen.

- 22 may 2012: from opposite the aCi Participa office, a mandressed in civilian clothing - t-shirt, jeans and trainers - was takingphotos from one of the street corners of the house.

- 31 may 2012: four soldiers in uniform were keeping watch on ouroffice. two were stationed across from the car parked in front ofthe office and the other two were a few steps ahead monitoring theoffice.

- october 2012: i was arrested in Costa rica and interrogated on thereason for my visit. i was arriving from a Latin america-levelmeeting on access to justice in Bogota, Colombia.

- april 2013: i bought another phone and sim card. when i was ina meeting, my husband phoned me from the landline at our houseand told me that he had gotten a call and that everything that wasbeing discussed at the meeting was being passed on to him overthe phone.

- may 2013: at Leo Valladares’ place, they opened my vehicle whichwas across from the front door of the house, and took the two rearwheels.

- 6 september 2013, 3.40pm: three heavily-armed men arrived atmy house in a double-cabin white car with tinted windows and nonumber plates. they did not identify themselves at any point norwere they carrying badges although they had the appearance ofbeing police. they raided my house.

- 9 september 2013, 4.00pm: an unmarked police patrol car,without number plates but with police colours and a siren, parkedopposite my house for 32 minutes, with four police officers inside.


in tHe nortHeast of mexiCo, we are faCing a Humanitarianemergency. Coahuila, my home state and where i work, and nuevoLeón and tamaulipas have become real human slaughterhouses. inthese territories bordering the united states, a person’s life is worthnothing to the organised crime cartels and the governments thattolerate them. there are cities where you can die from a bullet in thefull light of day, in a confrontation or for not paying the derecho depiso, the ‘protection fee’.

this year the federal government officially recognised that more than26,000 people disappeared during the presidency of felipeCalderón. the number of violent deaths is estimated at more than120,000 people for the same period. this is the context in which wework, accompanying victims of violence. it is the result of a securitystrategy undertaken by the government against the organised crimecartels, but which appears to be against the population in general.this security strategy, although under another name, is still in effect.

i was 19 when i first started listening to the stories of hundreds ofCentral american migrants who cross through Coahuila on the so-called ‘beast’, a freight train that carries goods throughout much ofmexico, and which migrants cling to in search of the so-called‘american dream’. the migrant populations are victims of sexualabuse, theft, extortion and, in recent years, abductions, disappear-ances and executions. these populations are some of the mostvulnerable and invisible in the country. it was then i learned todocument abuses, and together with the team, we highlighted,denounced and confronted the authorities on abuses against themigrant population, opening the way in mexico for the defence ofhuman rights. with this came harassment and the criminalisation ofour work.

then i decided it was time to get to know Central america, thosecountries of which i had heard so much about. most of the peoplehad come from Honduras so i knew its culture, geography, food,history and its people. it was there i ventured, one of the most im-poverished countries in Latin america. i worked in the nationalforum for migration in Honduras, supporting committees of therelatives of migrants who were residing in the united states, and ofthose who had disappeared on the migration route. we raisedawareness of what happens to migrants in mexico and the effect ofpublic policies on the issue. this was a different job for me becauseit was a different way of working, with new strategies.

i returned to saltillo in 2010 and since then i have been working atthe Centro Diocesano para los Derechos Humanos fray Juan deLarios (fray Juan de Larios Diocesan Centre for Human rights),mainly supporting families looking for their loved ones whodisappeared in mexico, in a movement of families called "unitedforces for our Disappeared in Coahuila, and in mexico". it is one ofthe most complex jobs i have had because of what a disappearancein a family means and because we are faced with impunity,corruption and doublespeak from the state, which recognises thisproblem but does not take steps to search for the many disappearedpersons.

now the word disappearance has a different meaning for me. Behindit there is the pain of each family, the daily uncertainty of not knowingtheir whereabouts. it has the anger and indignation because theauthorities do not do anything to search for them. it also has apersonal life story and has the courage and resistance of all thoserelatives who are seeking the truth every day, carrying out a searchof love.

in this part of the world, it is not only the risk that any citizen of north-east mexico faces simply by living in this territory, but also the riskthat goes with our work defending human rights, working with andfor the people in a context of so much violence. even with all this, wewill not lower our guard and we will continue to go where life takesus, laying down our grain of sand for the construction of a morehumane world.


I WAS 19 WHEN IFIRST STARTED

LISTENING TO THESTORIES OF

HUNDREDS OFCENTRAL AMERICAN

MIGRANTS WHOCROSS THROUGHCOAHUILA ON A

FREIGHT TRAIN INSEARCH OF THE

SO-CALLED“AMERICAN DREAM”

ALMA ROSA GARCIA GUEVARAFray Juan de Larios Diocesan Centre for Human RightsMEXICO

NATANIEL HERNÁNDEZ NÚÑEZDigna Ochoa Human Rights Centre

MEXICO

”“

THE CENTRE THAT IREPRESENT PLAYS

AN IMPORTANT ROLEAS A SPOKESPERSON

FOR THECOMMUNITIES INORDER TO DRAW

ATTENTION TO THERECURRENT AND

CONSTANT HUMANRIGHTS VIOLATIONS

mY name is natanieL HernánDez núñez anD i am tHeDirector of the Centro de Derechos Humanos Digna Ochoa (Dignaochoa Human rights Centre) in the town of tonalá, Chiapas, mexico.

the Digna ochoa Human rights Centre is a non-governmental or-ganisation established in 2009 in the town of tonalá, Chiapas, andwith a presence in three districts in the coastal istmo region ofChiapas (tonalá, Pijijiapan and mapastepec). the centre focuses onfour main areas of work: supporting communities and organisations,legal advice, legal defence and training and capacity building forhuman rights defenders in the community. it also tackles issuesrelated to the defence of economic, social, cultural and environ-mental rights.

i began my activities as a human rights defender in Chiapas in 2006,in the context of the official announcement of the zapatista army ofnational Liberation’s (ezLn) “the other Campaign”. i was an activeparticipant in the setting up and integration of the social organisationknown as the autonomous regional Council of the Coastal zone ofChiapas (Consejo Autónomo Regional de la Costa de Chiapas),which primarily fights against high electricity prices and the privati-sation of the energy sector.

subsequently, in 2009, the communities that make up theautonomous regional Council nominated and appointed me asDirector of the Human rights Centre in order to assist with securingthe recognition of the communities, provide support and advice anddefend human rights in the coastal region of Chiapas.

when i took up the position, i felt the communities in the districts oftonalá, Pijijiapan and mapastepec were characterised by contempt,marginalisation, exploitation, abuse and recurrent human rightsviolations. the centre that i represent plays an important role inproviding evidence, denouncing and acting as a spokesperson forthe communities in order to draw attention to the recurrent andconstant human rights violations. these human rights include theright to a decent home, education, healthcare, a livelihood and theright not to suffer arbitrary and illegal detention, abuses of power,torture and harassment, among others.

we realised that every time we came out to denounce, support oradvise, the mexican state, and specifically the government ofChiapas and the district governments, would devote themselves to

discrediting our work and summoning those involved with our or-ganisation before the courts.

since 2010, i have repeatedly been the victim of judicial harassmenton the part of the mexican state and specifically the government ofthe state of Chiapas and the district councils of tonalá, Pijijiapanand mapastepec in Chiapas, mexico.

i am accused of the crime of ‘attacks on Communication Channels’on the basis of my being a leader of a movement which wasdemanding fair electricity prices in the region and which wasprotesting in a peaceful manner.

in 2011, the attorney general’s office of the state of Chiapas incor-porated a prior criminal investigation into the motín offence (offencesagainst public peace and the community) into the case against me.then, derived from the same legal proceedings, it subsequently in-corporated the previous investigation into the crime of extortion andattacks on communications channels, the trial taking place in thetown of tapachula, Chiapas, in the 3rd district court of the federal ju-risdiction. as a result of this, i am now facing an order for my rearrestdue to the criminal proceedings being abandoned.

the various acts of harassment also focused on my parents to whomthe attorney general’s office issued subpoenas requesting that theyappear in court to give a statement, accused of an offence that theyhad not committed beyond that of having me as their son.

every day as human rights defenders in the coastal region of thestate of Chiapas, we are at constant risk and under a continualthreat as a result of our human rights work. we have suffered variousattacks in the form of harassment, threats, police surveillance, infil-tration, media smear campaigns, etc.

Personally speaking, i am still facing federal proceedings for theoffence of attacks on communication channels, for which there is anarrest order against me, and the threats against me are still in forcewith the mexican state using the judicial apparatus to prosecute andharass me and to discredit our work.


aPProximateLY ten Years ago i CHose a waY of Life,on a personal and professional level, in favour of defending anddemanding human rights. my experience begins in the southernPeruvian andes, at the heart of the Church of the southern andes,a progressive Church announcing the “good news” and denouncingsituations of injustice faced by the local people. the situation ofabuses against peasant people has really changed very little in thelast few decades. Before it was political violence that repressedthem, now it is the multi-national companies who are complicit withthe government in power.

the events that we are facing in the province of espinar definitelyseem to be the history of a world turned upside down, as it calls intoquestion everything that the human rights movement in Peru standsfor. that is to say, it suggests to me that the defence and promotionof human rights is a bad thing when it comes to the interests ofgroups of economic, political and media power in our country. thedefence of rights is being labelled as something that has a negativeeffect on the development of Peru.

i am at pains to point out that it was a very bitter, humiliating andfurthermore violent and savage experience that has marked my lifein an unexpected and unjust way. on 28 may 2012 at 4pm, we heardabout clashes between inhabitants of espinar and the police in thearea. a team from the Vicarage of sicuani headed to espinar. wearrived at 7pm at the central market of espinar where the provincialprosecutor of espinar, mr. Hector Herrera was being held captive byinhabitants and some leaders who were outraged on hearing ofinhabitants who had been killed or injured as a result of the con-frontation and detention of others within the xstrata tintaya miningcamp.

we helped the prosecutor get out of this complicated situation andimmediately offered the truck of the Vicarage of sicuani to be usedto transport the prosecutor, the leader sergio Huamani and themembers of the Vicarage of sicuani, and we headed to the xstratatintaya mining camp. on arrival at the camp, only the prosecutorand lawyers of the vicarage were allowed in, while romualdo ttitoPinto from the vicarage, sergio Huamani the leader of the fuDie(the united front Defending the interests of espinar) and i waited inthe truck. it was at this point that we were surrounded by approxi-mately thirty police officers, who pointed their guns at us, shoutedinsults and forced us to get out of the truck.

without giving us any explanation, they started beating us violently,using their weapons, before putting us into one of the vans that tookus inside the mining camp. we were arrested and transferred to thepolice station within the camp where they filmed us, took photos ofus, insulted and humiliated us and continued hitting us without givingus reasons for our detention, alluding to there being a state ofemergency. we experienced, along with other detainees, more thanseventy hours of violation of our rights (arbitrary detention, physicaland psychological abuse). with the help of the lawyers of thevicarage and other institutions, we were released after three days.Had it not been for them, the situation would probably have beenmuch more complicated.

they accused us of kidnapping, rioting, aggravated damage andattacking the means of collective transport and communication.Contrary to these false accusations, it was us who had helpedrelease the prosecutor. this is an example of how the differentsectors of the government collude to accuse people, with dirty tricksand lies. the harassment and attacks against us continue today,because we face a totally unjust judicial process. today in Peru thereis a government policy that seeks to criminalise any sort of protestor social mobilisation that is critical of the government and theneoliberal economic model.

Despite everything experienced in those days, and the bitter situationthat we and the other detainees endured, i am grounded in the workwe do at Derechos Humanos sin fronteras (Human rights withoutBorders) in the defense of human rights. it is not possible to thinkabout the development of Peru if it doesn’t take place hand in handwith respect for the rights of the Peruvian people, and those sectorsthat have historically been excluded and ignored, our brothers in thecountryside.


IT IS NOT POSSIBLETO THINK ABOUT THE

DEVELOPMENT OFPERU IF IT DOESN’T

TAKE PLACE HAND INHAND WITH RESPECTFOR THE RIGHTS OF

THE PERUVIANPEOPLE, AND THOSESECTORS THAT HAVEHISTORICALLY BEEN

EXCLUDED ANDIGNORED

JAIME CESAR BORDA PARIHuman Rights Without BordersPERU

DEON HAYWOODWomen With A Vision

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

”“

WHEN PEOPLE COMETOGETHER AND

REFLECT ON THEISSUES THATMAKE THEM

MARGINALISED,THEY BEGIN A FIRSTSTEP TO CHANGING

THEIR RELATIONSHIPWITH THE WORLD

tHe mission of women witH a Vision (wwaV) is to imProVethe lives of marginalised women, their families and communities byaddressing the social conditions that hinder their health and well-being. we accomplish this through relentless advocacy, healtheducation, supportive services, and community-based participatoryresearch.

founded in 1991 by a grassroots collective of african-americanwomen, wwaV has been using a grassroots framework to transformpolicies that hinder health, well-being and economic self-sufficiencyfor more than 20 years. we have been successful because we knowthat for change to be real it must emerge from the community. whenpeople come together and reflect on the issues that make them mar-ginalised, they begin a first step to changing their relationship withthe world. we work from that place - from that moment when aperson sees that they are not what society has branded them - andwe provide pathways for women and LgBtq people to work tocreate the world they want to live in.

wwaV became internationally renowned for challenging the use ofLouisiana’s Crime against nature statute to criminalise street-basedsex work; the law was officially deemed unconstitutional on march29, 2012. our major areas of focus include sex worker rights, drugpolicy reform, HiV positive women’s advocacy, and reproductivejustice outreach.

as a grassroots organisation working with the most marginalisedcommunities in new orleans, many of whom are engaged in street-based economies, police harassment has been a constant in ourwork. Post-Hurricane Katrina, when we launched the no JusticeProject, these acute instances of harassment escalated to anenvironment of sustained intimidation of our staff and our participants.

two months after our no Justice win, our office was broken into andset on fire. the worst damage was concentrated in our communityorganising and outreach office where we stored all of the resourceswe use to educate our community. our women’s health models werestacked and burned, our reproductive justice posters wereselectively singed throughout the office, the awards we received forour internationally recognised advocacy work were pulled from theoffice walls and tossed into the alley two floors below. Because of itstargeted nature, we can only assume that this was an intentional actof violence.

one year on from the arson attack, there has still be no investigation.while we are worried about our own safety, we also fear for the safetyof our community. moving forward, it is important for us to know whocommitted this attack and why. But it has also been important for usto find a new home, so that our women might begin to know somesemblance of safety again. on both of these points, we have beengrateful for the tremendous outpouring of support from our local,national and international allies.


i am asHrafun naHar misti, exeCutiVe DireCtor of tHewomen with Disabilities Development foundation. i have 12 yearswork experience on disability issues. Basically, i work for womenwith disabilities.

girls and women with Disabilities (wwDs) face a “double disad-vantage” based on gender and disability, and many are among the“poorest of the poor”. wwDs in Bangladesh are one of the most dis-advantaged groups in society. they are discriminated against on thebasis of being female, disabled, and all too often, poor. wwDs areregularly denied access to healthcare, education, vocational training,employment and income generation opportunities, as well as othersocial and community activities. wwDs are exposed to a greater riskof physical and sexual abuse, much of which takes place within thecontext of their own families. wwDs are often stigmatised andneglected from early childhood, with many girls with disabilitiesgrowing-up lacking a sense of their own self-worth.

i work to stop the violence against wwDs. when i have visiteddifferent parts of the country to stop violence against wwDs i havefaced different types of threats from abusers and local authorities. in2005 i visited nokhali District to file a rape case against a hearing-impaired wwD. i went to the local police station with my team to filea general account. the police staff would not agree to file the case.i waited for the officer in Charge at the police station until 12:30am.when the officer in Charge eventually came he said “You are notgood women. why do you wait here until my coming? now i will filea case against you as bad women and this suspends you fromcoming here”. But i strongly protested his language and showed himimportant documents to support my coming to the police station andpointed out that without his presence the police station would not filethe case.

still the policeman threatened me that if i did not leave the stationquickly, he would arrest me, and still he would not file the case. afterthat, i went to the court and filed the case there against the accused.five years later, the accused was arrested.

in 2006 i visited norshingdi District near Dhaka District. there hadbeen a gang rape of a wwD. Police rescued her from the spot butthey did not file a case. i read about the incident in the nationalnewspaper and visited the location to find out more and to supportthe victim. she is a one-handed woman and after the rape, she was

not able to stand, and she could hardly leave her house. she told usher life was at risk. we gave her assurances we would protect her. iwent to the police station with my team. when we neared the policestation, there was a group of armed people who stopped our vehicleand threatened that if i were to file a case, then my body would notreturn to Dhaka. this time i was really scared, but i went to the policestation and requested to them that they rescue the victim and filethe case. it did not work, there was no filing of a case.

in 2007 i visited nilphamary District to file a case for a physicallydisabled woman who had been raped and had become pregnant.when i visited the victim’s house the village leader came with ajournalist. they threatened that they would kill me. i said let’s seewhat happens. i said to the journalist... “i will report you to your headoffice that you are supporting the people who torture disabledwomen”.

i listened to details from the victim and discovered that she had beenraped continuously for one month by her house-master, where shewas working as a maid. i went to the District Commissioner ofnilfamary and asked for his cooperation to file the case. the DistrictCommissioner said “madam, i have experience working at sub-district level, i was a magistrate, and lots of similar cases were filedand in court the lawyers prove that the victim is a prostitute. in thiscase, it will also happen so please settle out of court, and do not filethe case.” again i requested that the District Commissionercooperate with us to file the case. it would not be possible to settleout of court because the victim was an orphan, with no shelter andif the case were not filed, perhaps the victim would be killed by theaccused. i very strongly said that i would collect one taka(Bangladesh currency) from disabled people around the country andtest the victim’s Dna and that i would prove the victim was not aprostitute. after that the District Commissioner became convinced ofmy logic and made an urgent phone call to the officer in Charge atthe local police station and filed the case over the telephone.


THE POLICEMANTHREATENED METHAT IF I DID NOT

LEAVE THE STATION,HE WOULD ARRESTME. AFTER THAT, I

WENT TO THE COURTAND FILED THE CASETHERE AGAINST THE

ACCUSED. FIVEYEARS LATER, THE

ACCUSED WASARRESTED

ASHRAFUN NAHAR MISTIWomen with Disabilities Development FoundationBANGLADESH

SHAHED KAYESSubornogram Foundation

BANGLADESH

”“

MY LIFE IS STILLUNDER THREAT. THE

PERPETRATORS HAVETHREATENED ME

SEVERAL TIMES TOWITHDRAW THE CASE

THAT I FILEDAGAINST THEM. THEYTOLD ME IF I DO NOTWITHDRAW THE CASE

THEY WILL KILL ME

i am sHaHeD KaYes, from BangLaDesH. i am tHe founDerand executive Director of subornogram foundation. i work forhuman rights, the environment and for the education of non-privileged children (like the river gypsy Community, the fisherfolkCommunity, the Cobbler Community and the indigenousCommunity). i am working in the mayadip and nunertek islandswhere for the last four years the islanders and i have been fightingagainst illegal sand mining, in an effort to save 12,000 people’s lives,livelihoods and the environment. the illegal sand miners continue toharass us, filing no less than eight fabricated and false cases againstme and the islanders.

on the afternoon of 25 July 2013, at around 2.15pm, Chris Pinder-hughes from new York university (an american citizen, and intern atsubornogram foundation), Kamruzzaman Dipu, another volunteerof subornogram foundation and myself all left on a private boat fromthe Baidyer bazaar of sonargaon sub-district, and headed for themayadip and ram Prasader Chor (island) where the subornogramfoundation has two free schools for the fisherfolk communitychildren. fifteen minutes out into the meghna river, close to thebanks of nolchor (island), two small speedboats carrying some sixor seven people each, came and stopped us in the river. thesepeople are all involved with the illegal sand grabbing near the myadipand nunertek islands.

after a lot of yelling and a brief altercation i was thrown into one ofthe speedboats and taken away to a place in the river called ‘farajiKandi’ in the meghna sub-district of Comilla district. once theyreached the island with me, another speed boat came with seven oreight more people, as well as a trawler holding 30 or 35 people.these people beat me severely, stabbing me in my shoulder andslitting my wrist. while they were beating me, they were saying “Youare fighting against us and we’ve lost lots of money because of yourmovement. we made the mistake of not killing you before; this timewe will kill you. we will cut the veins in your wrist and legs, tie yourhands and legs together and throw you in the river.”

immediately after they’d taken me from our boat, Chris and Dipurealised the severity of the situation and called a journalist, mr.tushar, and explained to him in detail exactly what had happened.mr. tushar then informed the police in sonargaon and the meghanpolice station. after the call, the police came and rescued me frommy captors. the police of sonargaon police station arrested one of

the perpetrators and confiscated a speedboat from rampur bazaarunder the jurisdiction of meghna sub-district of Comilla district; therest of the kidnappers fled the scene.

i filed a case in the sonargaon police station that same evening,mentioning in the complaint, the names of the people behind theattack; mr. zakir Hossain, proprietor of ‘shahjalal enterprise’ and mr.mohsin, a member of the ‘four Points trading and Construction Ltd’owned by selina islam. they are from the meghna sub-district ofComilla district and are involved with the illegal sand extraction. thecase no. is 38 dated 25.07.2013. the perpetrators are 1. zakirHossain, 2. md. mohsin, 3. md. oasim from meghna sub-districtunder Comilla district, 4. osman member, 5. Jakir Hosen (Jakaria)and 6. md. Hosen from sonargaon sub-district of narayanganjdistrict. Besides that there are 12 to 14 more unknown culpritsinvolved in the police case.

already three months have passed since that tragic incident, but itis surprising that the sonargaon thana police have arrested only oneperpetrator, md. oasim. the police still have not arrested the otherfive perpetrators. the meghna thana Police did not arrest anyoneso far, though the perpetrators are moving here and there, evensometimes coming to the meghna police station. it is known toeverybody that the meghna thana Police, the officer in Charge, isinvolved with the illegal sand mining and regularly receives bribesfrom the perpetrators.

my life is still under threat. the perpetrators have threatened meseveral times from unregistered mobile phone numbers to withdrawthe case that i filed against them. they told me if i do not withdrawthe case they will kill me. so i am living a very risky life right now. thisis because of the bad nexus among the police, corrupt politiciansand businessmen in the country. Bangladesh is a country wherethere is law, but the law simply does not function.


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it is a great Honour anD a PriViLege for me to HaVe tHisopportunity to share with you my determination in defending humanrights in my home country, the Kingdom of Cambodia.

i wonder why the human beings born to this world have differentdestinies. the strong and powerful suppress and terrorise the weak.there is unfairness and injustice throughout the world. the law isvery weak and meaningless to the dictators. i wonder for how longthose who love justice and freedom can survive.

there are people who think that we should keep our lives, live forlonger and not bother with freedom. there are also people who thinkthat it is better to die, rather than to stay alive if there is no freedom.for me, we must not only use our lives to defend our rights; we mustalso use our lives to defend the lives of others. this is if life is to haveany value and meaning.

i have the great honour to thank and to be grateful to front LineDefenders for all of their activities; especially in providing opportu-nities to those who have been victimised when expressing the truthand the facts, to clarify and lighten their sorrows and hurt relating tothe violation and abuse of human rights. these violations have beenhappening without any limits; including suppression, fear mongering,incarceration and even killing. these acts have been carried outwithout any justice and in barbaric ways.

i myself have been in prison three times, in 2003 for 11 days, in 2005for 100 days and in 2012 for 244 days. this is simply because i speakthe truth and defend the rights and freedoms of those who have beenvictimised, through the broadcasting of an independent radio station,which is very popular. this radio station, of which i am the president,is radio sBK Beehive, fm 105 in Cambodia.

* unfortunately, due to last minute unforeseen circumstances, mam sonando was unable

to attend the seventh Dublin Platform.


FOR ME, WE MUSTNOT ONLY USE OURLIVES TO DEFENDOUR RIGHTS; WE

MUST ALSO USE OURLIVES TO DEFEND

THE LIVES OFOTHERS. THIS IS IF

LIFE IS TO HAVE ANYVALUE AND MEANING

MAM SONANDOBeehive RadioCAMBODIA

LIU DEJUNHuman rights defender

CHINA

”“

WHAT THECOMMUNIST PARTY

FEARS MOST IS THATPEOPLE WILL FORMTOGETHER INTO ACOMMUNITY. THEPARTY IS AFRAID

THAT WHEN HUMANRIGHTS DEFENDERSGATHER THEY WILL

ATTRACT MORE ANDMORE PEOPLE TO

THE CAUSE

in CHina, wHen PeoPLe’s rigHts are VioLateD, it is oftengovernment officials or people who have close ties with thegovernment who violate them. as a human rights defender, when wehelp the victims of these violations, we are challenging powerfulinterests, and the local officials make use of the courts, and othertools, to retaliate against us.

what the Communist Party fears most is that people will formtogether into a community. the Party is afraid that when humanrights defenders gather together to defend the rights of others, theywill attract more and more people to the cause, and eventually therewill be a fully-formed group of people determined to engage in thedefence of human rights. as a result of this, the Communist Partysees human rights defenders as a threat to their rule.

i will give you some brief examples of my own experience as ahuman rights defender in China and the threats that i have faced.

in 2010, ms ni Yulan, a well-known human rights defender was lefthomeless when her house was torn down and she was evicted fromher temporary lodging by police. with no other choice, she wasforced to live in a tent in a park, close to the headquarters of theChinese Communist Party. after she was driven from this park bythe police, a number of human rights defenders, myself included,planned a large protest on a central street on the day of the DragonBoat festival. the day before the protest was due to take place,Beijing secret police spent two hours prying open the door of myhome, they abducted me, beat me and abandoned me in the middleof the night by the roadside in a mountainous suburb of Beijing, withno way for me to return to my home.

During the time of the revolutions in the middle east in 2011, theCommunist Party was living in fear, afraid that a similar revolutionmight happen in China. they detained and disappeared scores ofhuman rights defenders nationwide, and subjected them to variouskinds of torture, including beatings, electric-shocks and starvation.when they grabbed me and were interrogating me, they said, “Youguys shout loudly to defend human rights everyday. Don’t you knowthat the tunisian government was brought down by a street hawkerwho was defending human rights?”. they even threatened to buryme alive or shoot me dead. in the end, i was disappeared for six anda half weeks.

these cases show that in China human rights defenders are treatedas enemies by the government, and they will do anything they canto suppress us.

we Chinese human rights defenders have drawn the followingsecurity lessons from our work:

number 1: in preparation for detention, we sign blank power ofattorney documents so that when we are arrested, lawyers canimmediately act on our behalves.

number 2: we know we must stay calm when being harassed andabused by the police. in order to avoid police retaliation, we do notswear at them or fight back. in China, there is no way for people tosupervise illegal activities by the police without drawing policeretaliation.

number 3: when we are in danger or face increased risks, one ofthe best strategies we can use is to publicise the danger we arefacing online, to let people know that if we suddenly ‘disappear’, itis probably because of our human rights work.


as a Human rigHts DefenDer, i am VerY HaPPY to HaVethe opportunity to be here, and to share my story and my experiencewith all of you. my name is Liu Yi. i am thirty years old and i comefrom the western province of sichuan in China. i am currently thehead of an ngo called the education Center for Culture, society andHuman rights.

i took part in human rights activities for the first time in 2002 when iwas a college sophomore. that summer i went to a village in Henanprovince with a high prevalence of HiV and worked as a volunteer fora month. i was deeply shaken by the fate of villagers who had beeninfected with the HiV virus when selling blood. they were discrimi-nated against; they were unable to receive justice; and their childrencould not go to school. seared in my mind are scenes of when theywaited to die, helplessly lying on a wooden plank.

for the rest of my college years, i volunteered for various grassrootsorganisations to better understand the marginalised groups inChinese society. graduating from college, i participated in thefounding of the human rights organisation tianwang Center forHuman rights. following the arrest of the founder of the tianwangCenter after the sichuan earthquake in 2008, other volunteers and ifounded another human rights organisation, the Human rightsCampaign in China. it is a grassroots organisation dedicated toproviding support to victims of injustice in China.

i was 25 years old when the Human rights Campaign in China wasfounded. Probably due to my being young and lacking in experience,a mere four months after the founding of the neworganisation, i was arrested by the Chinese police for “illegallypossessing state classified materials” and sentenced. after servingan 18 month prison term in Yingkou prison, Liaoning province, i wasreleased in 2010.

after i was freed, i interviewed 37 human rights defenders who hadbeen imprisoned or put in “re-education-through-labour” camps. idiscovered that, in China, human rights defenders’ communicationsand online expression are monitored; we have no privacy. atimportant, sensitive times throughout the year, we areinterrogated or threatened. many human rights defenders are thrownback into prison shortly after their release.

imprisoned human rights defenders are often denied the right to legalcounsel and the right to receive family visits. in China’s prisons, weare subjected to long hours of strenuous labour, and some of ourproducts are made for foreign brands to be exported to europe andnorth america. even though we know very well that it is a seriousviolation of international human rights laws and related principles touse prisoners to manufacture export products, there is nothing wecan do about it.

so, after the imprisonment, i founded the organisation educationCenter for Culture, society and Human rights, which is dedicatedto providing capacity-building training for Chinese rights defenders.the main purpose of this ngo is to provide information sharing,training and workshops, networking opportunities and other forms ofsupport for Chinese rights defenders. the organisation has beenoperating for only three years, and we have been working on somesmall, tentative projects with regards to rights defenders.

Here i would like to thank front Line Defenders for providing supportand training at the early stage of the organisation. at the same time,i also look forward to exchanging views and experiences with rightsdefenders from around the world about capacity training of rightsdefenders.

in addition, our centre also compiles a weekly human rights briefingto provide information for rights defenders. every week we collect,translate and circulate information about high-risk human rightsdefenders around the world. interested friends are welcome tocontact us, and we will spread, in the Chinese language, informationabout high-risk rights defenders in your country. Let’s work togetherto pay attention to, and support, these high-risk human rightsdefenders.


I DISCOVERED THAT,IN CHINA, HUMAN

RIGHTS DEFENDERS’COMMUNICATIONS

AND ONLINEEXPRESSION AREMONITORED; WE

HAVE NO PRIVACY.AT IMPORTANT,

SENSITIVE TIMES, WEARE INTERROGATED

OR THREATENED

LIU YIEducation Center for Culture, Society and Human RightsCHINA

WANG JIANFENChinese Women’s Rights Defenders Empowerment Network

CHINA

”“

THEY FIRST CUT OFFTHE WATER, THENTHE ELECTRICITY

AND THEN THEACCESS TO MY

HOUSE. THEY THENRECRUITED THUGS

TO SMASH MYWINDOWS AND USEDSUPER GLUE TO JAM

THE KEYHOLES INTHE FRONT AND

BACK DOORS

i am a Human rigHts DefenDer from wuxi in JiangsuProvince in China. wuxi is a small city in China and is not widelyknown by the outside world. it is also the birth place of a renownedand world-class musician, the blind abing. eighty years ago abingcomposed the song ‘the reflection of the moon’ in which hedescribes the miseries he suffered in wuxi and unfortunately, themiseries which were happening 80 years ago are still happening inwuxi today. government-backed development companies are forcinglocal people to transfer the ownership of their land at a very low pricein the name of essential development of urban and rural areas. inorder to seize people’s property, they use the police, the courts andeven hired thugs to threaten, intidimate and beat up local people inorder to take their property. my experience in this regard is typical:

in the spring of 2000, i used all my savings to buy a building forcommercial purposes and acquired all the legal documents. afterbuying this building i set up a small factory and hardware store. mywhole family worked very hard and it seemed we would lead a happylife. in the spring of 2009, an unexpected thing happened. officialsfrom the county government notified me that my building was lyingin the path of a proposed expressway and i was given 15 days tomove. they offered 3,000 Chinese Yuan per square metre as com-pensation even though the market price for a house like mine is10,000 Chinese Yuan per square metre.

notwithstanding a lot of intimidation from the developers, i refusedtheir offers. following this, disasters befell me and my family. theyfirst cut off the water, then the electricity and then the access to myhouse. they then recruited thugs to smash my windows and usedsuper glue to jam the keyholes in the front and back doors. they alsobeat me and my husband, leaving us both injured. the developersused a digger to destory my house and all my belongings wereruined. my life was in danger from governemnt officials and they evenput a price on our heads – 50,000 Chinese Yuan for a broken leg and200,000 Chinese Yuan to kill us. this is the way the governmenttreats its people. i lodged a complaint with the police 23 times butreceived no response. i also posted 20 administrative indictmentsto the court and went to the court in person 100 times to ask thejudge to take up my case, but the judge refused, citing variousreasons. i reported my plight to different government agencieshoping they would help me, but received no responses. i went toBeijing to petition the central government but was abducted andforcibly sent back to wuxi where i was held in a black jail for 34 days.my husband left me, i lost everything i ever owned and i was in a

desperate situation. in the end, it turned out that the developmentplan was a complete lie, as the expressway never ended up goingthrough what was once my house.

it is estimated there are thousands of cases like mine which havehappened in wuxi. my eyes were gradually opened to others whowere suffering the same fate i had and i began to help them withsome legal representation. in addition, since the internet has becomea powerful platform for people to defend their rights, i started toshow people who were unfamiliar with it how to use it mosteffectively for rights defence.

in order to defend their rights, a lot of victims have to go to Beijingto petition central government agencies and the highest judiciary orlegislature. However when this happens, the local government hiressecurity firms to kidnap petitioners, detain them illegally and returnthem by force to their hometowns. the types of places where thesepetitioners are illegally held include schools, military bases,gymnasiums, research institutes, hotels and warehouses. theseplaces are called black jails because they are not legal and there isno legal oversight. i was detained in a black jail for 34 days. acolleague of mine was detained in total for 357 days on 16 differentoccasions.

in order to publicise our efforts to defend human rights, friends andi produced a video programme called “the Citizen Broadcast” andput it on the internet. i also go to other cities in Jiangsu province toprotest on behalf of human rights defenders who are illegallydetained and broadcast information about these cases online.initially, i only focused on my own rights and my own fate, but theni extended my efforts to others in different parts of my own provinceand then the whole country. after a scandal that took place earlierthis year when a primary school principal took six students to a hoteland sexually abused them, i went to the province concerned withother human rights defenders and lawyers to protest against theattempted cover-up by the local authorities. we interviewed a lot ofpeople and put out an episode of “the Citizen Broadcast ”. thisprogramme drew a lot of attention.

everyday around China, there are hundreds of cases where peoplehave their human rights abused. overall, the human rights situationhas not improved. the misery which is depicted in abing’s musicalpiece is still happening. i will play a Chinese flute solo to present mymisery and fighting.


Before 1998, i HaD a weLL-PaiD JoB, worKing in alarge-scale private company. after financial fraud perpetrated by theChinese ordnance Corps and the Chinese People’s armed Policeforce, i lost all my savings along with five thousand other victims.since then, my life has completely changed.

in order to get back our hard-earned money, i joined with othervictims and tried to file lawsuits. the court refused to process ourcases. we petitioned government departments and courts everywednesday. i soon became the leader of this action and washarassed and monitored as a result. i was beaten by the police,detained six times, arrested once, and on 4 march 2007, i wassentenced to re-education through labour (rtL) for one year andnine months.

i remember the first day at the rtL centre, the deputy leader said,“from now on, you must bow your dog head! Do not look at theleader of the guards in his eyes. You can only look at your own feet.”if we broke the rule, we would be punished. we would be madesquat, stand, or sit. regardless of which pose it was, we had toremain utterly still. the rtL centre was like a living hell. they didn’tjust torture us physically. the mental torture was even more severe.the way they punished us for everything, deprived us of all ourdignity.

Labouring started from six o'clock in the morning to ten o'clock atnight. we could not stop working, except when we had meals. whenwe got up, we were only given four minutes to wash our face, brushour teeth and urinate. we were only allowed to urinate in themornings, and we would be punished if we defecated. in the hall, wehad to stand facing the wall, head bowed, arms straight at our sides.or we might be punished to squat, head bowed, with arms wrappedaround our legs, not allowed to go to the toilet or drink water.

we were not allowed to laugh or cry in the labour camp. During themonthly meetings with our families, if someone was found crying ortalking about things which happened in the rtL centre, he or shewould be punished by having to stand for at least seven days in thehall. we had to adhere to all kinds of inhumane rules.

almost everyone had swelling on some part of their bodies but therewould be punishment if we did not keep up the speed of work. restswere not allowed even if one had high blood pressure, heart disease

or high fever, only if one was dying. Chinese rtL camps are like con-centration camps.

no information about the rtL centre could be transmitted to theoutside. when we left the centre, we were strip searched. not evena single piece of paper could be brought out. that is why, at themasanjia womens' Labour Camp in Liaoning, a female prisoner hida letter in her vagina to bring it out. Hence, when i was put into re-education through labour, i forced myself to remember all the evildeeds, so that later i could write a book called 'a worthwhile Journey- a record of the re-education though Labour DeploymentDepartment in Beijing'. it is 250,000 words and exposes the crimesof rtL. it was the first book to do so in detail and is now widelycirculated on the internet because it cannot be published in China.

after i left the rtL centre, i became more determined to be a humanrights defender. i, together with my team, strive to protect our rightsand help others to protect theirs. we gather for actions, displayingbanners that demand the “restoration of the right of litigation” at theHigh Court of Beijing. we protect our rights through legal procedures.we act collectively and have achieved some successes. we seecertain progressive changes by the courts and the police.

in order to practice our right as citizens to elect and be elected, on4 July 2011, 13 people from our team announced they would run forelection jointly as independent candidates to the national People’sCongress. Yet, our efforts were repressed. our mobile phones weretapped and micro-blogs deleted. every time we held electioncampaign activities, we were followed by the police.

it has now been four years since i was released from the rtL centre,and i haven't cut my hair since. this is because, on the first day afterentering the rtL centre, every woman had to cut their hair short likea man; some shaved their heads. i refused, so the police and thecentre officials pressed me onto the floor and forcibly cut my hair. imight consider changing my hair style the day the system of re-education through labour is abolished.

i am over 60 years old now, and i do not know how much further i cango. as long as i am still alive, and until every person in China can livewith dignity and respect, i will not give up defending human rights.


THE RTL CENTREWAS LIKE A LIVINGHELL. THEY DIDN’TJUST TORTURE USPHYSICALLY. THEMENTAL TORTUREWAS EVEN MORESEVERE. THE WAY

THEY PUNISHED USFOR EVERYTHING,

DEPRIVED US OF ALLOUR DIGNITY

YE JINGHUANHuman rights defenderCHINA

PRASHANT PAIKRAYPratirodh Sangram Samiti

INDIA

”“

WE HAVE BEENFACING KILLINGS,

HIRED GOONS, BOMBATTACKS AND

POLICE ATTACKS.LOCAL AUTHORITIESHAVE IGNORED OUR

DEMANDS FORRECOGNITION OF

OUR RIGHTTO THE LAND

at tHe outset, i ConVeY mY gratituDe to front LineDefenders for giving me the opportunity to share our years ofpeaceful, democratic struggle against the forceful land acquisitionfor the establishment of an integrated steel plant by Pohang SteelCompany (PosCo) in Jagatsinghpur district of odisha in india.

on 22 June 2005, PosCo, a large south Korean corporation, signeda memorandum of understanding (mou) with the government oforissa in eastern india. this mou outlined PosCo’s proposal toinvest in the mining industry and build a steel plant, captive powerstation and port in erasama block of Jagatsinghpur district. thegovernment and PosCo company have been continuing theirmassive operation to forcefully oust people from their habitats andto sabotage our democratic peaceful movement. the groundsituation of the villages is under strain and villagers are on high alertto face any government attempts to acquire their land.

the proposed plant will affect three gram panchayats (local-governance bodies) whom we represent – gadkujang, nuagaon andDhinkia – with 11 villages in total comprising 4,000 families of over22,000 people. almost one third belong to the Dalit (untouchables)community and other castes. But according to government sources,up to 400 families will be affected by the PosCo project.

apart from livelihood issues, the proposed project will likely have en-vironmental, social and economic implications which are far moreextensive and irreversible. the proposed PosCo port will beestablished on the banks of the Bay of Bengal which has large im-plications for the marine life. this will violate the Coastal regulationzone. the construction of the port could pose a threat to the nestinghabitat of the endangered olive ridley turtles. especially at risk arethe turtle-nesting beaches in the gahirmatha marine sanctuary,where nearly 400,000 turtles come to nest every year.

Human Rights Violationsour life has been severely disrupted since the state governmentsigned with PosCo. the police force has been using coercivemeasures to suppress our constitutional right to dissent. we havebeen peacefully resisting all types of criminal forces for more thannine years, but ironically hundreds of cases are being lodged by thepolice against us. we have been facing killings, hired goons, bombattacks and police attacks. Local authorities have ignored ourdemands for recognition of our right to the land. instead, equipped

forces were hired to silence our voices. until now 230 cases havebeen registered against our villagers by the government. twothousand warrants have been issued, 340 of these were for women.our leaders abhay sahoo, Laxman Paramanik (victim of the bombattack), Promod Das and two others are still in the jail.

our people cannot go out and receive treatment because of thethreat of arrest. the inability to leave the village has resulted in acomplete lack of access to medicines or any medical treatment forthe villagers. there is no doctor who visits the villages, no healthcentres in the vicinity, and the virtual siege prevents us from gettingmedical assistance from outside the village. this is particularlydifficult for women as they find it difficult to even carry out theirregular chores which demand them to move within or outside thevillage.

although some of the villagers implicated in various cases have beengranted bail, the threat of arrest continues to loom over them, as thepolice continuously register cases against them. furthermore, thepolice repeatedly attempt to arrest persons when they appear incourt in other cases in which they are implicated and have beengranted bail.

for the past eight years, PosCo has been morally complicit in state-sanctioned attacks and acts of repression by the government ofodisha to suppress peaceful demonstrations and opposition to thecompany’s proposed project. at this point in time, five lives havebeen claimed as a result of PosCo operations and PosCo hasnever condemned any of these gruesome incidents. rather, thisshows collaboration by PosCo with the acts of government andprivate muscle-men to terrorise people.

at this high time, we request you to highlight our cause in thedifferent international human rights organisations and media. wehope that action will put pressure on the chief minister to desist thistype of violent activities against us. we ask for your support to thecause of the native people in any form in this hour of need where ademocratically elected state has chosen to lift arms against its ownpeople.

in solidarity.


mY name is DonaL fariz. i am 27 Years oLD. i HaVe Beenworking at indonesia Corruption watch (iCw) since the beginning of2010. iCw is an anti-corruption non-governmental organisation inindonesia. it was founded in 1998 when the regime of the formerpresident, President suharto, fell from power. He was very famousfor his corrupt dealings.

iCw has uncovered hundreds of cases of corruption, and some ofthese cases are on a significantly large scale. these cases involvepeople from a variety of areas and backgrounds such as lawenforcement, ministerial backgrounds, heads of regions andpoliticians. in 2010, several colleagues and i who work at iCwdiscovered the cases of the "fat bank accounts" that involve anumber of generals and police officials. the police in indonesia arenotoriously corrupt. there are at least 17 police generals who we areinvestigating because of their unusual property, and one of these 17has a banking transaction to his account of approximately 9 millionus dollars.

as we continue to investigate these cases, the pressure continues togrow against us. iCw activities are constantly monitored. we oftenfeel that we are being followed wherever we go. on 8 July 2010 oneof my colleagues and friends, mr tama s Langkun, was attacked byunknown people. He received 29 stitches in his head after being setupon by three people wielding a blunt object. the case of this attackis still on-going and there have been no developments over threeyears on. for three months after this incident, we were escorted tothe office on a daily basis by a number of police. indeed thischaperoning made us feel very uncomfortable, because at that timewe were investigating a number of elements within the police. wedid not have any choice, however, as there are no private institutionsin indonesia providing protection to the activists.

that tragic incident did not dampen our spirits however. this year, ihave documented a number of members of parliament suspectedof corruption and a number of members of parliament who are notdemonstrating their commitment to eradicate corruption. theparliament in indonesia is one of the most corrupt institutions. since2003, at least 65 members of parliament have been processed by theiCw for corruption, and this figure does not even include people atlocal parliament level, where the number is into the hundreds.

next year there will be a national election in indonesia. i have alreadypublished the names of allegedly corrupt members of parliament anda number of members of parliament who have not demonstratedtheir commitment to eradicate corruption. the total number isapproximately 36. these people are angry with me, and they havereported me to the police on grounds of defamation.

until now, i have not received a call from the police, but i am sure thatone day they will call. my thanks to front Line Defenders for givingme the moral support to face the parliamentary resistance. theseventh Dublin Platform event has given me so many benefits. ourpartnership will be very helpful.


WE WERE ESCORTEDTO THE OFFICE ON A

DAILY BASIS BY ANUMBER OF POLICE.

INDEED THISCHAPERONING MADE

US FEEL VERYUNCOMFORTABLE,BECAUSE AT THAT

TIME WE WEREINVESTIGATING A

NUMBER OF ELEMENTSWITHIN THE POLICE

DONAL FARIZIndonesia Corruption WatchINDONESIA

TONI ALMUNAViolet Grey

INDONESIA

”“

I BELIEVE IN MYRELIGION AND HAVE

FAITH THAT ITBRINGS A UNIQUE

PEACE OF MIND, BUTIN REALITY, MY

RELIGION IS OFTENMISINTERPRETED

AND USED ASA TOOL TO FIGHT

AGAINST ME

wHat is worse tHan Being HateD? as a Human, Beinghated purely based on who you are, is very painful in my opinion.this kind of hate is often directed towards those belonging to sexualminorities, particularly towards those who happen to live in an ultra-conservative area, like the place where i come from, aceh province,indonesia.

aceh province was granted autonomy to implement sharia (islamiclaw) as part of the agreement to end the 32 years of armed conflictbetween the separatist movement (free aceh movement) and thestate. However, instead of bringing better lives for acehnese people,the application of this law has been detrimental, particularly to thelives of women and those that society likes to ‘other’ like punkgroups, and of course the sexual minority groups.

in 2009, aceh passed a Qanun (local law) that criminaliseshomosexual conduct (liwath/ male with male sexual intimacy andmusahaqah/ female with female sexual intimacy). it imposes apunishment of 100 lashings, payment of 100 kilograms of gold or100 months imprisonment. Luckily, due to pressure from humanrights organisations at the international and national level, theenforcement of this law was refused.

However, last month, the provincial parliament published the draftof the law in the local newspaper and with speculation of its beingre-legislated. Before that, the Vice mayor of Banda aceh (the capitalcity of aceh) made a statement in the local newspaper claiming thathomosexual people have started invading aceh, and there are plansto formulate a regulation in response to this ‘threat’. that’s right, myexistence in my own city is considered to be threatening; threateningto the values and moral standards that society has developed here.

Living as a member of the LgBtiq community in aceh, like in anyother homophobic environment, is far from easy, particularly if youposition yourself as a defender of this community and way of life. asa result of association with an extremely negative stigma, many timeswe have been expelled from public spaces and have even been toldthat our existence can cause natural disasters. once, whilstgathering in a coffee shop, someone shouted at our group saying“You better get out of here; it’s you people that caused the tsunami.”*

threats come in many forms but what is most painful is the purehatred for being who you are and being true to yourself. that feeling

of hatred is used to justify violence towards to us, which is often inthe name of enforcing religious teachings and preserving culture.this philosophy is a direct contrast to my belief that religion andculture exist to enlighten one’s life and soul.

the challenges we encounter often create a conflict in ourselves,continuously questioning why our religion is at odds with oursexuality. it’s an internal battle. i believe in my religion and have faiththat it brings a unique peace of mind, but in reality, my religion isoften misinterpreted and used as a tool to fight against me.

in 2008, my friends and i decided to establish an organisation whichappropriately represents our community. we do several activities toshow people that we are not as negative as they think we are. we donot counter hate with hate, but by promoting justice, peace andkindness. it’s a long way to go, but at least we have started.

*aceh was struck by tsunami in 2004.


LiKe eVerYBoDY eLse i too HaD a famiLY, a LoVing HusBanDand two small kids. it was my universe. it was my everything. Likeeverybody else i too lived a life in hope of the daily violence andmayhem emanating from the Kashmir conflict keeping away frommy doors. i lived with the hope that the ever-widening security gridof the indian state, and the violence accompanying it, would neverfind its way to my family… but i was wrong.

the conflict i was living in had already made inroads and i was toface it on the cold february dusk of 1998. the security apparatus ofthe indian state had assumed the shape of a horrible monster thatspared no one. indian occupying forces had already unleashed theirterror through arbitrary detentions and extra judicial killings ofinnocent civilians.

as a wave of the pro-independence movement that we Kashmiriscall “tehreek” touched new heights, the indian state responded witha heavy hand; terrorising whole populations with its armed forces,resorting to early dawn crackdowns, burning down houses andshops. they used methods of enforced disappearance, and rape,fake encounters and custodial killings… the killing machine that theindian state unleashed was the worst kind of terrorism on the peopleof Kashmir, who were demanding nothing more than their right toself-determination as promised by the indian state in the early 1950s.

in february 1998, as we were preparing for dinner, the 17 Jatregiment, a dreaded regiment of the indian army, pounced on ourdwelling in Chandhara village of Pampore, a town 12km south ofsrinagar city. the indian forces of the 17 Jat regiment dragged myhusband out of our house in front of the whole family. He wasbundled into a vehicle and taken away. we got his body back thenext day. He had been brutally killed. His body parts were first tornapart by pick axes and then blown up by explosives so that it couldbe presented as an accidental death.

fifteen years have passed but the image of my husband’s bruisedand torn body never leaves my mind. i can still feel the smell of thatevening when he was taken away before my eyes. i was helpless. icould do nothing to save him, though i threw myself on the feet of theoccupying forces to leave him.

as days passed i gathered myself and filed a case against the 17Jat regiment in the courts. after dragging the case for many months,

the verdict of the supreme Court of india was finally delivered…i had filed the case with a little hope that somehow the justice systemof india would be free of nationalistic partisanship, but i was provenwrong. the guilty were acquitted in the case, and nobody was evercharged. even though he was taken away without a warrant; eventhough, as a matter of standard operating Procedure, no policeparty accompanied the 17 Jat regiment when they took him.

the case of my husband is just one in thousands of such caseswhere the indian army has arbitrarily taken away innocent peopleand later denied having taken them. if families are lucky enough, theycould get the body retuned the next day, thrown somewhere on theroadside or in the river Jehlum.

in india-occupied Kashmir an infamous law, the armed forcesspecial Powers act (afsPa), gives wide impunity to the indian armedforces. they cannot be prosecuted for their involvement in humanrights abuses without the sanction of the government.

in the 44 cases submitted so far by the government of Jammu andKashmir to the indian ministry of Defence, not a single person hasbeen tried in the courts. the afsPa has been declared by the un,the european Parliament and many human rights organisations ascontrary to the conventions and protocols of international law.Despite calls for its abolishment however, the indian governmentcontinues with the draconian law.

as a woman i have been victimised twice. i not only faced the ordealof having been widowed by the indian state, but i also had to facesuffering from the side of my in-laws, for whom a widow like me wasan unnecessary burden. with 12 and 13-year-old kids, i had tomigrate from the house of my husband and take refuge in Pamporetown, where i have lived in rented accommodation for the last 15years. as a single mother i have had to face many social and financialproblems. i have worked as a teacher on a paltry sum of 5,000rupees, managed the rent, the fees of my children’s education andthe expenses of the household. Despite all of this i never boweddown; i kept myself up for the sake of my children. i gave them thebest education available in Kashmir. i was widowed by the indianstate, i was thrown out by my in-laws but there were some peoplewho helped me in the course of my journey. we muslims have faithin the saying Innallaha ma`sabreen... “allah is with the patient”. iremained patient. i struggled and i survived.


I REMAINED PATIENT.I STRUGGLED

AND I SURVIVED

MASOODA PARVEENHuman rights defenderKASHMIR

NG SHUI MENGHuman rights defender

LAOS

”“

HOWEVER, THE LAOGOVERNMENT RULESLAOS WITH AN IRON-

FIST. SPACE FORCIVIL SOCIETY

ACTION IS LIMITEDAND THE MEDIA

IS TIGHTLYCONTROLLED.

THERE ISTHEREFORE, LITTLEPUBLIC AWARENESS

on 15 DeCemBer 2012, nearLY 10 montHs ago, mY HusBanD,sombath somphone, was taken away right in front of a police poston a busy thoroughfare in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Hisabduction was caught on a camera installed by the public securityforce, purportedly to help improve the security of the city. footagefrom the CCtV showed my husband was stopped by the police,made to get out of his vehicle and taken into the police post. a fewminutes later his vehicle was driven away by an unknown person.then, a white truck drove up, stopped at the police post andsombath was taken away. that was the last i saw of him.

the official Lao government statement said the police stoppedsombath for routine checks of vehicle documents, and after that theydid not know what had happened or who had taken him away. thegovernment promised to investigate, but ten months later, the inves-tigation has revealed nothing. they did not find sombath’s vehicle,they did not identify the person who drove it away, and they did notidentify the white truck and the people who took sombath away.

Laos is a one-party communist state where there are very efficientpublic security networks and surveillance systems that extend toevery village. these systems can track the comings and goings ofevery individual. Criminal activities are limited and crimes quicklysolved if the authorities want to. But the Lao government’s officialstatements have repeatedly said that the police have doneeverything they can to find sombath.

why sombath somphone? sombath is an ordinary Lao citizen froma poor farming family. He has spent the last 30 years working insustainable rural development, education and youth empowermentto improve the livelihoods of the poor and expand the space for civilsociety. His work in community empowerment has won himrecognition both inside and outside the country. He even won themagsaysay award in 2005, the asian equivalent of the nobel Prize.

sombath's last public role prior to his abduction was supporting theorganisation of the asia europe People’s forum (aePf) in Vientiane.i suspect it was this role in organising a major civil society forum thatprovoked the conservative elements of the state security apparatusto abduct him, and to silence the emerging voice of civil society.

on the surface Laos is a country that respects human rights. it hasacceded to almost all the international human rights conventions,

and has established legal systems that purportedly uphold the ruleof law and protect the life and liberty of its citizenry. Laos is also asignatory of the un Convention on enforced Disappearance.However, the Lao government rules Laos with an iron-fist. space forcivil society action is limited and the media is tightly controlled. thereis therefore, little public awareness or even recognition by the citizensthat enforced disappearance is an issue in Laos.

in human rights terms enforced disappearance is a heinous crimeand the “mother of human rights violations” because a disappearedperson is a “non-person,” and until the person’s whereabouts andproof of life or otherwise are known, the family is left in limbo; lefthanging between hope and despair. nobody, except those who haveexperienced such violations can even describe the agony andtrauma they face every minute of the day, and outsiders can neverunderstand those feelings.

sombath’s disappearance is not the first such case. there are manycases of disappearances in Laos, but little is ever publicised as familymembers of the victims are too afraid to speak out or reach out forhelp. recently, i wanted to reach out to another victim who hadreported to the working group on enforced or involuntary Disap-pearances, but i was told that the family wanted it to remain confi-dential. such is the scale of fear inside Laos, and that is why theperpetrators in Laos can continue to act with impunity and know thatthey will face little or no consequences.

Despite the concerns of safety for myself and my family, sombath’sdisappearance has taught me that silence is a form of defeat. icannot accept such defeat and i cannot ignore such violation of myhusband’s rights. i stand in front of you today to testify that theenforced disappearance of sombath is a crime and a human rightsviolation. it is an act of impunity and an affront to the rule of law. i amnot sure whether i or other Laotian families will ever see justice done,but i can still take some comfort that i am standing amidst otherhuman rights defenders from across the world, and draw strengthfrom you. By doing so, we are reminding the world that we will notallow sombath and other victims of involuntary disappearance tovanish from our collective consciousness, and hold up a light of hopethat such violations can and will be halted in the future, and theirperpetrators be held accountable for such crimes against humanity.


i’m a maLaYsian Poet anD writer. i’m Co-eDitor ofmalaysia’s first malay-language LgBtiq anthology Orang MacamKita (‘People Like us’, matahari Books, 2010). i’m also an LgBtiqrights defender with seksualiti merdeka, a coalition of non-govern-mental organisations and individuals that started as an annualsexuality rights festival held in Kuala Lumpur, and now has growninto an LgBtiq rights movement. Previously, i was a volunteer witha few other non-governmental organisations such as malaysianmedical relief society (merCY malaysia) and the Centre forindependent Journalism, malaysia (CiJ).

i started to be actively involved with seksualiti merdeka after theorang macam Kita anthology was launched during the seksualitimerdeka festival in 2010. thinking that more activism was neededfor malay LgBtiq people, who form the majority of the LgBtiqcommunity in the country, i took the launch of the book as a signalfor my increased involvement in the movement. recently, i was inthe planning committee for this year’s seksualiti merdeka festival,which has been rebranded as together Life gets Better festival. itwas held from 8 - 22 september at various LgBtiq-friendly venuesin Kuala Lumpur.

in 2011, the seksualiti merdeka festival was banned by the policeand government due to many police reports made against us byreligious and extremist groups. trucks of police arrived at the doorof festival venue and were ready to arrest us if we did not disperse.in 2012, we went to the High Court and challenged the ban as we feltthe ban was wrong and against our rights as defined under thefederal Constitution. we lost the case as the judge said the ban waspurely academic and only for the banning of the festival in 2011. wewent to the court again this year for appeal but it was not successful.we didn’t have the festival last year but we did have it again this yearchanging the name to together Life gets Better festival so that itwould not attract attention from the authorities and we also plannedand conducted the festival discreetly.

Back to the year 2012, soon after the seksualiti merdeka festival inthat year, seksualiti merdeka initiated their own it gets Better videoproject, and i was featured in one of the videos. my video went viral,with over 400,000 views in two weeks, and over 1,500 comments ina week before comments were disabled and the video was pulleddown. its infamy was probably due to the fact that i’m a malay andi spoke in the malay language. in malaysia, being malay is equivalent

to being muslim and the LgBtiq issue is rarely discussed openlyand positively in malay language, the subject being highly taboo andpoliticised. Besides, both the penal code and sharia laws havestatutes criminalising same sex sexual acts. for the video, i receiveda lot of negative feedback including death threats via email,facebook and sms messages. the largely negative coverage in themedia, where my face was everywhere – mainstream newspapers,and numerous websites and blogs – also quoted many politiciansand religious leaders criticising me, some suggesting that i should beinvestigated and punished. seksualiti merdeka together with its alliescame out with press statements to support me and also consideredpursuing legal action.

nevertheless, because of my courageous and controversial it getsBetter video, i was listed among the top ten ‘gay rights heroes’ of2010 by Change.org. this, together with some positive feedback,encouragement and support from various parties includingindividuals within the local LgBtiq community, has given me hopeto keep on doing what i have been doing. However, following thebacklash with the video, i was diagnosed with depression andanxiety and today still undergo therapy with a clinical psychologist.this has not hindered me from being an LgBtiq rights defender asi feel my work is crucial and there is still so much work to be done.my contribution to the cause is also important due to the fact thatthere are so few malay LgBtiq rights activists in a country wheremalay LgBtiq people are most at risk.


FOR THE VIDEO,I RECEIVED A LOT OFNEGATIVE FEEDBACK

INCLUDING DEATHTHREATS VIA EMAIL,FACEBOOK AND SMS

MESSAGES. THELARGELY NEGATIVECOVERAGE IN THE

MEDIA ALSO QUOTEDMANY POLITICIANS

AND RELIGIOUSLEADERS

AZWAN ISMAILSeksualiti MerdekaMALAYSIA

MOHD FAIZAL MUSAWriter

MALAYSIA

”“

HUMAN RIGHTSDEFENDERS

FIGHTING FORFREEDOM OF

RELIGION FACEINVISIBLE ENEMIES,PEOPLE WHO THINKTHEY HAVE ‘RIGHTS’AND THE ‘FREEDOM’

TO OPPRESS ORERADICATEMINORITIES

mY name is moHD faizaL musa But i am Better Known inmalaysia as faisal tehrani. i have won numerous prestigious literaryawards in malaysia and many of my works have been translated tovarious languages. in 2009, things changed. one of my novels wasbanned. a few of my other creative works were inspected, defamedand condemned and i was threatened directly and indirectlyincluding a death threat.

maria Chin abdullah, a fellow human rights defender, submitted anintervention at the united nations Human rights Council in genevain 2012. my name, faisal tehrani, was mentioned in her report. inJuly 2013, the pressure intensified.

Later in september 2013, a mufti suggested my work should bebanned. many people were thinking: faisal tehrani is shia - shia isdisgusting and dangerous. their conclusion came from layers of stig-matisation conducted by the establishment and media.

am i?

i am just committed to religious freedom. i am a scholar at risk,researching on human rights. my scholarly works include ‘theaxiology of pilgrimage’, which appeared in Cultura, an internationalJournal of Philosophy of Culture and axiology. Perhaps the mostfamous is ‘the malaysian shi’a: a Preliminary study of their History,oppression, and Denied rights’, published in the Journal of shi’aislamic studies. of course any works, be they creative or academic,which defy the establishment, will put you in a situation.

religious extremists have been naming me in their sermons, plantingseeds of hatred. Human rights defenders fighting for freedom ofreligion face invisible enemies, people who think they have ‘rights’and the ‘freedom’ to oppress or eradicate minorities. You may not beabducted, jailed or shot (yet) but you live in a suffocatingenvironment. Do you know what to suffocate means? to die or causedeath from lack of air or inability to breathe.

i wrote a small poem when i was in rhodes island, greece earlier thismonth.

it goes:

this feargreediness and possession of powerwas not even ourswe used to be children.

Before being adultand realising powera kingpresidentor prime minister;

is just a small kidfantasising as a saviour to help beloved dollsfrom a huge angus giant

to cure animalsto plant trees and flowersand sometimes would like togive away free ice creams.

since i was a kid, i was told that minors should be defended. i wastold that the world is divided into two camps; the oppressor and theoppressed. and that a good boy should not be with the first one.


i am a Human rigHts LawYer. i Visit PoLiCe Detentioncentres, interview detainees about police treatment and providethem with legal counsel in relation to their constitutional and legalrights. During the interviews, if it is discovered that their rights havebeen violated, i document it and make a complaint before the officerin Charge of the police station to provide them with their rights. ifthe detainee is found to have been tortured, we forward the case tothe national Human rights Commission of nepal, the office of theattorney general and the Human rights unit of nepal Police forimmediate protection of the victim. if they do not act promptly toprotect the detainee from further torture, we communicate the caseto international human rights organisations like amnesty international(ai), Human rights watch (Hrw), world organization against torture(omCt) and asian Human rights Commission (aHrC) requestingurgent appeals.

on the legal side, we file applications before the District Court forphysical and psychological check-ups for the victim and provide freemedical check-up support as per the court order. if the detainee isdetained illegally, we file habeas corpus writ. Likewise, if the torturesurvivor wishes, we support him or her in filing the case before thecourt, under the Compensation relating to torture act – 2053 (1996).

in the course of our work, we face many kinds of security threats. onthe one hand we are threatened by security personnel against whomwe have either filed cases or are going to file cases against on behalfof the torture survivor. on the other hand, we are also threatened bythe person who had filed the complaint against the person who wasdetained and tortured. in the second type of case, the police do notafford us any security.

similarly, while raising cases of human rights violations in areas ofconflict we are threatened by the warring parties: the army and themaoist rebels. there is no protection mechanism in nepal. thenational Human rights Commission does not have a protectionmechanism for human rights defenders.

the working group of the european union, a loose network ofhuman rights organisations and international organisations (iCrCetc.), is working for the protection of human rights defenders.However, there is no strong protection mechanism from thegovernment side so human rights defenders are vulnerable to threatsin nepal.


WHILE RAISINGCASES OF HUMAN

RIGHTS VIOLATIONSIN AREAS OF

CONFLICT WE ARETHREATENED BY THEWARRING PARTIES:THE ARMY AND THE

MAOIST REBELS.THERE IS NOPROTECTION

MECHANISM INNEPAL

BADRI PRASAD BHUSALHuman rights lawyerNEPAL

SR. MA. FAMITA N. SOMOGOD, MSMRural Missionaries of the Philippines

PHILIPPINES

”“

FROM THE RANKSOF INDIGENOUS

PEOPLES ALONE,28 LEADERS AND

COMMUNITYMEMBERS HAVE

BEEN MURDEREDSINCE PRESIDENT

BENIGNO AQUINO IIIASSUMED POWER

i am a reLigious nun worKing for tHe ruraL Poor in tHeirstruggle for dignity and fullness of life in mindanao, an island in thesouth of the Philippines touted as the ‘Land of Promise’ because ofits bountiful resources. while being a home to more than half of theestimated mineral wealth in the Philippines, mindanao is ironicallypunctuated by poverty and resource-based conflicts, with the ruralpoor, especially indigenous communities, being deprived of accessto resources.

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus willbe persecuted” - 2 timothy 3:12

in the effort of the rural poor of mindanao to resist aggressive ‘indus-trialisation’ characterised by extractive and destructive projects, theyare being extra-judicially killed. from the ranks of indigenous peoplesalone, 28 leaders and community members have been murdered sincePresident Benigno aquino iii assumed power. they were executed inbroad daylight, complete with eye-witness testimonies, but nobodyhas been seriously prosecuted, much less convicted.

across mindanao where extractive industries are booming, dis-placement of unwilling villages and trumped-up charges against theirleaders are notably on the rise. military detachments are set-up incommunities to monitor peoples' activities, and leaders andcommunity members are ‘invited’ to military camps for questioning.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I wasthirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a strangerand you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me,I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and youcame to visit me.” - matthew 25:35-36

on an island marred by deepening divisions between the rich andpoor, our tradition as the Church of the Poor teaches us to put theneeds of the vulnerable above all. and so we side with the small-holder farmers, fisher folk, agricultural workers and indigenouspeoples. we lend them the integrity of our religious habits and veilsin their struggle, and we receive our share of persecution.

“Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil isabout to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested,and for 10 days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death,and I will give you the crown of life.” - revelation 2:10

in mindanao, where church people are respected, attacks againstchurch people working for human rights has a chilling effect andunderscores the impunity enveloping the ‘Land of Promise.’ sincethe death of my co-member at the rural missionaries of thePhilippines (rmP), italian priest fausto tentorio, there has been nolet-up in attacks against our organisation. for advocacy against landgrabbing and environmental destruction, and for the promotion ofthe civil and political rights of the rural poor, rmP north mindanao(rmP-nmr) has been put under surveillance, intimidated andharassed. for speaking out against the killing of an indigenous leaderin october 2012 who was resisting palm oil cultivation on ancestralland, i, together with other support organisations, was threatenedwith legal charges.

right now, we at rmP-nmr are fighting our hardest battle as staffhave received death threats and hate calls from anonymous callers,warning us against continuing our work. this coincides with the re-organisation of army officials in the 4th infantry Division of the army.its new commander is a former associate of general Jovito Palparan,a known ‘butcher’ of activists, who is now at-large. with the intensi-fication of campaigns against activists under this new set-up, villageshave been militarised, and recently, long-time rmP-nmr colleagueJoel q. Yagao was arrested and is currently being detained ontrumped-up charges.

i no longer report to the office and i have been forced to transfer mybase to another city. i am afraid that the raiding of our conventswhich occurred in 2004 and 2006 will happen again. i work inindigenous communities, just like my other sisters in rmP-nmr.Knowing that rebel groups are present in those communities muchof the time, the state security forces use the accusation that we arerebel supporters to intimidate us and hinder us from doing ourhuman rights work.

Despite the international recognition given to human rightsdefenders, away from the eyes of the international media and humanrights organisations, attacks are continuing in mindanao againstthose of us working for land rights and access to resources. restassured, we will not be cowed, and we will go on with our humanrights work. the members of the rural missionaries will not cease injourneying with the rural poor. Because our love is not just talk, it issomething real and active.


i am Dong-KYun Kang, tHe maYor of a smaLL farming anDfishing village called gangjeong on the southern coast of Jeju islandin the republic of Korea (south Korea). this village has been in strifeas a result of the ongoing construction of the Jeju naval base for sevenyears and i have been campaigning against the building of this navalbase and exerting every effort to restore the community of gangjeong.

Jeju island is located in the furthest southern part of south Korea witha population of nearly 600,000. unesCo designated the island aworld natural Heritage site, Biosphere reserve and global geoparkowing to its exceptional beauty. the island was considered one ofthe top islands in the world where humans and nature live harmo-niously. in 2002, the government of the republic of Korea unexpect-edly announced the building of a naval base on Jeju island, under thepretext of protecting and defending this treasure island, also knownas the island of peace, in order to secure sea-lanes for shipping.

in 2007, gangjeong was decided on as the site for the naval base bythe government. this was done secretly, by selecting a very smallminority of villagers who were in agreement with the construction,and inviting them to a general meeting to accept the project. thegovernment then took only 20 days to decide on gangjeong as thenaval base site. so, gangjeong villagers carried out a village votewhich revealed overwhelming opposition to the construction, andstarted a huge campaign against the base. the government thenstarted masking the project as if it were for tourism developmentappropriate to Jeju's character, deceiving the residents of Jeju, andcontinuing the project under a new name, a 'Civilian-militaryComplex Port for tour beauty'.

gangjeong villagers, Jeju civil society and Jeju residents havecontinued the campaign despite the pressure and lies claiming thatthe construction is beneficial for the local area. our resistance is tothe government's business being carried out while depriving peopleof their democratic rights. furthermore, our resistance is to thegovernment's violations that forced compulsory purchase onvillagers, hence, eliminating their property rights.

the government mobilises over one hundred police annually tosuppress villagers' freedom of assembly and association, and doesnot permit any rallies. furthermore, over seven hundred people havebeen arrested and taken to the police station; 25 people have beenimprisoned; over four hundred cases have been sent for judicial

process unnecessarily; and the suppression of villagers' humanrights has reached an extreme. During these events, many peoplehave been injured, including fr. moon who fell from a seven metrehigh seawall, a resident who fell from a six metre embankment, anda protester whose arm was broken as the police broke a humanchain which had been made to prevent the delivery of explosives forblasting rock.

the campaign against the naval base is being strangled from thefinancial side as well, as a village bank account that had beenaccepting donations is now under investigation under the act of theregulation of Donation Collections. the police even suppressreligious ceremonies in front of the construction site, stating thatsuch events obstruct business or violate traffic laws, thereby,restricting freedom of expression and denial of religious rights.

‘oppression’ is the only word that can describe the action ofdemanding that those who are protesting against the naval baseabide by the law, while simultaneously covering any wrongdoings ofthose who are destroying the democratic constitutional order andtaking away the rights of villagers. the current Jeju naval baseproject can be said to be a result of conflict between the usa andChina, and that the us government is responsible for its construc-tion. the base is designed to accommodate a us aircraft carrier anda nuclear-powered submarine. we have learned from history thatconflicts between superpowers only cause pain through war andother forms that do not promote peace. now, we know that the Jejunaval base issue cannot be solved by gangjeong villagers alone.

i believe this issue will be resolved smoothly when each one of yourvoices join together to stop the world from fighting. Please join us inour dream to preserve and leave the beautiful nature, peace, humanrights and long-standing traditions to our descendants. some saythat peace without power cannot be kept. However, peace gainedthrough power is not long kept, because of a stronger power. westrongly believe peace must be protected by peace; through com-munication and coexistence. war destroys nature and annihilateshuman rights.

i wish for the Jeju naval base project at this small village ofgangjeong, which is threatening peace and human rights, to benullified. However small the villagers' voice is, i hope our cry forpeace and human rights touches everyone's heart around the world.


WE STRONGLYBELIEVE PEACE

MUST BEPROTECTED BY

PEACE; THROUGHCOMMUNICATION

AND COEXISTENCE

DONG-KYUN KANGGangjeong Village AssociationREPUBLIC OF KOREA

TEERANET CHAISUWANSouthern Peasants Federation of Thailand

THAILAND

”“

WE SET UP A24-HOUR SECURITY

ROTA FORCOMMUNITYMEMBERS AS

UNARMED GUARDS.WE SET UP

BARRICADESAROUND THECOMMUNITY

in 2002, tHere was an ngo tHat CamPaigneD against tHeKaeng Krung Dam in surat thani Province in the southern part ofthailand. this ngo was interested in understanding the dynamic ofthai and multinational companies and their involvement in rentinglands in the southern part of the country. they did a thorough studyand came to know that large areas of land in surat thani, Krabi andnakorn srithammarat provinces were rented by large companies toplant palm trees. However, after their contract had ended theycontinued to occupy the land and did not return it to the government.this ngo demanded that the provincial government investigate thisbut there was no action by the local government. in 2003, landlessfarmers came together to protest at the surat thani Provincial Hallto demand that the government redistribute those lands to landlessfarmers. there was a resolution by the thai cabinet in the same yearthat these lands would have to be provided to the villagers. However,this was only stated in the government document. no concreteaction was taken.

in 2007, a group of farmers affiliated with the southern Peasantsfederation went to make use of the land which was rented by JiewKwong Jiu Company, a joint venture between malaysian andsingaporean companies. approximately 120 families went to thearea to make use of the land to build their homes. they started to beharassed and intimidated. members of the group were shot at, theirvehicles were destroyed and a human rights defender who sat in thecar was injured. we lodged a complaint at the police station but noaction was taken by authorities.

in 2009, a local mafia led by a local politician brought local militiawith full weaponry to the area. they came with a tractor anddestroyed 40 houses belonging to the members of the community.the villagers continued to remain in the area. in mid-2009, acolleague of mine at the southern Peasants federation, sompornPatpoom, was assassinated. He was digging a fishing pond by hishouse when assailants shot him with a shotgun and m-16 guns.

after this incident, we travelled to demonstrate in front of thegovernment House in Bangkok to demand action on the killing ofour member, to bring the perpetrators to justice and to distribute theland to the farmers. the government came up with a policy that wecould continue to stay on the land, provided a small budget to helpthe 40 households whose houses were destroyed and gave com-pensation to the family of the human rights defender.

after that, the community continued to face harassment and threats.we were not allowed to buy construction items, and if we built newhouses, they would be destroyed by the tractors. at this time, wewere living in houses built from bamboo, and we didn't have accessto roads, electricity or clean drinking water. Proper constructionitems were usually destroyed by local mafia so we had to resort tobuilding basic houses.

120 households started to move out of the area as a result of the in-timidation and harassment. there were only four or five householdsin the area who continued to fight for their rights. in 2010, thecompany, together with local mafia, started to sell the lands to localbusinessmen in the community, so we had more enemies as a result.

on 18 august 2012, more people moved in to make use of the land.we destroyed palm trees and distributed the land to differentfamilies. as a result, the companies continued to intimidate us andwe would regularly hear gunshots, and there were death threats tothe community leaders.

on 19 november 2012 at around 7.30am, there were three rounds ofgunshots. two women human rights defenders from our communityms Pranee Boonrak and ms montha Chookaew were killed whiletravelling to the local market on a remote road away from the village.after our own investigation, we discovered that they were killed bym-16 guns. the southern Peasants federation protested in front ofthe government House once again calling for justice and for securityto be provided for the community. the government promised thatthey would take action but nothing has happened.

the community has had to create its own security. we set up a 24-hour security rota for community members as unarmed guards. weset up barricades around the community. we have to thank frontLine Defenders for supporting us through their security grantsprogramme to purchase solar cell equipment which helped us inincreasing our security. when we travel out of the community, wetravel in groups. i am not able to travel much since i might be thevictim of an assault. i continue to work as a farmer in the communityso that i can live and feed my family. sometimes i have to work alone.it is risky, but i have to work to survive. in order to protect the rightsof our communities, we have to continue our fight.


i am nguYen Lan tHang, a Citizen JournaList in Vietnam.i’m now temporarily staying in manila, Philippines, to avoid beingpersecuted by the Vietnamese government. if i was in Vietnam iwould surely not have the possibility to attend this conference. inthe past few years, my friends were stopped at the airport when theytried to travel to Dublin.

i’m not a professional journalist. i’m an activist working for thepromotion of civil society and the protection of human rights in mycountry. i take photos and make films about demonstrations, thegovernment’s land grabbing actions and police action to dispersepeaceful meetings on human rights. the Vietnamese government isassuming that these photos and video clips posted on the internethave obstructed it’s activities, especially when it has acted arbitrarily.Let me give you an example of what i have done in response to aland grabbing project to build luxury residential houses near thecapital Hanoi in 2012. the villagers there were forced to accept acompensation price of 6 us dollars per sq. metre whereas thebuilding company would sell it later for 1,000 to 2,000 us dollars persq. metre. although many farmers didn’t accept the deal thegovernment carried on with the confiscation of land to deliver it to theinvestors. on 24 february 2012, about 5,000 riot police clashed withthe protesting villagers, pursuing them to their housing zone andbeat them indiscriminately. Dozens of villagers were injured andarrested.

our group of reporters were hidden by villagers for days before thestart of the land grabbing operation. among others, we randomlyfilmed a scene where two observers were savagely beaten. the nextday the state owned broadcaster Voice of Vietnam (VoV) andnewspapers reported that the action had been successfullyconducted and no incident had occurred. after we had posted ourclip on Youtube and facebook, a blogger identified the victims asreporters from VoV. some newspapers then changed their passivestance and defended their colleagues bravely, although theauthorities kept saying that this clip had been faked and made byhostile forces, and that no one had been injured. a few days laterthe two reporters confirmed that they were the victims beaten by thepolice as shown in the clip. since then, many state-friendlynewspapers are daring to expose the government’s wrongdoings,resulting in the authorities stopping the crackdown against farmersand land confiscation action for one year.

on a whole, i think our group of citizen journalists has helped delaythe land grabbing plan, helped farmers to raise their voice, exposedthe assault against journalists and broken the censorship of mediafor a short period of time. the Vietnamese government hasslandered us as hostile forces having cooperated with foreign statesand disturbing the development of the country, although we havedone nothing other than report the truth to the people by means ofour keyboard and the internet, and so contribute to the protection ofcivil and political rights in Vietnam. today in Vietnam, more and morepeople use the internet to spread information about police brutality.we are now trying to form a nationwide network of citizen journaliststo report quickly and timely and to soften the surveillance by thepolice. we are trying to mobilise public opinion, and get in touch withthe human rights mechanisms of the united nations and non-gov-ernmental organisations.

the police has kept me under surveillance day and night, wire-tapped my telephone, detained me, seized my camera and computerand assaulted me many times with multiple injuries. as a humanbeing i am fearful of being assaulted and i am concerned that mywork could threaten the life and safety of my wife and parents. i amlucky that my family understand what i am doing. However i willcontinue to share work with my friends because i do think that thethreat against a person will be reduced if there are many persons toshoulder it.


THE POLICE HASKEPT ME UNDER

SURVEILLANCE DAYAND NIGHT, WIRE-

TAPPED MYTELEPHONE,

DETAINED ME,SEIZED MY CAMERAAND COMPUTER ANDASSAULTED ME MANY

TIMES WITHMULTIPLE INJURIES

NGUYEN LAN THANGJournalistVIETNAM

IRYNA KHALIPJournalistBELARUS

”“

AT THE SAME TIME IAM PERFECTLY

AWARE THAT IF SOMANY OF US, WHO

ALL FIGHT FORHUMAN RIGHTS IN

DIFFERENTCOUNTRIES, HAVEGATHERED HERE,THAT MEANS THAT

THERE ISSOMETHING AMISS

IN THE WORLD

i LiVe in tHe VerY Centre of euroPe. mY Home is onLY 150kilometres from the european union - 150 kilometres and hundredsof years - because my country is separated from the eu not only bya state border, but also by the state structures. a medieval feudaldictatorship has cast Belarus back to the time of the inquisition, andtherefore we are geographically close but hundreds of years apart interms of time.

on 19 December 2010, when i was arrested and put into the KgBprison, i wasn’t even surprised. i had been ready for it for a long time,as it turned out. a normal person, one who has not broken the law,will never interpret an arrest as something they deserve. at the veryleast they will ask “why?” but i didn’t even ask, i knew: for no reasonother than the fact that i am a journalist.

How could i have been surprised, when, three months before thearrest, my colleague and friend oleg Bebenin was found dead? Hismurder was clumsily made out to be a suicide. oleg was the founderof the most popular and brave internet media in Belarus,charter97.org. He was killed right before the start of the 2010 presi-dential campaign. oleg was due to become a key figure in the teamof the opposition presidential candidate and his old friend andreisannikov.

Yes, this is a peculiarity of dictatorial regimes – journalists are forcedto become activists in the opposition, human rights defenders, publicfigures, because it is impossible to remain ‘above the fray’ in a dic-tatorship. either you fight for the rule of law and the constitution inthe country, for human rights, or you accept the dictatorship andbecome part of it. if you accept it, you can then live peacefully,sinking more deeply every day into your own lies. if you don’t acceptit, don’t rule out death, prison or deportation.

oleg Bebenin was killed in september 2010. He was not to find outthat, three months later, on the day which has the nice name of thepresidential election day, the dictator arrested almost all of the pres-idential candidates. amongst those arrested was the one for whoseteam oleg did not live to work for – presidential candidate andreisannikov. along with sannikov i, his wife, was also arrested.

when i ended up in prison, i didn’t even try to answer the question ofwhy i was arrested. Because i am a journalist who writes aboutreprisals against dissidents? Because i am the wife of a politician who

dared to pose an insolent challenge to this dictatorship? Because iam an opposition activist? this is all completely irrelevant. in Belarusjournalists, politicians, human rights defenders and simply objectorsare all thrown in prison. regardless of their professional affiliation.and they are also killed or abducted regardless of their job.

Dmitri zavadskii, who was abducted and killed, was a journalist;Victor gonchar, who was abducted and killed, was a politician; Yurizakharenko, who was abducted and killed, was a high-ranking policeofficer and a former minister; anatoly Krasovskii, who was abductedand killed, was a businessman. nikolai statkevich, who is in prison,is a politician; nikolai avtukhovich, who is in prison, is an entrepre-neur, ales Belyatskii, who is in prison, is a human rights defender.the dictatorship imprisons and kills regardless of profession. theonly criterion is a civil position. if you strive for the observation ofhuman rights and freedoms in the dictatorship, you have few options.if you are unlucky you are killed. if you are lucky you are put in prisonor deported. and all of this is happening just 150 kilometres from theeuropean union.

today is very important for me. for the first time in three years i havebeen able to come here and speak, in Dublin. Before this i was firstin prison, and then under house arrest. only at the end of July did thenext in a series of courts free me from serving my punishment further,and i was given permission to go abroad. i am very glad to see youall. at the same time i am perfectly aware that if so many of us, whoall fight for human rights in different countries, have gathered here,that means that there is something amiss in the world. as before, ihope that together we will be able to change the world for the better.


it Has Been 22 Years sinCe mY CountrY gaineDindependence. Prior to that it had formed part of the soviet union.unfortunately, many things from its soviet past remain intactincluding the social order and attitudes to human rights and humanrights defenders.

our human rights movement is relatively young, but its short historyis an everlasting chain of persecution, courts, work dismissals,arrests, prisons, forced emigration and smear campaigns.

Being a human rights defender in Belarus is a choice for which youpay a big price.

it has been over two years since the founder of my organisation andone of the most prominent human rights defenders in Belarus wasimprisoned. ales Bialiatski was the head of the human rights centre“Viasna” and Vice President of the international federation forHuman rights (fiDH). this is how activism and the influence ofhuman rights defenders is appreciated in Belarus. as ales himselfhas said, “i am exactly in the place where human rights defendersshould be in such horrible circumstances”. He cannot speak todayin front of his colleagues. He cannot meet them. and i would like us,at this gathering, to talk more of those colleagues who areimprisoned in all of our countries. i would like their names to bementioned so that they feel that the solidarity from their colleaguesis stronger than any prison bars.

my own experience is closely related to the history of my organisa-tion. at the end of october it will be exactly ten years since thehuman rights centre “Viasna” was closed down by the court. mycolleagues and i found ourselves to be illegal. this is not easy. it isthe personal choice of each of us, since in Belarus there is a criminalarticle related to activities carried out on behalf of an unregistered or-ganisation. all of my colleagues live under threat everyday. But so farwe have only received warnings from the Prosecutor’s office, threatsof potential criminal persecution. so far the authorities avoid reallegal persecution under political charges.

of course, working illegally significantly limits our capacity. after theunited nations Human rights Committee recognised that theclosure of our organisation was a violation of our right to freedom ofassociation, we tried to register three times, without results. theauthorities do not want to see human rights defenders strong and

that is why they neglect their un commitments, but they also usethis situation to discredit us.

the most difficult time for all human rights defenders in Belarus wasfrom 2010 to 2011. During that time, our office was searched fivetimes, all our equipment was confiscated and searches were carriedin our colleagues’ apartments all over the country. in august 2011,ales Bialiatski’s arrest was aimed not only at isolating the mostfamous human rights defender in the country, but also at making apreventive strike against all the other human rights defenders inBelarus. we survived questionings, calls from the KgB, financialchecks for the past ten years (including checks of our relatives), con-fiscation of the office and possessions. But they did not achieve theiraim of scaring and silencing human rights defenders as they hopedthese measures would shut us up. and today i can talk of it withpride and i can thank all my colleagues who remained faithful to theirconvictions and their work.

i want to finish my speech on a positive note. i want to tell you aboutthe “birthday of a human rights defender”. on 17 January 2011 i wascelebrating my birthday in the office and the KgB came to search theoffice once again. while they were blocking the door and thewindows from both sides ten of our workers jumped out of one of thewindows taking a computer with them. it was not funny at the time,all dressed up in party clothes and jumping out of the window, butnow two years later we all think of it with a smile. and i really thinkthat the time will come when we will think of all the hardships and dif-ficulties we had to go through, without any hard feelings. But in orderto achieve that we have to work hard and we are ready for that.

once more i would like to express solidarity and support to all thosecolleagues who are imprisoned right now for their professionalactivities all over the world. and also to thank you for the supportthat we feel in Belarus from human rights defenders all over theworld.


OUR HUMAN RIGHTSMOVEMENT IS

RELATIVELY YOUNG,BUT ITS SHORTHISTORY IS AN

EVERLASTING CHAINOF PERSECUTION,

COURTS, WORKDISMISSALS,

ARRESTS, PRISONS,FORCED EMIGRATION

AND SMEARCAMPAIGNS

TATSIANA REVIAKABelarussian Human Rights HouseBELARUS

NATIA GVIANISHVILI Women’s Initiatives Supporting Group

GEORGIA

”“

THEY WERE ALLBRUISED,

SCRATCHED ANDSHOCKED WHEN

THEY GOT OUT OFTHERE. THREE OF

THEM HADCONCUSSION, NOTTO MENTION THETERROR IN THEIR

HEARTS

for manY Years, HomoPHoBiC attituDes in georgiansociety kept increasing despite the legislative improvements andever-growing support and influence of western countries. ever sincegeorgian independence, homophobic hate speech has been usedby politicians to discredit their opponents and as our visibility grew,our rights became even more of a stone that political parties wouldthrow at each other. for many years, the georgian orthodox Churchkept spreading homophobia (and all sorts of other phobias)unhindered and supported by media, public figures and thegovernment. for many years we have been trying to mainstream ourrights into women’s rights, minority rights and the human rightsagenda, without much success. we still remain somewhere inbetween. we are still a “special group that is better off kept away”,an issue “too sensitive to talk about”. with this, and the church’sever-growing influence over civil life, none of us were surprised thattens of thousands of people came out to “save the holy land ofgeorgia from the sodomites” on 17 may 2013, when my friends andi were planning to hold a peaceful rally dedicated to the internationalDay against Homophobia and transphobia.

that day, georgian LgBt activists hoped that the government wouldfulfill its positive obligation to protect our freedom of assembly. wekept hoping even after we saw the police, in light summer uniformswithout any riot gear, barely able to separate us, approximately 100activists, from 10,000 or more ‘good Christian’ churchgoers, con-servative politicians and priests. we kept hoping, because thegovernment promised. openly promised.

then all of a sudden, my friends started running and crying “they’recoming! they’re coming!” and we saw crowds of people rushingtowards us, lead by priests ready to tear us to pieces. with theequipment they had, the police did the only thing they could do –put us on the buses especially prepared for this occasion. we wereevacuated, some of us faster than others. a group of activists, mostof whom are my dear friends, were trapped in their bus among theraging crowds, who broke the windows of the vehicle and kicked,punched and pulled people who were inside. they were all bruised,scratched and shocked when they got out of there. three of themhad concussion, not to mention the terror in their hearts. i was notharmed physically, but while our bus was also trapped in the crowdmy partner and i looked at each other and thought that we wouldcertainly face one … no, two possible outcomes: rape and death.for the first time in my life i found myself surrounded by thousands

of young men gesturing and spitting with hateful excitement,threatening to “show me, a dirty lesbian, what a real man is” and thebus walls and windows separating me, my partner and my friendsfrom this crowd, seemed so thin and fragile.

Looking back, i sometimes fail to believe that the bus managed topull through and we got out of there alive. But there is still no justice.the investigation started late, the court hearings are constantlypostponed. the political speculations blaming us for provoking thecrowd’s anger, when we did not even get a chance to hold up asingle poster, continue and there is very little support from thesociety. the hostility is heavy in the air. all of us who are notconforming to the typical gender norms are targeted on the streets,spat and shouted at, beaten and chased.

four months have passed. we keep talking about it and we are allvery confused - who to trust, who to turn to? the only thing thatgives me hope is that there is readiness in the community to continuethe fight. this readiness is a reward for me as an activist, thisreadiness is the sign that no matter how hard they beat us, theycannot push us back into some dark corner and pretend that lesbian,bisexual, gay and transgender people do not exist in georgia.


i worK as a ProJeCt CoorDinator for tHe Center forequality and Liberty (CeL) – a new organisation founded in august of2013 to support the LgBt community in Kosovo. with this organi-sation, i work as a human rights defender. Human rights defendersare those individuals, groups and organs of society that promote andprotect universally-recognised human rights and fundamentalfreedoms. they seek the promotion and protection of civil andpolitical rights as well as the promotion, protection and attainment ofeconomic, social and cultural rights. they advocate and mobilise bypeaceful means, sometimes putting their own lives at risk, to defendthe rights of others.

some good examples of those risks and challenges were put forwardduring a recent conference in Belgrade, serbia. Being in the Balkans,the situation there is not very different to the situation in Kosovo. upuntil now, it has been impossible to organise a gay parade in Kosovo.Belgrade’s first “Pride” was organised in 2001 and was subsequentlycancelled due to the violence which erupted. the next parade wasorganised nine years later in 2010, when again more than 5,000counter-demonstrators caused riots.

following these events, the government banned the 2011 and 2012parades, stating that they could not guarantee the safety of the par-ticipants. in 2013, again due to possible violence and without anygovernmental guarantees for safety, the parade was cancelled.However, although the parade did not happen, an informal group ofbetween 200 and 300 people assembled in front of serbia’s nationalassembly after the ban was announced. according to serbianmedia, 6,500 riot police were instated to protect the event, andseveral extremist groups announced their intentions to oppose anddisrupt the proceedings.

the social implications of both the parade and its cancellation led meto realise that “Pride” is not just about LgBt people. it is also aboutfreedom of assembly and freedom of expression, and the position ofa human rights defender could not be more obvious.

Being a project coordinator with CeL, i include the following in ourprogramming; documenting violations, seeking remedies for victimsof violations through the provision of legal, psychological, medicaland other support, combatting the culture of impunity which servesto cloak systematic and repeated breaches of human rights andfundamental freedoms.

i also work on main-streaming the human rights culture andinformation on human rights defenders at a regional, national andinternational level to create an understanding of the risks andchallenges in the Kosovo-specific context. working for an organisa-tion that supports LgBt rights in Kosovo has presented various risksand challenges.

the work of human rights defenders often puts forward criticisms ofgovernment policies and actions, as we have also seen in serbia andother parts of the Balkans. However, the government of Kosovoshould not see this as a negative. the principle of allowing room forindependence of mind and free debate on government policies andactions is a fundamental, tried and tested way of establishing abetter level of protection for human rights. Human rights defenderscan assist the government of Kosovo in promoting and protectinghuman rights. as part of the consultation process, human rightsdefenders can play a key role in helping to draft appropriatelegislation, and in helping to draw up national plans and strategieson human rights. this role too should be recognised and supported.

However, this progress is only achieved at a high price. thedefenders themselves have increasingly become targets of attacksand their rights are violated in many countries, including Kosovo, aswe saw at the end of 2012, when a gay association was attackedand up until now, no charges have been brought.

it is important to ensure the safety of human rights defenders andprotect their rights.


THE SOCIALIMPLICATIONS OF

BOTH THE PARADEAND ITS

CANCELLATION LEDME TO REALISE THAT“PRIDE” IS NOT JUST

ABOUT LGBTPEOPLE. IT IS ALSO

ABOUT FREEDOM OFASSEMBLY ANDFREEDOM OFEXPRESSION

ARBEN FEJZACenter for Equality and LibertyKOSOVO

STEPAN POPOVSKIYRepublican Social Movement for Defence of Property and Social Rights of Peasants

MOLDOVA

”“

UNDER THESECIRCUMSTANCES,

ANY HUMAN RIGHTSACTIVISM, WHICH

INFRINGES ON THEINTERESTS OF THE

TRANSNISTRIANBUSINESS ELITE, IS

OPPRESSED ANDPERSECUTED

mY name is stePan PoPoVsKiY. i am tHe HeaD of agrass-roots human rights movement in transnistria - a movement ofpeasants in defence of their social and property rights.

the collapse of the soviet union and further russian policies on thepost-soviet space created a region in moldova - transnistria - wherethe legal systems of europe do not function. since 1992 there hasbeen a regime in the transnistrian region of moldova, where theruling business elite established its own rules and order without anyaccountability to the international community.

under these circumstances, any human rights activism, whichinfringes on the interests of the transnistrian business elite, isoppressed and persecuted. Human rights defenders face threats,endless administrative persecution as well as fabricated criminalcases. the persecution of human rights defenders is happening onthe back of intensive manipulation of the population of this region,with alleged threats from the “west”, the european community,nato, etc.

the european politicians call the transnistrian region an area of“frozen” conflict. Yet, in reality it is not the conflict which is “frozen”in the region, but human rights that are “frozen”. the absence ofbasic human rights (free elections, freedom of speech, freedom ofassembly, freedom of association etc) on the one hand, and theoppression of dissent on the other, has resulted in the massmigration of the population from the transnistrian region to differentcountries. since 1990, more than half of the population of thetransnistrian region (circa 750,000 people) has left the region forgood, and it is worth mentioning that these people who have left arethe working population.

the property of the former ussr, which was left on this territory (notless than 10 - 12 billion us dollars worth), contrary to all legalprinciples was privatised by the local ruling business elite. morerecently the ruling business elite of transnistria has been imple-menting a scheme of “legal” grabbing of peasants’ lands. more than70,000 peasants lost their lands of 3 - 4 hectares and for the vastmajority of them this was their only source of earning a living. a newlaw was adopted regarding these lands which in fact strips thepeasants of their land rights.

the human rights defenders, and the oppressed groups of thepopulation that i am defending, do not have access to a legaldefence. the transnistrian “justice system” is fully controlled bythose in power. i am calling on intergovernmental organisations - theCouncil of europe, the osCe, the european union - to send amission to the transnistrian region with a permanent mandate towork on human rights. i would also like to say that i am deeplythankful to the un expert on human rights mr thomas Hammarberg,as well as ms. Joanna Kurocz from Civil rights Defenders, for theirefforts to stop the fabricated criminal case against me.


tHe ngo ‘inVatur’ Has Been worKing in tHe area ofdefending the rights of people with disabilities in russia since 1995- their right to education, work, family life and social benefits,including the rights of disabled people with intellectual disabilities,and the rights of disabled prisoners.

this type of work is not as visible as other areas of human rightswork. there are no mass campaigns with large numbers of partici-pants, but the problems of people with disabilities are no less severeand no less significant than universal problems. the conditions underwhich a person in a wheelchair cannot leave the house for years arecomparable to conditions of torture.

there are no direct threats and attacks in our work. officially, nobodyis against giving equal rights to people with disabilities. existing lawsare also coming into accordance with worldwide democratic norms.But in reality, builders try to cut costs when adapting buildings forpeople with disabilities, and people with limited ability find it moredifficult to get jobs. in cases where the organisation’s activities inrelation to rights advocacy contradict the economic interests of adeveloper, employer, owner of a public establishment, or a civilservant, it can be said that this activity is risky.

another problem is the absence of stable funding for rightsprogrammes. sometimes safety is compromised in order to savemoney. Practically all of the staff of our organisation have some formof disability. our blind lawyer meets his visitors alone, and we haveto make long journeys in our own manually-operated cars.

the area of the rights of prisoners with disabilities is especiallydifficult. Prison administrators are by no means always amenable tomonitoring from outside, and there have been cases of provocationsand our activities being obstructed.

the issue of disability is an issue of unequal opportunities. the mostimportant thing is to create an environment and conditions that areconvenient and comfortable for people with disabilities to participatein anything anywhere. this approach is based on the un Convention,which was signed by russia back in september 2008, and ratified in2012, and the laws, albeit slowly, are being brought into line with it.we hope that this process is not going to slow down.


THE MOSTIMPORTANT THING IS

TO CREATE ANENVIRONMENT ANDCONDITIONS THATARE CONVENIENT

AND COMFORTABLEFOR PEOPLE WITHDISABILITIES TOPARTICIPATE IN

ANYTHINGANYWHERE

ANDREI BULANOV & RAFIK ROGANYANInvaturRUSSIAN FEDERATION

IGOR YASSINRainbow Association

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

”“

WE HAVE MANAGEDTO INCORPORATE

LGBT DEMANDS INTOTHE GENERAL

HUMAN RIGHTSMOVEMENT IN

RUSSIA AND TOSHOW THAT

DISCRIMINATION OFANY KIND IS A FORM

OF CONTROLLINGSOCIETY

mY name is igor Yassin, anD i am an aCtiVist for LaBourrights, women’s rights and LgBt rights in moscow, russia. i belongto the rainbow association - the largest LgBt group in moscow.the rainbow association is active in moscow to create andempower the LgBt community from within by establishing supportgroups and to reach out to a wider audience through public activities,demonstrations, debates, media appearances and actions ofsolidarity with other oppressed groups such as migrants and womenfrom disadvantaged backgrounds.

even though local authorities often find excuses to ban LgBtdemonstrations or to immediately dismiss our demands to holdrallies, we have managed to remain vocal in the streets of moscowby joining other public events and marches such as the demonstra-tions against fraudulent elections or the general civil protests againstthe authoritarian rule of Vladimir Putin. we have also been behindthe march for equality, a campaign for equal rights for both womenand LgBt people. this was our way of mainstreaming the LgBtstruggle into russian politics and of demonstrating the cross-sectionbetween women’s struggle and the LgBt struggle against all formsof discrimination and for more visibility.

During the large-scale demonstrations against the strengthening ofauthoritarian rule in russia, we had our own group called therainbow Column, which together with tens of thousands of otherdissatisfied citizens, marched holding rainbow flags and pro-LgBtsigns through the streets. we have managed to incorporate LgBtdemands into the general human rights movement in russia and toshow that discrimination of any kind is a form of controlling societyand imposing an antidemocratic agenda. we are trying to reach outto the labour unions and to express our solidarity, as well as toprovide true support to those people who continue fighting againstviolations of the economic and social rights of the working people.

Due to our work and visibility, we have faced many challenges.avrora, a women’s rights activist, an active supporter of the marchfor equality and one of our allies, was forced to leave the country.avrora was detained during a demonstration on internationalwomen’s Day on 8 march. it is alleged that she hit one of thepolicemen when they were detaining and pulling her towards thepolice van. she was facing criminal charges for this alleged assaulton the policeman and in order to protect her freedom she had to fleerussia. unfortunately, when it comes to justice for activists and

human rights defenders, we cannot rely on the independence of ourcourts who are often biased and take a pro-government stance.

i personally have been assaulted by right-wing thugs several times.when the russian Parliament was discussing the infamous ban onthe so-called propaganda of homosexuality, we organised multiplepickets and demonstrations against the proposed bill. the picketswere often attacked by right-wing supporters, who are always readyto resort to physical violence. it is particularly alarming to see that thepolice did not try to prevent this violence, even though it washappening in front of them. when we in turn try to file lawsuitsagainst these neo-nationalist thugs, the police and courts rarelyshow understanding. Very often they dismiss our complaints and,contrary to what they are supposed to do, they blame the LgBtactivists for provoking violence.

today, it is a great pleasure to be here and to see so many peoplefrom all over the world who are fighting for similar causes. Just as ourstruggle for LgBt rights in russia cannot go on without joining thestruggle of other marginalised and oppressed groups in the country,similarly any struggle for justice anywhere in the world cannot beconfined to national borders - it has to be a part of a transnationalmovement of solidarity, and that is why i really think the DublinPlatform can be of benefit for all of us.


YoutH Center CK13 is a non-Profit anD aLternatiVeeducational and cultural centre in novi sad, which has a high degreeof social and political engagement with young people. CK13 hasseveral different social and political programmes, projects andinitiatives. it is researching right-wing extremism in our society; (anti)-racism, (anti)-fascism and (anti)-nationalism, peace building, humanrights, social, ethnic and cultural dialogue and non-violence. it isactive in dealing with issues related to the Yugoslav wars, theKosovo conflict, youth violence and human rights violations. YouthCenter CK13 is a unique place offering more than 30 programmeactivities a month, including concerts, films, workshops and panelsetc. we have gained experience with the youth from different partsof serbia and the region, with programmes directed towards youthfrom different social backgrounds and minority groups such as theroma or LgBt community.

CK13 has been a victim of a number of attacks since we started ourwork in 2007. now we can anticipate situations that are potentiallyrisky such as times of political instability, when Kosovo declaredindependence for example, or the days around the Belgrade PrideParade.

at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, CK13 was regularlyattacked and no investigation was carried out by the police. theyconsidered the attacks on CK13 to be crimes that would beprosecuted privately. this led to a situation were new attacks onCK13 were made possible, and unfortunately the attacks continuedto happen.

on 23 march 2012, an unknown young man entered the premises ofCK13 holding torn posters against the rehabilitation of the Chetnikleader Draza mihailovic (after world war ii, mihailovic was tried andconvicted of high treason and war crimes). to the two people presentin the office at the time, the young man said “it won’t be good for youif you continue to post these posters”. as at other times when CK13was threatened, we called the police.

after the 2012 elections, the rise of nationalist and fascist organisa-tions reflected the situation in serbia. with the beginning of 2013 thesituation got even worse. these organisations started spreading theword about “enemies of the serbian people”. an organisation named“snP nasi” started making lists of ngos and media which wereconsidered anti-serbian, traitors and foreign mercenaries. although

CK13 was not on this list, they put a poster about it on CK13’s door.another organisation “srbska akcija” (“serbian action”) publishedtheir first letter calling for the lynching of CK13 and its anti-fascistwork. although all of these organisations are misleading the publicby issuing mostly false, outdated or misinterpreted information, theyare responsible for creating a climate of fear and hatred, a climate offascism. these actions have not only been directed towards CK13,but we continue to be perceived as a threat to them. CK13 informedthe police about these actions, and we have gathered all the relatedmaterial including posters, texts and photos that we received throughemail, stickers and newsletters left for us in the mail, CCtVrecordings etc. since 2012, CCtV cameras on the building of CK13have constantly recorded the attackers, but the police and the cityand regional administration are not doing anything to prevent this.


ALTHOUGH ALLOF THESE

ORGANISATIONS AREMISLEADING THE

PUBLIC BY ISSUINGMOSTLY FALSE,OUTDATED OR

MISINTERPRETEDINFORMATION, THEYARE RESPONSIBLEFOR CREATING ACLIMATE OF FEAR

AND HATRED

Višnja šijačićYouth Center CK13SERBIA

DILRABO SAMADOVAAssociation of Young Lawyers ‘Amparo’

TAJIKISTAN

”“

IN 2012, AMPAROCARRIED OUT

MONITORING OFINHUMAN BEHAVIOURIN THE TAJIK ARMED

FORCES FOR THEFIRST TIME. IT

UNCOVERED CASESOF BULLYING, DEATHAND SUICIDE IN THE

TAJIK ARMY

tHe assoCiation of Young LawYers ‘amParo’, was formeDin 2005 by young lawyers in tajikistan. in the same year, it wasregistered at the Department of Justice as a regional (oblast’-level)ngo. it reregistered in 2007 in accordance with the new law ‘onngos’ of the republic of tajikistan.

the main areas of amparo’s activities were:- Defending the rights of conscripts and servicemen and strength-

ening of civic monitoring of the armed forces; - Defending and promoting the rights and interests of vulnerable

children – orphans, children in foster homes, disabled children,children from impoverished families or one-parent families;

- supporting and promoting of youth initiatives and activation andadvancement of young people’s legal consciousness.

amparo was the only human rights organisation in tajikistan whichcarried out systematic monitoring of how human rights and freedomsare observed during the conscription of citizens and the carrying outof military service. in 2012, amparo carried out monitoring ofinhuman behaviour in the tajik armed forces for the first time. ituncovered cases of bullying, death and suicide in the tajik army andrepresented the interests of conscripts and servicemen in apreliminary court enquiry. it also took an active part in writingalternative reports to the treaty bodies of the un and the universalPeriodic review.

on 28 June 2012, amparo’s office, without advance notice, wassubject to an inspection by members of the ministry and theDepartment of Justice on how its activities conformed with itsstatutes and to tajik legislation. the day after the inspection, theDepartment of Justice of the sogdi oblast’ gave notice of theliquidation of the organisation, with five complaints in particularpresented. these were:

The director of the organisation acts in violation of the Tajiklaw ‘on NGOs’; the organisation, without the accordingdecision at a general meeting, changed its legal address anddid not re-register its new address in the Sogdi oblast’Department of Justice; Amparo, being a regional organisa-tion, carries out its activity beyond the borders of the Sogdioblast’, particularly in the town of Dushanbe; Amparo carriedout lessons on the theme ‘The rights of conscripts andservicemen’ for 9th – 11th grade secondary school pupils

without the appropriate permit; Amparo went beyond thestatues of the organisation by launching its internet site, where‘various types of article’ are published, which is a grossviolation of the statues and of the Tajik law ‘on NGOs’.

on 25 october 2012, amparo was liquidated by a decision of thecity court of Khudjand. on 14 february 2013, the court of cassationof the sogdi oblast’ upheld the ruling of the Khudjand city courtwithout any changes. amparo made the arguments that theDepartment of Justice did not have the right to carry out aninspection of how the organisations’ activities conformed with tajiklegislation (only organs of the public prosecutor’s office has the rightto do this according to the law ‘on ngos’); the demands to liquidatethe ngo was a ‘disproportionate measure’ and according to thelegislation, the organ which inspects the ngo should give a periodof a month to correct mistakes; the fact that the organisation’sactivities beyond the borders of the sogdi oblast’ were in fact carriedout by amparo’s partners; and finally the lessons on the rights ofconscripts were carried out with written permission from theexecutive organ of the sogdi oblast’.

these arguments were not taken into account by the court.moreover, in the court amparo noted that it was not notified of theinspection, it did not receive a copy of the inspection report and theinspection was carried out in the absence of senior staff, in particular,of the chairperson of the organisation.

amparo was a members’ organisation. its members included morethan 35 young human rights defenders and eight human rightscoalitions. it developed and published more than 25 types ofpublication on human rights with an overall output of more than15,000 copies. it carried out more than 200 training sessions onhuman rights and legal issues, in which more than 4,000 people tookpart, including 800 soldiers on compulsory military service. morethan 1,250 people received free consultations at amparo’s publicclinics.


i saLute aLL of You Courageous PeoPLe attenDing tHe7th Dublin Platform with my faith for freedom and justice in the world.i am grateful to front Line Defenders for giving me the opportunityto meet you. i am going to tell you my personal story. i am going totell you my personal story because i believe it carries a good pictureof the human rights record in turkey and that it will give you a goodidea of the difficulties human rights defenders face.

in turkey, military service is compulsory. all men who turn 20 mustserve in the military and the right to conscientious objection is notrecognised by the government. in this context, i declared myself aconscientious objector in 2004.

i declared my conscientious objection because i am a defender ofpeace, an anti-militarist and a human rights defender. i believe in thejustice of non-violence and peace. a just, democratic and free worldis only possible in the absence of all military organisations andcompulsory military service. for declaring my conscientiousobjection i was imprisoned in a military prison for 17 months. i wasphysically tortured and put under immense psychological pressure.there are many who have suffered my situation. tens of conscien-tious objectors have been imprisoned, tortured or are facing the riskof imprisonment.

the rights of conscientious objectors are disregarded by thegovernment. the european Convention on Human rights and theinternational Covenant on Civil and Political rights regard consci-entious objection as a fundamental human right, but the turkishgovernment, despite being party to the european Convention onHuman rights and a member of the un fails to meet with theseobligations.

i am working for the recognition of conscientious objection in turkeyand i also campaign for an end to compulsory military service.Hundreds of thousands of youths face human rights violations as aresult of this practice. in the last decade, approximately 2,000 youngsoldiers have committed suicide as a result of the pressures theyface in the military barracks. it is strongly believed that some of thesemen were murdered, and that this is disguised as suicide, andfurthermore, thousands of young men have been tortured.

according to a statement made by the national Defence minister,there have been 1,000,000 deserters. one million young men have

deserted the military service, and cannot avail of many rights as aresult. i believe it is important to eliminate these violations for theoverall improvement of human rights and freedoms.

i have been taken into custody and prosecuted many times in thecourse of my human rights work. i was prosecuted in turkey forprotesting against the pressure facing israeli conscientious objectorsand for making a statement in solidarity with them. i was sentenced tofive months imprisonment, and i was held in prison for 50 days in 2012.

for defending the fundamental human right to conscientiousobjection and criticising the military system i also have trials pendingunder article 318 of the turkish Penal Code for alienating the peoplefrom military service. this offence of “alienating the people frommilitary service” is in violation of the european Convention on Humanrights and to the relevant conventions of the un.

my motto is that there is no road to peace and human rights; peaceand human rights are the road. i always try to live in this way and makeothers live in this way as well. i have told you my personal storybecause this is an accurate picture of what human rights defendersface, the pressure they endure and the treatment they are subjectedto in turkey. i have and will always stand with the victim, the oppressedand the defenders of virtue, justice, equality and peace. Human rights,freedom and justice are my only purpose. i have paid too high a pricefor it, but no pressure has broken my courage. standing and beingamongst you has increased my courage. i want to thank front LineDefenders once more for inviting me to meet with you.


MY MOTTO IS THATTHERE IS NO ROAD

TO PEACE ANDHUMAN RIGHTS;

PEACE AND HUMANRIGHTS ARE THE

ROAD

HALIL SAVDAConscientious ObjectorTURKEY

ÖYKÜ SEZERHebun LGBT Organisation

TURKEY

”“

LGBT INDIVIDUALS INTURKEY CANNOT

COME OUT TO THEIRFAMILIES. IF THEYCOME OUT, THEIRFAMILIES EITHERDISOWN THEM ORKILL THEM BY WAY

OF SO-CALLED“HONOUR KILLINGS”

mY name is ÖYKü sezer. i am a transsexuaL KurDisHwoman. i am participating on behalf of Hebun LgBt organisation. iwould like to express my gratitude to front Line Defenders for theirinvitation and for creating an environment as such. i am coming fromDiyarbakir (amed), the south-east part of turkey and i will not be talkingabout my own life today. i will talk about the problems LgBt individualsencounter who live in south-eastern turkey, especially transsexuals,because i am here on their behalf.

firstly, LgBt individuals in turkey cannot come out to their families. ifthey come out, their families either disown them or kill them by way ofso-called “honour killings”. most of the LgBt individuals who aredisowned have to migrate to the west, to big cities.

transsexuals and effeminate gays cannot get employment. the oneswho manage to secure a job either have a very low salary or encountersexual harassment from their employers. unless, they tolerate thissexual harassment they will be sacked.

unfortunately, transsexual individuals in turkey cannot find a house,because the identity cards given by the turkish state are colouredaccording to gender. men have blue identity cards and women havepink identity cards. Due to these gender-specific identity cards, whentranssexual individuals want to sign a lease, after seeing the identitycards, the landlords change their minds. transsexual individuals haveto live with a friend who has rented a house or leave the town they wereborn and raised in, and have to migrate west, to the big cities. even inthe bigger cities, landlords charge twice as much rent to transsexualindividuals.

transsexuals and effeminate gays who are alienated by their familiesand cannot find a job, are often forced to work in prostitution. However,as these sex workers do not have a trade union, they work in a veryinsecure environment and are exposed to every kind of danger. mostdo not engage in safe sex and are exposed to many sexuallytransmitted infections and diseases such as HiV.

Houses of transsexuals and effeminate gay sex workers are raidedarbitrarily by law enforcement officers (police). some law enforcementofficers extort money from sex workers. the sex workers are subjectedto threats, insults and verbal and physical abuse. the system, in recentyears, orders pecuniary fines under the “misdemeanor legislation” fromtranssexuals and effeminate gays.

in recent years, hate crimes towards LgBt individuals have increasedexponentially. the reason for this escalation is the absence of any codein the Constitution against hate crimes. the sentence of the personwho commits a hate crime is at the discretion of the judiciary (judgeand prosecutor), and the persons who commit a hate crime are oftengiven very light sentences. that is to say, the system practicallyencourages and promotes hate crimes.

if a transsexual individual wants to undergo a sex reassignment surgery,he or she has to file a legal action and the system stipulates that theyshould lack the ability to reproduce. furthermore, due to the long lengthof the trial process, some transsexual individuals resort to illegal sexreassignment surgeries. these surgeries are performed under veryunhealthy and dangerous conditions. transsexual individuals whoundergo sex reassignment surgeries illegally can encounter manysetbacks with regards to their genitalia, which includes having difficultyurinating.

Besides, there is no law protecting LgBt individuals in the turkish Con-stitution. LgBt individuals are exposed to every kind of attack. turkeyis becoming a conservative country, and therefore attacks againstLgBt individuals are on the rise. LgBt issues are spoken aboutamongst ngos in turkey. there are new Constitutional reforms beingtabled however, LgBt rights are not spoken about in the parliament.


mY name is fariDa ouagHLissi anD i am a memBer of tHenational Coordination of families of the Disappeared in algeria (‘Co-ordination nationale des familles de disparus en algérie – CnfD). thisorganisation is not authorised by the algerian authorities. it was setup following the end of the civil war which ravaged my country duringthe ‘dark decade’. we are often the target of reprisal measures. Duringthe algerian civil war (1993 - 1998) 8,000 - 20,000 people werearrested or kidnapped by algerian security forces and by militiasarmed by the government. more than 15 years later, after years ofsearching, struggle and engaging in the quest to find truth and justice,families still do not know if their loved ones are dead or alive.

my husband disappeared 20 years ago and my daughter is nowapproaching 20 years old.

the CnfD is a group of mothers, fathers, spouses, sisters anddaughters of people who have disappeared across algeria, and wholike me have been struggling on a daily basis for more than 15 yearsto find truth and justice, fighting against ‘l’oubli’ or ‘the forgetting’ oftheir disappeared loved ones. the authorities however refuse toauthorise us. we continue to document the threats and reprisalmeasures, and the thousands of cases of forced disappearances.on numerous occasions, together with alkarama, we have accessedthe special procedures of the united nations, so that it wouldaddress the algerian authorities - in particular the Human rightsCommittee, the Committee against torture, the working group onenforced or involuntary Disappearances and more recently thespecial rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation andguarantees of non-recurrence. we continue to mobilise ourselvesevery thursday in organising a sit-in at Constantine to demand thatthe authorities do not forget, to remind the authorities that they areobliged to respect our right to the truth and to justice, and to fightagainst the impunity of our torturers.

in addition to the work our association does, i would like to drawyour attention to the manifold consequences of disappearance. anargentinian writer once said... “a dead person dies once, but thedisappeared die every day.” after more than 15 years of uncertaintywe, the families of the disappeared still cannot forget, nor can weget over the pain. we are consumed by silence. Disappearance is athrobbing pain that does not go away, it leaves no trace, has neitherface nor voice, and it still has a profound effect on severalgenerations. Parents, brothers, spouses and children who are now

adults remain unable to grieve, faced with the authorities’ refusal totell the truth. they continue to suffer the consequences of disap-pearance. these include of course material and economic circum-stances, but first and foremost are the psychological consequences- distress, depression, anguish, expectation, denial, silence. thesepsychological cycles effect the families of the disappeared and areevidenced by the progressive degeneration of their mental healthover the course of time.

making someone disappear is tantamount to torturing an entirefamily, over many generations.

the Human rights Committee has recognised that the anguish anddistress caused by disappearance amounts to the torture of families,and a violation of article 7 of the Convention against torture. theCnfD has called on the authorities to recognise the families’ statusas victims of torture, and not as ‘victims of the national tragedy’, apolitical term which allowed the perpetrators of the crimescommitted during the civil war and other authorities to be let off thehook and to not engage in a real process of transitional justice.recognising the families as victims of torture would have guaranteedthe right to compensation.

indeed, algeria ratified the Convention against torture in september1989 and is obliged to guarantee the victims of torture “the right toreparation and to be fairly and adequately compensated, includingbeing given necessary means for the most complete rehabilitationpossible.” in contrast to the families of victims of terrorism in algeria,the families of the disappeared have not benefited from a single psy-chological rehabilitation programme. the authorities prescribeforgetting and turning the page. they forget the fact that as thefamilies of the disappeared, we have the right to the truth.

i won’t be able to tell you the ending of our story, as there isn’t one.But many people like me wake up everyday thinking that if it is notus, it will be our children, our grandchildren or our great grandchil-dren who will one day find out what happened to their fathers, grand-fathers or great-grandfathers. Because truth is immortal. thank youfor having given me a voice, and for having given a voice to thethousands of families who like me are struggling everyday in thequest for truth and justice, and against ‘forgetting’.


MAKING SOMEONEDISAPPEAR IS

TANTAMOUNT TOTORTURING AN

ENTIRE FAMILY, OVERMANY GENERATIONS

FARIDA OUAGHLISSIInternational Coordination of Families of the Disappeared in AlgeriaALGERIA

OMAR FAROUK SLIMANIAlgerian League for the Defense of Human Rights

ALGERIA

”“

OUR GOVERNMENTAND THEIR

INTERNATIONALPARTNERS SHOULDREALISE THAT CIVILSOCIETY IS NOT THE

ENEMY, BUT ANACTIVE PARTNER INPUBLIC LIFE, FOR

THE BETTERMENT OFSOCIETY AS A WHOLE

mY name is omar farouK sLimani, i am a memBer of tHealgerian League for the Defence of Human rights and a traineelawyer. i am here today, not to talk about the harassments or thearrests that we are facing, as we have already gotten used to livingwith this fear on a daily basis. instead i would like to brief you on amore pertinent matter.

twenty-five years after the first popular uprising of its kind in the arabworld in october 1988, algeria moved from a state of emergency toa state of siege. this movement compelled the Chadli Bendjedid’sgovernment to accept multi-party politics and to hold the firstdemocratic elections in the early 1990s, which brought about thesuccess of the islamic salvation front. Later, the elections werecancelled and algeria entered into an unprecedented cycle ofviolence, terrorism and bloodshed which led to the declaration of astate of emergency.

Blood and devastation formed our daily lives. the killing machinedid not exclude innocent people on either side – islamist militantsand government forces – until the question arose: “who is killingwhom in algeria?” Later, a reconciliation law was enacted whichmany saw as the only hope to overcome the crisis. we saw it as aroad for the murderers on both sides to escape impunity and escapethe past.

the international community is being fooled by the algerianauthorities with regards to the alleged reforms, and i was hurt by thestatements of the un High Commissioner for Human rights, ms.navi Pillay, during her visit to algeria last year. she praised the“reforms in the field of rights and freedoms” although i cannot blameher too much, as she would not know that the algerian plan, by theauthorities’ orders, is to take with the left hand what is offered by theright hand. these so-called reforms were imposed after events inthe region, in particular the Jasmine revolution in tunisia, and thestate of emergency was lifted in an attempt to fool the people ofalgeria, and prevent the rise of the revolution.

now, we have entered the post-siege state. we are not permitted toprotest in the algerian capital. whenever there is a call to organise ademonstration or protest, it is suppressed and shut-down,sometimes even before the gathering starts. all major intersectionsand squares are being blocked, and all demonstrations organisedby change seekers, trade unionists, unemployed youths, families of

missing persons and even students and lawyers are beingsuppressed.

Let us not forget as well the violations in the south by the multi-national companies operating in the oil and gas fields, where thosewho consider organising, establishing or joining a labour union arearbitrarily dismissed and prosecuted. when i was active with theunemployed youths, we were accused on numerous chargesincluding being agents in the hands of foreigners, mercenaries whoattempt to harm the country and on many occasions of beingterrorists. we were even surprised on one occasion to learn, via astatement by the mauritanian news agency, that al-qaeda in the sahelblessed our activities in the south! it is obvious that our activities andtheirs are pulling in two different directions. we are committed topeaceful struggle while they kill, terrorise and intimidate innocentpeople. i believe that this was a fabricated statement. we were underthe attack of party leaders and pro-regime newspapers who wereattempting to ruin our credibility and reputation.

in algeria the judicial authority is in the hands of the executive authority,and charges against activists are just orders from the latter. weconstantly move between cities to support those pursuing freedomtherefore, as lawyers we decided to organise training courses foractivists. these courses, with simple methods, teach them how to dealwith the police and how to employ the law for their advantage, in ordernot to overload the lawyers searching for legal solutions. Laws in mycountry are nothing but ‘ink on paper’, simply to prove algeria’scompliance with the universal Declaration of Human rights and theinternational Covenants. i can assure you that policies in algeria arejust time-buying attempts to avoid any popular movement within thecountry, as the authorities know that this time it might be moreforceful than what happened in the nineties, and even stronger thanthe rest of the arab world.

we are currently waiting to enter the new year, when the new asso-ciations’ law will be applied, and we will discover what harassmentsare going to be inflicted and which associations will be dissolveddue to endowments cuts and restrictions on funding by foreignembassies and international ngos. in conclusion, i think that it isour fear of our governments that encourages them to suppress us.our fear is our weakness. our government and their internationalpartners should realise that civil society is not the enemy, but anactive partner in public life, for the betterment of society as a whole.


mY name is aLi aBDuLemam, i am a Human rigHts aCtiVistfrom Bahrain and a defender of freedom of speech. i have beenarrested several times because of my activism and my concern fora space that allows freedom of expression, which is not currentlyallowed by the Bahraini authorities. my most recent arrest was inseptember 2010, when i was tortured and subjected to humiliationby the interrogators of the national security apparatus (nsa). mysafety and the safety of my family were threatened. i was forced tosign statements without being permitted to read them. i was broughtbefore the Public Prosecution and before entering the interrogationroom, i was threatened at gun point by an nsa officer to 'confess’or i would face the same torture. as i entered the room, the inter-rogator started to yell at me, forcing me to stand behind the door ofthe room for the duration of the investigation which lasted hours. Hekept reading the questions and answering them by himself. evenwhen he was directing the accusations towards me he wouldn’taccept my denials, instead he wrote his own answers. no lawyerwas allowed to attend this interrogation session.

Later on, i was transferred to wait for trial and locked in solitaryconfinement for two months, where we were exposed to daily hu-miliations. in the first hearing session, i told the judge about thesufferings and tortures we had all experienced. Based on theseallegations, the defence panel found the confessions invalid andasked for the interrogation session to be repeated, but the judgeturned it down. Because we informed the judge of everything we hadgone through, another round of pain and punishment was awaitingus when we went back to our cells. we were forced to stand on ourfeet for long hours, we were constantly yelled at and deprived ofsleep and we endured degrading treatment. even during family visitswe were denied privacy with our families. only six family memberswere allowed in the presence of six soldiers watching us andlistening to everything while continuing to threaten us not to talkabout what is going on in the street or in the prison.

then, during the outbreak of revolutions in the arab world, the regimewas coerced to release us under the pressure of the discontent of thedemonstrators in the streets, although charges were not dropped.three weeks later the regime carried out a major military operationagainst the revolution in Bahrain bringing in the so-called gCC’sPeninsula shield (from saudi arabia). i don’t think i need to explainhow bad a government is when it calls on other governmentsaccused of immense human rights violations to suppress the

demands of its people for their basic rights. after calling in foreigntroops, which remain on Bahrain soil, my house was raided to re-arrest me and i had no choice but to go into hiding. some of myfamily members were arrested and tortured to disclose mywhereabouts while i lived in isolation from the outside world for twoyears. i did not meet my family or friends and was trapped betweenfour walls.

what followed were killings based on identity. five people were killedby the torturers in less than three months. one of them was myfriend, the journalist and publisher Kareem fakhrawi. many werekilled in the streets, yet the killers are still not held accountable andstill torture people in detention centres. the regime went mad,attacking doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, jurists, religiousleaders, academics, authors, poets, writers and journalists. thiswidespread persecution continues to this day.

rebels and their sacred beliefs were publicly defamed on thegovernment-owned television channel. their loyalty and affiliationwere doubted and questioned. since the moment of my arrest therehas always been one question that has occupied my mind whilecrying, while being insulted, when they held official parties anddanced on our corpses in celebration of a 'victory' over the peoplewho were defenceless in front of an army of tanks and jet-fighters.the same question was bouncing back and forth in my memory insearch of an answer: why do they hate us so much?

the question is from Valerie’s letter in the film 'V for Vendetta':“I remember how the meaning of words began to change. Howunfamiliar words like "collateral" and "rendition" became frightening,while things like Articles of Allegiance became powerful. I rememberhow "different" became dangerous. I still don't understand it, whythey hate us so much.”

i am still looking for an answer. while torturing us, they were notperforming a duty, they were enjoying our torment. the torturerwould suddenly stop and say “i will go to pray and come back tocontinue torturing you”. i cannot understand torturers’ psychologynor can i understand this world that deals with us with perfect doublestandards and yet sometimes asks us to clearly admit that we areworth less than citizens of other nations and do not deserve thesame rights.


MY SAFETY AND THESAFETY OF MYFAMILY WERE

THREATENED. I WASFORCED TO SIGN

STATEMENTSWITHOUT BEING

PERMITTED TO READTHEM. I WAS

BROUGHT BEFORETHE PUBLIC

PROSECUTION

ALI ABDULEMAMBloggerBAHRAIN

SAID YOUSIF AL-MUHAFDAHBahrain Center for Human Rights

BAHRAIN

”“

LIKE OTHERDEFENDERS IN

BAHRAIN, I HAVEBEEN BEATEN,

DEFAMED,THREATENED AND

HARASSED BECAUSEOF MY HUMANRIGHTS WORK

mY name is saiD Yousif aL-muHafDaH. i am aCting ViCePresident of the Bahrain Center for Human rights. i have beenarrested several times for doing my work and for cooperating withand reporting to the united nations. Like other defenders in Bahrain,i have been beaten, defamed, threatened and harassed because ofmy human rights work. two days ago, after arriving in Dublin, myfamily informed me that i have received a summons for interrogationbecause i spoke about torture.

Human rights defender naji fateel, who previously delivered aspeech at a front Line Defenders Platform, is now sentenced to 15years imprisonment and was subjected to severe torture because ofhis human rights work. abduljalil al-singace, another human rightsdefender, suffers from paralysis, but that did not stop the regimefrom severely torturing him and sentencing him to life imprisonment.today i would like to share with you letters from two imprisonedhuman rights defenders in Bahrain. the first letter is from imprisonednabeel rajab, Head of the Bahrain Center for Human rights:

Dear friends, colleagues and fellow human rights defenders,I am addressing you from a cell in Bahrain, where I have

been imprisoned since 9 July 2012.The regime of Bahrain decided to silence my voice from

defending freedom of speech and from defending the rightsof all Bahrainis for freedom, democracy and social justice.I ask you, my friends and colleagues, to help the long-

suffering people of Bahrain to regain their rights from a tyrantregime. There was international condemnation of thewidespread human rights violations which included extraju-dicial killings, systematic torture, arbitrary arrests... the list islong; but the regime refuses to change.Several human rights defenders, including myself, were put

in prison just for speaking out. I ask you to stand in solidaritywith the imprisoned human rights defenders in Bahrain.Thank you so much for listening to the voice of Bahrainis

and I look forward to your kind and heartfelt actions.

the second letter i share with you today is from imprisoned humanrights defender zainab al-Khawaja, whose father, abdulhadi al-Khawaja worked with front Line Defenders before he wasimprisoned, tortured and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In a nutshell, the idea is that by defending human rightsactivists you're also defending their communities. Defend oneactivist and you'll be protecting tens or even hundreds ofother people. A few years back, my father described to mewhat Front Line Defenders does, and I could see the passionthat he has for his work. But it's more than just work for him,defending others is not what my father does, it's who myfather is.Never was this more clear to me than when my father told

me about his experience in military prison. He calmly told meabout two months in isolation, about not being allowed tospeak, about never seeing a human face. He described thetorture sessions and the masked torturers. But the calmdisappeared, and I saw pain in my father's eyes when he toldme... "The worst thing was never when I was being tortured.The worst thing was when I could hear the others beingtortured and I couldn't do anything".He tried. My father's first hunger strike during this impris-

onment was while he was in solitary confinement and beingtortured routinely. His only demand was that they stoptorturing the head of the teachers' union, Mahdi Abu Dheeb,in the cell next to him, and whose screams he could hear. Myfather was tortured severely until he ended that strike.My father and other defenders have dedicated their lives to

defending victims, educating people about their rights andexposing the crimes of the regime.The regime in Bahrain fears international pressure more

than they care about people's rights. Their solution is tocommit their crimes in darkness, far away from the eyes ofthe international community, the media and human rights or-ganisations.The best way to achieve this is by silencing those who shed

light on the human rights abuses being committed against thepeople of Bahrain. The Bahraini regime has realised that byarresting and silencing one human rights activist, you canmore easily oppress tens and hundreds of other people.The regime is therefore shamelessly targeting human rights

activists through arrests and torture, detentions and beatings,threats, interrogations and defamation campaigns. And asmore activists are silenced, simultaneously we see a rise inthe human rights abuses, violations and crimes towards thegeneral Bahraini population.


Human rigHts DefenDers are not goVernments’ faVouritepeople. Possibly because we disclose human rights violations andactively campaign for justice for victims and not for governments.our efforts, whether individual or collective, for the advocacy ofhuman rights are not welcomed by governments. our commitmentto people’s equality disturbs position-holders and keeps us inconstant opposition to them.

Human rights defenders in the state of Kuwait aren’t any different tothose elsewhere. it is not unusual for human rights defenders to faceviolence, arrest and unjust treatment. authorities shot rubber bulletsat our colleague sulaiman bin Jassem of the national Committee formonitoring Violations (nCmV). they arrested him, beat him anddenied his right to have a lawyer present during the hearing.fortunately, it has not affected his will to continue to fight for people’sstruggle. our colleague Khalid al-Hajeri, a member of the Kuwaitisociety for Human rights (KsHr) and a human rights monitor, wasarrested and brought to trial on several charges, including gatheringin a demonstration, breaching security and defamation of andinsulting a public official while performing his duty.

another colleague in the nCmV is monther al-Habib who was beatenand arrested on 15 october 2012 after a seminar entitled “enoughplaying around”. He was arrested and kept in detention for seven toeight days. though he was released, his charges have yet to bedropped and the case remains in the courts. the case has beenbrought forward by the public security, accusing him of assaultingand insulting 17 public security officials, participating in andorganising a protest. Lately the authorities have charged him withmocking the emir of Kuwait. this case includes charges against 56other people who participated in the seminar “enough playingaround” for repeating the words of a former mP, muslim al-Barrack,who spoke at the seminar. they repeated his words as part of theirbelief of freedom of expression.

the activist Hadil Bugrayss has been threatened with murder,subjected to interrogation at her workplace a number of times andthreatened with dismissal if she continues to defend the case ofKuwait’s stateless people, the Bedoons. rana al-saadoon, anotheractivist and the founder of nCmV, has been subjected to physicalabuse by a number of public security officials in plain clothes formonitoring a demonstration by the opposition. she had two casesbrought against her, for participating in an unauthorised demonstra-

tion and assaulting public security officials, and for mocking the emirof Kuwait, encroachment on the hereditary ruling system anddownplaying the emir’s authority by repeating a speech directed atthe emir of Kuwait.

i am an independent activist. the government of Kuwait – mygovernment - asked the Kingdom of Bahrain to prevent me fromentering Bahrain, even though i am in the last year of my studies atone of the universities there. i was denied my right to education andthreatened with dismissal from work. i was threatened with forceddisappearance along with my family members. i am under constantsurveillance. all because of my work defending human rights inKuwait and Bahrain. those i have spoken about are subject to thesame treatment.


I WAS DENIED MYRIGHT TO EDUCATION

AND THREATENEDWITH DISMISSAL

FROM WORK. I WASTHREATENED WITH

FORCEDDISAPPEARANCEALONG WITH MY

FAMILY MEMBERS. IAM UNDERCONSTANT

SURVEILLANCE

NAWAF ALHENDALNational Committee for Monitoring ViolationsKUWAIT

HABIBA AL HINAI Omani Group for Human Rights

OMAN

”“

I PREPARED ANDPUBLISHED A

SPECIAL REPORT ONVIOLATIONS AGAINST

THESE PRISONERSWHICH LED TO MY

BEING BANNED FROMVISITING ALL SUCH

PRISONERS

mY name is HaBiBa aL Hinai. i am omani But i was Born inzanzibar in 1965. i am an independent human rights activist.

Currently my human rights work is part-time. i am president of theomani group for Human rights, which was founded on 20 may2012. i am a member of the Yemeni-gulf election monitoring team.this is associated with the gulf forum for civil society institutionswhich is the first of its kind in the gulf. i am also a founding memberof the women Human rights Defender network in the middle eastand north africa. our aim is to raise the profile and protection ofhuman rights defenders in Yemen and the gulf.

my work began in 2000, demanding the rights of children whoseomani mothers were married to foreigners through field research,reports, and getting media coverage, which led to this specific groupof individuals accessing some of their deserved rights.

i have worked with several civil society institutions. i was VicePresident of the omani union of Volleyball and a member of theomani women’s sports olympic Committee. i also carried theBeijing olympic torch in 2008. i was on the Board of Directors of theomani society for the Disabled and of the noor organisation forBlind individuals.

i am a former Director of Civil society against Cancer and thereading Development Centre. i founded a volunteer team which isdedicated to spreading awareness of climate adversity and has alsoorganised a number of campaigns highlighting dyslexia amongchildren, women and children’s rights, and the plight of syrian civilwar victims.

i was the only woman who walked in the first green march in omanon 17 January 2011, after the arab spring. i covered it using socialmedia. i have also taken part in a number of protests including oneagainst the closing of the local newspaper. i have attended numerouscourt hearings where those on trial have been accused of crimesrelated to freedom of speech and expression.

i visited those imprisoned after the sohar demonstrations on 22 may2012. i prepared and published a special report on violations againstthese prisoners which led to my being banned from visiting all suchprisoners. i also partook in a solidarity stand with more than 4,000 oilworkers who were on strike in Yemen. i was detained along with

colleagues during my coverage of the strike in the fahud desert on31 may 2012. for my protection i filed a number of lawsuits afterthese events.

writing is another outlet i use to draw attention to human rightsviolations. i started writing a series of articles under the title “moaningof the walls”. they have been posted on numerous social mediawebsites. the articles discuss taboo subjects in our society such ascorruption, human rights, environmental abuse and marginalisedhuman rights cases. one such case was the severe environmentalpollution in an area 200 kilometres from muscat. the people in thisarea were suffering from the establishment of an industrial district inthe sohar port. this industrial district was not concerned in the leastwith environmental regulations. i have also written about thecorruption of one of our omani parliamentary members, abouthuman trafficking, the rise of poverty, sexual harassment and genderequality. at the beginning of 2013, i wrote a novel called “returningto the Dream”. it is a story about how my family fled zanzibar foroman after the coup in 1964.


PeoPLe witH DisaBiLities are tHe Largest minoritY in tHeworld, currently representing 15% of the global population and13.5% of the tunisian population.

i myself am a person with disabilities. my experience began with aviolent awakening during the tunisian revolution, which dragged mefrom my bed of ignorance. when we started taking to the streets andsaw thousands of people shouting in unison that they wanted to oustthe regime, we no longer saw the policemen firing their guns, we nolonger saw the danger before us - we were just there to save thecountry.

even after the revolution, people with disabilities continue to beextremely segregated in tunisia. in fact, these segregations remaineven in the most developed countries. women with disabilitiescontinue to undergo forced abortions, although this is not official.People with disabilities continue to live in closed institutions wherethey have no life. they also have no right to education - not a singledeaf person in tunisia has the right to a decent state education. aperson with mental disabilties has no legal status - that means thatyou can do whatever you like to that person and they have no rightto legal recourse.

our organisation, the tunisian organisation for the Defence of therights of Persons with Diabilities (organisation tunisienne deDéfense des Droits des Personnes Handicapées – otDDPH), isessentially composed of individuals with disabilties, who work onthe basis of the international Convention on the rights of Personswith Disabilities. tunisia was the first arab country to ratify thisconvention, but the last to apply it. so today, i hope that you will alsobear in mind persons with disabilities in your struggle, among whomwomen are recognised as being the most vulnerable. nor can youforget children with disabilities, who in a large number of countrieshave no right to education. those with mental disabilities areconsidered as sub-humans in many countries and governmentsmust not forget them, since human rights are universal.

my experience bears no relation to what you have been through, andi want to thank you and tell you that i feel humble before you. wheni heard about the experiences of our friends in China and ecuador,and the story of Yolanda… i would like to thank you for making mecry for three days, and encouraging me to make even greater efforts.

the weekend before i came here i was conducting a training coursewith people with disabilties, and i heard the story of a mother withtwo little girls with disabilities - her husband had beaten her anddivorced her, the police were against her, the state provided her withno medication - and i began to get discouraged. i was there to talkto her about her rights, but she needed the bare essentials. and iasked myself, “what am i doing, am i really going to find a solution?”But when i arrived here and heard your testimonies i felt strength-ened, and i am going to go back to tunisia with a great deal ofinspiration and courage. finally i would like to add one thing -nobody expected what took place in tunisia, that one simple personcould spur the whole arab region into action. so don’t lose hope -all change is possible.

i thank you all.


WHEN I HEARDABOUT THE

EXPERIENCES OFOUR FRIENDS, AND

THE STORY OFYOLANDA… I WOULDLIKE TO THANK YOUFOR MAKING ME CRY

FOR THREE DAYS,AND ENCOURAGINGME TO MAKE EVENGREATER EFFORTS

IMED OUERTANITunisian Organisation for the Defence of the Rights of Persons with DisabilitiesTUNISIA

EL GHALIA DJIMISaharan Association of Serious Violations of Human Rights Committed by the Moroccan State

WESTERN SAHARA

”“

IT IS TIME TO ACT ASONE INTERNATIONAL

CIVIL SOCIETY TOREVEAL THE TRUTH -THE WHOLE TRUTH -

ABOUT WHAT ISHAPPENING IN MYCOUNTRY IN THE

FACE OF THEREPREHENSIBLE

BLINDNESS

mY name is eL gHaLia DJimi. i am a Citizen of tHenon-autonomous and occupied territory of western sahara. i am 52years old, a mother of five and was a victim of forced disappearancebetween 1987 and 1991. i am Vice-President of the AssociationSahraouie des Victimes des Graves Violations des Droits HumainsCommises par l’Etat Marocain (saharan association of seriousViolations of Human rights Committed by the moroccan state)(asVDH) and a member of the Comité des familles des disparusSahraouis (Committee for the families of Disappeared sahrawis). mymother has also been missing since 1984, her fate still unknown, likehundreds of other sahrawi people.

after i was freed in 1991 along with 324 other sahrawis who hadspent between 16 and 40 years in forced exile, and 87 of whom werewomen, i decided, along with other former victims of this inhumanepractice, to work in the field of defending human rights. i wanted toattract national and international attention to the systematic humanrights violations that were taking place and being covered up inwestern sahara while it was under a moroccan and internationalmilitary and media embargo. i also wanted to try and discover thetruth about the fate of hundreds of missing people who remained atthe mercy of the moroccan government, including my own mother.

Despite all the atrocities, the physical and psychological torture andthe suffering that i endured with my fellow prisoners during my timein what is notoriously known as the PC-Cmi - a secret moroccandetention centre on the barracks of the Compagnie mobile d’inter-vention, where i was detained between 1987 and 1991, blindfoldedand deprived of even the most basic humane conditions - i wasdetermined to join my friends in building a sahrawi civil society thatcould play a part in the promotion and protection of human rights.

in the 1990s and the early 2000s, our task was difficult anddangerous. in 2005, my friends and i, as part of a large group offormer victims of forced disappearance and their dependants,founded asVDH. unfortunately, however, the moroccan state doesnot yet recognise our association and consequently blocks ouractivities, despite the fact that victims’ rights are acknowledged bythe Instance Equité et Réconciliation (Justice and reconciliationCommission) and in official government speeches before the inter-national community. even though my association was establishedunder moroccan law and has initiated all the necessary legalprocedures, and despite the fact that the moroccan administrative

tribunal issued a verdict in our favour, the authorities still refuse toallow our association to operate as a human rights organisation andcontinue to block us, which renders our work as defenders difficultand sometimes impossible.

my experience as a human rights defender is just one example ofmany other stories of individuals who defend the rights of thesahrawi people, including the right to self-determination, which doesnot support the official position of the moroccan state. as defenderswe are constantly targeted by the moroccan authorities, throughintimidation, incarceration, torture, assassination, defamation,deprivation of our civil and economic rights and all forms ofharassment.

Dozens of sahrawi human rights defenders are currently languishingin prisons in morocco and occupied western sahara, sentenced toprison terms ranging from several years to life, following falseaccusations and unfair judgements. they are deprived of even themost basic conditions of a fair trial. other defenders are unable toperform their duty properly because, like us, they are not permittedto set up organisations or participate in peaceful demonstrations todemand the rights of the sahrawi people, notably the right to self-de-termination and the right to empower young people in the non-violentstruggle.

Ladies and gentlemen, all that i and my fellow human rightsdefenders wish for is to be able to build a genuinely peaceful anddynamic civil society that promotes democracy, stability and peaceand protects human rights in the region. an active civil society thatwould help to give rise to equality for all. i want to be able to build apresent in which human dignity and human rights are respected, sothat our children’s future is not one of distress, hatred, injustice,vengence, fanaticism and violations of all our rights. But my fellowdefenders and i can achieve nothing without real internationalsolidarity, a genuine struggle against silence, impunity and disregardfor our rights. and it is time to act as one international civil societyto reveal the truth – the whole truth – about what is happening in mycountry in the face of the reprehensible blindness and silence of theunited nations and many other international bodies.


in Yemen, tHere are stiLL some Human rigHts DefenDerswho, rather than thinking of the basic rights of the victim, look initiallyat their political, social and religious backgrounds and affiliations.they do not look at the oppressed person as a human being, nor theirrights which have been violated. the truth is that some human rightsdefenders do not understand that to be a human rights defender youhave to leave aside religious, political or social biases, for the sake ofhumanity. Human rights are about life and dignity. if you do not leavethese biases and differences aside, you cannot be a true human rightsdefender, and it would be a shame to claim to be one.

i am trying my best to be on the side of the ‘human being’, and thatis why i have been a victim from different sides, both before and afterthe revolution. my anguish began during the reign of ali abdullahsaleh’s regime, at the beginning of my human rights duties. when idefend a human being, i leave all my biases aside. saleh’s regimeestablished biased newspapers with public funds, and on severaloccasions i was a victim of the al-Distoor newspaper which wasaware that a woman in a conservative society has only her reputationto protect her. they intentionally defamed and accused me ofimmoral actions, accused me of being an agent for israel and sub-sequently continued the threats and harassment against me.

when the revolution began, the suppression intensified. i wassubjected to verbal abuse and photoshopping of my picture. on 13february 2011 there was an abduction attempt. this was one of themost frightening days of my life. i was participating in a peacefulprotest by youths when central security soldiers came in full forceand in large numbers and dispersed the crowd. only myself, a fewyouths and ahmad saif Hashid remained after the majority had beendispersed by electric batons. at that point, a masked plain-clothedsoldier tried to kidnap me in the presence of rows of other soldiersand a number of citizens. He carried me between his arms, andalthough i was screaming at the top of my lungs, nobody came to myaid. ahmad saif Hashid heard my screams from the opposite side ofthe street where he was trying to save the youths from the attack,and he came towards me to save me. when the soldier saw him, hethrew me on the ground, knocking my head against the curb.

i fainted and awoke in sanaa republic Hospital. Here a plainclothesofficer, instead of looking for the perpetrator, took us for questioningat the main police station. Had it not been for ahmad saif Hashid,who saved me, i would have been forgotten somewhere inside a

dark cell or perhaps even dead. in a split second, he saved me fromthe fangs of the monstrous human.

our shock was greater after the departure of saleh and his followers,as tyranny returned in the form of revolution and religion. attacksagainst human rights defenders remained the same before and afterthe revolution, only the tyrant had changed. the oppressors of theold regime came back wearing revolution gowns. what’s moredangerous is that the regime is urging the people to kill in the streets,shedding blood in the name of religion. in a religious society with alow level of literacy, people can be easily mobilised against humanrights defenders. they are mobilised to rise in defence of theirreligion and beliefs against those “heretics and western agents.”religion is being misused to trigger people against human rightsdefenders.

Because i am a woman in a conservative society ruled by fustypowers, the violence against me is enormous. Violations continue. atthe beginning of the year, radical groups belonging to the Yemeni or-ganisation of reform, led a campaign of atonement, defamation andverbal abuse against me. they accused me of insulting religion - onlybecause i criticised their organisation. the same ‘takfirist’ who leadthis campaign, also filed a lawsuit against me on charges of insultingreligion. al-qaeda placed a terrifying video on Youtube accusing meof secularism and atheism.

if you work neutrally, and not against him or her, you are consideredto be against them. if you criticise a group, you will find yourself thesubject of its followers’ attacks, particularly fanatic religious groups.up until now their campaigns continue under the guise of protectingreligion. it is a systematic campaign against women defenders andjournalists who had been freed from their ideas. each party has itsown militias on social media. they are always telling me “findyourself a husband” and use demeaning words against me. throughthese campaigns they attempt to silence the voice of women bytaking advantage of the low literacy rate and trying to use religiousrulings to their advantage. they think that the defamation againstwomen activists will silence them, but i have proved them wrong; ithas not broken me or my will, but has convinced me to continue thisstruggle in a win for humanity.


THROUGH THESECAMPAIGNS THEY

ATTEMPT TOSILENCE THE VOICE

OF WOMEN BYTAKING ADVANTAGE

OF THE LOWLITERACY RATE AND

TRYING TO USERELIGIOUS RULINGS

TO THEIRADVANTAGE

SAMIA AL AGHBARIHuman rights defenderYEMEN

irish aideuropean instrument for Democracy and Human rightsiris o’Brien foundationadessium foundationamerican Jewish world serviceDutch ministry of foreign affairsfairwind foundationfoundation for a Just societyembassy of the federal republic of germany in DublinHivosthe ireland fundsLifeline: embattled ngo assistance fundoak foundation

open society foundationsoverbrook foundationthe roddick foundationroyal norwegian ministry of foreign affairssigrid rausing trustswedish international Development Cooperation

agencyswiss federal Department of foreign affairstaiwan foundation for Democracytides foundationthe tikva grassroots empowerment fundthe Violet Jabara Charitable trustanonymous

an PostBallymaloeBarrys teaButlersCarrollsDillon eustaceDublin Businisfragrances of irelandrothcothe Body shop

the next dublin platform will take placein 2015. front line defenders wouldwelcome any input for the agenda.

reports from the working groups thattook place in this year’s seventh dublinplatform are now available on the frontline defenders website.

www.frontlinedefenders.org

Front Line Defenders wishes to offer sincere thanksto the following donors. Without their generosity,the Dublin Platform would not have occurred:

BOOK OF TESTIMONIESfrom Human rigHts DefenDersthe seventh dublin platform

WWW.FRONTLINEDEFENDERS.ORG

DUBLIN

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