human rights defenders
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Civil Society Support Mechanisms: A Directory
The Civil Society Support Mechanisms: A Directory is a resource for civil society under threat. It lists mechanisms available to assist individuals and organisations based on their specific threat or based on their location. The database is divided into national, regional and global mechanisms and contains information on how to engage each mechanism as well as contact details for each.
The directory was produced to provide information to the vast network of organisations and mechanisms that support human rights groups in general, and many that support civil society in particular. In order to strengthen and promote their work, civil society organisations, human rights defenders, journalists, activists and others rely on alliances between each other, the sharing of best practices and lessons learned, and constructive engagement with governments and intergovernmental institutions. These networks foster greater connections between ground-level issues and global-level processes, and amplify the voices of civil society in global decision making. This solidarity is especially critical for civil society when it is under threat or attack.
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CSW66: ‘Grassroots environmental defenders are highly underrepresented in decision-making’
CIVICUS speaks about women’s rights and the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) with Joy Hayley Munthali and Dorothy Kazombo Mwale of the Green Girls Platform.
Founded in 2018, the Green Girl Platform is a female-led civil society organisation (CSO) that advocates for climate justice for women and girls in Malawi by building capacity, providing leadership skills and promoting sexual and reproductive health rights.
What are the main women’s rights issues in Malawi, and how does Green Girl Platform work to address them?
In Malawi, women and girls are highly affected by the effects of climate change and environmental degradation due to their role in society. Girls are expected to help fetch firewood and get clean water for their households. Due to the effects of climate change, including erratic rains and depletion of natural resources, women and girls often have to walk long distances to find clean water and firewood. Because of these challenges, most girls are forced into early marriages and some drop out of school.
The vulnerability of women and girls to environmental degradation, as well as to sexual violence and exploitation and gender-related violence, is on the rise. This is happening due to a lack of understanding of the implications of climate change for their lives, lack of information, lack of leadership skills, low participation in governance structures, limited women-led climate-related platforms and a lack of understanding and application of their rights.
Women and girls are left out of decision-making processes although they are the ones who are most affected. The Green Girls Platform was founded to address the violence against women and girls that emanates from climate change and increase the number of women and girls engaged with climate change issues.
The Green Girls Platform is working to ensure that gender and women’s rights are placed on the local, national and global environmental and climate change agendas by advocating for gender-responsive governance and policies. We conduct capacity-building workshops and training on climate change to equip girls with skills and knowledge on climate justice and all it encompasses. Through our initiatives, we have been able to reach around 5,000 young women and girls in Malawi, increasing their active participation in addressing climate change.
What issues did you try to bring into the CSW agenda this year?
As an organisation we noticed that there is underrepresentation of young women and girls in decision-making processes. Their participation and active engagement in climate change governance structures is minimal. Structural changes are needed so that more women are included in decision-making bodies.
Climate change is affecting young women’s access to education, and we need to come up with adaptation strategies that work for girls and young women in their specific contexts. Strategies have to be sustainable and demand-driven to build the adaptive capacity of women and girls and enhance their access to education.
We are aware of the violence that girls and young women environmental defenders face either within their homes or in their communities. We would like to see the adoption of measures to protect the rights of adolescent girls and young women from climate-related violence. Civil society donors could help us navigate these challenges.
What were your expectations, and to what degree were they met?
Our expectations were that our concerns would be listened to and we would collectively come up with solutions to some of the overarching challenges. Although our needs were met to a good degree, we were not highly impressed by the output. But we are positive that things will improve.
In terms of access, we faced some challenges. Only one of our staff was able to attend the CSW sessions in person, and she did so for only three days due to insufficient funding. We also attended some online events, mainly side events, but we had issues accessing main events due to time differences and late notices, and because some of them were not open to civil society.
Do you think that international bodies, and specifically the UN, adequately integrate women in their decision-making processes?
UN Women has taken steps in the right direction in terms of integrating women into decision-making spaces. However, we still have challenges getting all voices represented at the table. Women and girl environmental defenders working at the grassroots level are highly underrepresented in decision-making spaces, even though they are the ones working at the local level and facing the adverse impacts of climate change. Access to climate financing for girls and young women working on climate issues is still minimal and inaccessible, leading to more issues falling through the cracks and not reaching decision makers.
Civic space in Malawi is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with the Green Girl Platform through itsFacebook page and follow@GirlsPlatform on Twitter. -
Cuba: release detained protesters and stop harassment of rights activists and their organisations
Hoy, en el #DiaDeLosDerechosHumanos hacemos un llamamiento a las autoridades cubanas para detener la represión de los artivistas que reclaman sus derechos civiles y liberar a quienes se encuentran actualmente detenidos o bajo arresto domiciliario.https://t.co/BeKlJMiBFo pic.twitter.com/LtxlWWR1An
— CIVICUS Español (@CIVICUSespanol) December 10, 2020Cuban authorities must stop the repression of civil rights activists and release those who are currently detained or under house arrest, says global civil society alliance CIVICUS.
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DRC: ‘Civil society is targeted by politicians who see it as an obstacle to their power’
CIVICUS speaks with journalist and human rights activist Jonathan Magoma about recent elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Jonathan Magoma is Country Programme Director and interim Executive Director of Partnership for Integral Protection (PPI), a civil society organisation that works for peace and the protection of human rights defenders in the DRC and the region.
How free and fair were recent elections in the DRC?
The presidential election of 20 December 2023 was held so as to show the world that the government conducted it within the constitutional deadline, but it was marred by fraud and irregularities.
The electoral process was neither free nor fair. In several districts, rebel groups imposed their choices. In the province of Ituri, in the northeast of the DRC, the Chini ya Tuna armed group forced people to vote for a candidate from their community. The militias even took away two voting machines so they could enter the votes themselves.
Towards the centre of the country, in Sankuru province, the brother of a Congolese dignitary set up a militia to disrupt the election and commit violence against agents of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), simply because he couldn’t line up as a national deputy candidate when his party failed to reach the required threshold. His armed men quietly took away election kits as observers looked on helplessly.
Candidates also distributed gifts in polling centres to influence voters in their favour. Some candidates or their representatives were caught distributing money to voters on election day, which is illegal. In some centres some were arrested by the police, while others were not apprehended.
In the Kabare district of South Kivu, for instance, electoral materials were transported to polling centres in the vehicles of a political party that was a member of the presidium of Sacred Union of the Nation (USN), the coalition backing the candidacy of President Félix Tshisekedi. Observers and voters at the centre cried foul.
What were the basis of the opposition’s fraud allegations?
The allegations of fraud made by the opposition are legitimate. They are based on the fact that a number of politicians close to the government kept full electoral kits in their homes in order to vote fraudulently. Voting machines were discovered in private homes containing ballot papers already signed and filled out. As a result, in most polling centres there was a shortage of voting machines, leading people in some districts to revolt.
On 31 December, CENI published the provisional results of the presidential election, proclaiming Tshisekedi, the incumbent seeking a second term, as the winner. But five days after this, on 5 January, CENI invalidated the votes received by deputy candidates who had run in the national and provincial legislative elections and the municipal vote held on 20 December. Their candidacies were voided following numerous accusations of illegal possession of voting machines, fraud, destruction of electoral material, ballot box stuffing and incitement to commit acts of violence against CENI agents. The excluded candidates include three serving ministers, four provincial governors, six senators and a member of the bureau of the National Assembly. Almost all were USN members.
At the same time, the electoral commission announced the annulment of the election results in the districts of Masimanimba in Kwilu province and Yakoma in North Ubangi province on the grounds of ‘massive and exaggerated fraud’. Unfortunately, the decision had nothing to say about the highly contested presidential election. But how could such irregularities have occurred at all other voting levels and not at the presidential election that was held on the same day and with the same ballot papers?
This question gave rise to debate within civil society and, within the political opposition, it prompted several demonstrations to contest this ‘sham’ election and demand its annulment. But it was in vain: on 20 January, Tshisekedi was sworn in by ‘his’ Constitutional Court as president of the DRC.
How did civil society, and PPI in particular, try to make the election free, fair and peaceful?
In the run-up to the election, we launched awareness campaigns to promote a peaceful vote. We held advocacy actions with election stakeholders, getting them to adhere to democratic values guaranteeing fair, free, transparent and inclusive elections and to the need to guarantee civic space before, during and after the elections. We also trained civil society groups and journalists in election observation and media coverage.
We observed the polls and contributed to the resulting civil society report. However, this report was not taken into account by the relevant bodies.
I personally carried out observation in a village about 35km north of the town of Bukavu, where what are viewed as ‘observers in waistcoats’ are more or less respected and most CENI agents knew me. But for no reason, I was forbidden to spend more than 15 minutes in a polling station. In neighbouring centres, people complained about lack of access to polling stations. Some observers also complained. In my polling station, the voting machine was supposed to start at 6am but was not put into operation until after noon, which made voters angry.
We continue to monitor the situation closely and assist human rights defenders, journalists and others who have been threatened or prosecuted for playing important roles or exposing irregularities during the elections. PPI is currently supporting two journalists and a civil society activist who are being prosecuted by the prosecutor general’s office in South Kivu province for denouncing electoral fraud perpetrated by a politician close to the government. PPI provides activists under threat with legal and judicial assistance, along with psychosocial support and advice on physical and digital security. Where necessary, medical or financial assistance, or even support for relocation, is offered to activists at risk.
It must be noted that we are still in an election period, as elections for senators and governors have not yet taken place. Originally scheduled for February, CENI has postponed them and they will now take place in late March and early April. Meanwhile, civil society continues to be targeted by politicians who see it as an obstacle to their power.
What were the demands of protesters on election day, and how did the government respond?
On 20 December, some people in Beni and Goma could not stand the wait. When they arrived at polling stations early in the morning, they could not find their names on the lists posted outside. What’s more, some polling stations were not yet open. In some centres, only two polling stations out of 10 were open, or one out of eight. Rumours circulated about some candidates’ illegal possession of voting machines. All this led to spontaneous demonstrations, particularly in Beni, where one centre was vandalised.
In several districts, voting continued beyond closing time. The government acknowledged ‘logistical difficulties’ but praised CENI for the ‘successful’ organisation of the elections. Obviously, CENI was not up to the task of managing the logistics of the elections. It was then announced that voters would be allowed to cast their ballots the following day, and voting resumed in almost every centre in the DRC. In Bas Uélé province, voting lasted three days, from 20 to 22 December.
What are your expectations for the post-election period?
I remain pessimistic because I am convinced that the elections were not transparent, free, credible or independent. What’s more, less than half of potential voters turned out. This is a strong message for a president who has supposedly been elected with more than 73 per cent of the vote among those who are said to have voted.
In such a context, the legitimacy of the government will inevitably be called into question. Moreover, in December, former CENI president Corneille Nanga initiated a political-military movement allied with the M23 terrorist movement, which is supported by the Rwandan government and waging war in the east of the country.
In the post-electoral period, serious human rights violations are likely to occur, as was documented during Tshisekedi’s first five-year term, even though he had promised to make respect for human rights and democracy his priority.
Now that the ruling coalition has claimed an absolute majority in parliament, it is quite possible that it will start changing laws for its benefit, and even constitutional articles that were considered untouchable. This would create chaos and torpedo our hard-won democracy.
What should be done to strengthen democracy in the DRC?
At present, civic space in the DRC is repressed to the extent that it is virtually closed. Political rhetoric contradicts developments on the ground. Opponents are prosecuted and imprisoned for their opinions. Protesters are put down in a bloody way. Journalists such as Stanis Bujakera, Blaise Mabala, Philémon Mutula and Rubenga Shasha and many activists are persecuted and imprisoned for doing their job. We are intimidated, sometimes threatened and people are murdered.
If we are to have any hope of strengthening democracy in the DRC, we will have to hold the government to account for its internal and external commitments. The fourth cycle of the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review, due later this year, is a great opportunity for Congolese leaders to renew their commitment to democracy and respect for fundamental rights.
Global civil society and the human rights community must stand shoulder to shoulder with Congolese activists in the quest for democracy. This can be achieved through joint advocacy and lobbying activities, as well as capacity development and exchanges of experience.
Civic space in the DRC is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Contact PPI through itswebsite and follow@PPIREGIONALE and@JonathanMagoma on Twitter.
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EGYPT: ‘Activists who work from abroad are being targeted through their families’
CIVICUS speaksabout the ongoing repression of dissent in EgyptwithAhmed Attalla, Executive Director of the Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR).
Founded in 2017 and registered in the Czech Republic, EFHR is a civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes human rights in Egypt, with a specific focus on criminal justice, through advocacy, research and legal support.
What are the conditions for civil society in Egypt?
Civic space in Egypt has remained highly restricted for the past decade, with the authorities consistently targeting civil society activists, journalists, political dissidents and human rights advocates.
The 2019 NGO law restricts the rights of CSOs. It mandates their registration and enables the government and security forces to interfere in their operations and order the cessation of activities deemed sensitive by the government, such as monitoring human rights conditions and denouncing violations. Organisations registered under this law may also face funding restrictions.
Some CSOs had to shut down because the authorities targeted them with counter-terrorist measures or prosecuted their directors in Case no. 173 of 2011, commonly known as the ‘Foreign Funding Case’. In some instances, the directors of these organisations were prohibited from leaving the country and their assets were frozen. Some courageous organisations have persisted in their work even in the face of attacks against their directors and staff.
In September 2021, the government launched the National Human Rights Strategy, a propaganda tool aimed at concealing the human rights crisis ahead of hosting the COP27 climate summit in 2022. As part of this initiative, it took steps to release some political prisoners and engaged in a national dialogue that contained a broader spectrum of political actors, including civil society representatives.
How has Egyptian civil society organised in the face of repression?
Civil society has adapted to the ongoing repression in various ways. Many CSOs have decided to limit their public engagement and abstain from taking to the streets or limit their work to the provision of legal aid while refraining from undertaking research and international advocacy, especially with international human rights mechanisms. Other organisations have been forced to relocate their operations abroad to safeguard their staff and ensure the continuity and integrity of their work, which has had the opposite effect of facilitating their advocacy efforts with international mechanisms and among European Union (EU) member states.
In response to the continuous pressure, many organisations have started collaborating more closely. In 2019, EFHR coauthored a joint report with eight other CSOs for the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council and participated in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session in which Egypt’s human rights record was examined. In 2023, we jointly submitted another report for Egypt’s UPR. We have also engaged in joint campaigns and participated in the formation of coalitions aimed at addressing specific challenges. Egyptian CSOs are increasingly recognising the importance of working together to amplify their impact and advocate for change.
How does EFHR work in such a repressive context?
When it was founded in 2017, EFHR was officially registered in the Czech Republic with affiliates in Egypt, where our team of researchers and lawyers provides crucial legal support by attending daily court hearings and working directly with victims of prosecution. We have successfully coordinated work between our overseas office and our colleagues based in Egypt. Our work focuses on issues that are ignored by the Egyptian authorities, including issues concerning criminal justice, detention conditions and gender-based violence.
We take various security measures to protect the identities of our staff. For instance, our research publications don’t include author names or contact details, and we maintain the anonymity of our legal team. These precautions give us some space to work and leverage our findings and expertise with international mechanisms, by engaging with UN Special Rapporteurs and working groups and collaborating with EU diplomats.
However, we have also faced some challenges. Three of our lawyers have been implicated in state security cases, facing accusations of affiliating with terrorist groups and potentially engaging in the use of force. We have managed to relocate other at-risk colleagues to ensure their safety. The same is happening to other Egyptian human rights organisations, whose members either managed to flee the country or were arrested and remained in prison for least two years.
How do you support Egyptian activists under threat?
We provide legal assistance to those who have been arrested or targeted by the authorities and take measures to ensure activists’ digital security and protect their anonymity, enabling them to continue their work. We collaborate with partners and foreign embassies to put pressure on the Egyptian government, but sometimes this doesn’t work.
Within Egypt, there are a few tools available to protect our colleagues at risk. Even political parties cannot protect their members in Egypt, so they also face regular detentions. Parties often attempt to exert pressure on the authorities to release arrested politicians but after releasing them the government arrests other members of the same organisations.
Are Egyptian activists safe in exile?
Activists who work from abroad are being targeted through their families. For example, the Egyptian-American human rights advocate Mohamed Soltan, who filed a case against former prime minister Hazem el-Beblawi, saw his five family members harassed and arrested as a result of his activism. A German resident, Alaa Eladly, was arrested upon landing in Cairo just because his daughter, Egyptian activist Fagr Eladly, criticised President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi president over human rights abuses at a 2015 press conference between the president and then German chancellor Angela Merkel . The father of Belgium-based journalist and human rights advocate Ahmed Gamal Ziada has recently been detained and accused of misuse of communication, spreading false news and joining a banned group. This strategy aims to silence activists and impose an even higher personal cost for doing their work.
What can the international community do to support Egyptian civil society?
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation in Egypt it is important to listen to the perspectives of local human rights defenders. Our international allies and partners must exert pressure on the Egyptian government to open civic space, stop targeting journalists, civil society activists and political figures and filing trumped up charges against them, and release all political prisoners detained for defending the fundamental rights to freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression.
EU member states must revise their terms of cooperation with Egypt to prioritise human rights. For instance, they should include human rights considerations as a conditionality for providing financial aid. It is imperative to strike a balance between the interests of governments and the demands of Egyptian civil society. It is also essential to sustain financial support for Egyptian CSOs, especially now that the economic crisis has also hit civil society.
Civic space in Egypt is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with EFHR through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@egyptian_front onTwitter.
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Egypt: Call to postpone the EU-Egypt Association Council
A coalition of civil society organisations have written to Ms. Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission and Mr. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, and EU Member States’ Ministers of Foreign Affairs urging them to postpone the EU-Egypt Association Council and not to extend a formal invitation to the Egyptian authorities for July 2017. This event would constitute a public political gesture conveying to them, and to public opinion in Europe and in Egypt, an endorsement of Egypt’s policies of the past few months, by the EU and its Member States. We consider that would encourage President Al-Sisi’s government to proceed with further, broader repressive measures, thus accelerating the destabilisation of Egypt even further. This would serve neither the Egyptian people’s interests, nor those of Europe in its search for stability, resilience and security in the MENA region.
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Egypt: End arbitrary detention, Free them all
Twelve Egyptian activists have been on hunger strike since early February 2022 in protest of their prolonged pre-trial detention at Tora Prison Complex. Among them, Abdelrahman Tarek (Moka), Ahmed Maher (Rigo), Galal El Beheriy, and Walid Shawkystarted hunger strikes to protest their unlawful imprisonment. On 8 March, Walid Shawky ended his hunger strike. Their health is at risk as their physical condition further deteriorates. The undersigned organisations call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release the aforementioned individuals, as well as all of the many other individuals currently held in detention for peacefully exercising their right to free expression.
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Egypt: End Reprisals, Harassment and Threats Against Civil Society Leader Mostafa Fouad
The undersigned civil society organisations call on Egyptian authorities to immediately end their harassment of Egyptian activist and Deputy Director of HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement, Mostafa Fouad.
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EGYPT: Free human rights lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim on her 65th birthday
JOHANNESBURG / PRAGUE – The Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR) and global civil society alliance CIVICUS call on Egypt to immediately free human rights lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim from prison ahead of her 65th birthday on Sunday January 28.
Abdel Moneim has spent the last five years behind bars following a 2018 arrest on false charges. She was due for release in November 2023, but authorities added new charges against her instead.
“Human rights lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim is an innocent, elderly woman suffering severe health conditions,” said Ahmed Attalla, the Executive Director of EFHR. “As her 65th birthday approaches, Egyptian authorities should show compassion and release her to her family. Her continued detention after the completion of her prison term is clear evidence of the Egyptian authorities' hostility towards the human rights movement.”
Abdel Moneim served on Egypt's National Council for Human Rights, and has held several other positions, including spokesperson for the Women's Revolutionary Coalition of Egypt, an Islamist group that opposed the removal of former President Mohamed Morsi. CIVICUS profiles Hoda Abdel Moneim as part of the Stand As My Witness campaign, which advocates for the release of jailed activists and human rights defenders worldwide.
Security agents arrested Abdel Moneim on November 1, 2018. They burst into her home at 1:30am, ransacked the house, blindfolded her, and put her in their vehicle before holding her incommunicado for three weeks. They gave no warrant or reason for her arrest.
The Supreme State Security Prosecution eventually charged Hoda Abdel Moneim with joining and funding a terrorist organization and incitement to harm the national economy and other alleged offences under Egypt's anti-terrorism law and penal code.
After an unfair trial full of irregularities, a court convicted Abdel Moneim of most charges. It sentenced her to five years in prison plus another five years of supervised parole where she would spend every night at the police station. But authorities continued detaining her under a new case after the prison term ended.
“The Egyptian authorities already imprisoned Hoda for five years for a crime she did not commit. It’s time to let her walk free,” said Asma Darwish, CIVICUS Campaigns Officer and MENA Advocacy Lead. “She is being persecuted for her human rights activities and should never have been sent to jail in the first place.”
Abdel Moneim’s arrest is illustrative of a system built to crack down on critical voices. In the last ten years, referred to as Egypt’s “worst decade” on human rights, Egyptian authorities have unjustly arrested tens of thousands of people including human rights defenders, members and leading figures of peaceful political opposition, journalists and artists, and online content creators.
The CIVICUS Monitor, which assesses civic space worldwide, rates Egypt as ‘closed,’ its worst ranking.
“Sadly, there are many innocent people like Hoda Abdel Moneim stuck behind bars in Egypt today,” said Darwish. “While we demand her release before her 65th birthday, we call on Egypt to release everyone wrongly imprisoned with her.”
Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR) is an independent European organization established in Czech Republic in 2017. The Front works to improve the human rights situation in Egypt through research, advocacy and legal work, specifically in criminal justice.
CIVICUS is the global alliance of civil society organizations and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world. A worldwide community of informed, inspired, committed citizens engaged in confronting the challenges facing humanity. We were established in 1993 and since 2002 have been proudly headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with additional hubs across the globe. We are a membership alliance with more than 15,000 members in more than 175 countries.
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Egypt: Quash Verdicts and Stop Unfair Trials by Emergency Courts
We, the undersigned organisations, call on Egyptian President Abdelfattah Al-Sisi to immediately quash the verdicts against seven arbitrarily detained human rights defenders, activists and politicians.
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Egypt: Release human rights defenders Alaa Abdel Fattah, Mohamed El-Baqer and Mohamed Oxygen
Ahead of the Emergency Court verdict on 20 December, we, the undersigned organisations, call upon the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Alaa Abdel Fattah, Mohamed El-Baqer and Mohamed Ibrahim “Oxygen” and to drop all charges and cases against them. Their detention and imprisonment create an environment where freedom of expression is not respected. States and international institutions should raise these cases directly with their Egyptian counterparts and urge immediate release and dismissal of all charges.
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Egypt: Stop the onslaught against civil society
The undersigned civil society organisations express our serious concern over the recent escalation of restrictions on civil society and the public vilification of human rights defenders in Egypt. We call on the Egyptian authorities to uphold their international obligations and ensure that civil society and human rights defenders can work in a safe and enabling environment without fear of reprisals.
On 24 May 2017, President Abdel Fatah El Sisi signed a highly restrictive law that provides the government with extraordinary powers over NGOs and stifles the activities of civil society. The bill was approved by Parliament in November 2016 but was put on hold after an outcry by local and international civil society organisations to prevent the President from passing it into law. Law 70 of 2017 severely limits the functioning of civil society organisations and unduly restricts the rights to freedom of expression and association. It introduces hefty fines and prison terms for civil society groups who publish a study or a report without prior approval by the government or engage in activities that do not have a developmental or social focus. These new restrictions make it practically impossible for human rights organisations to carry out their work.
The law provides unprecedented authority to government bodies to interfere in the day-to-day operations of civil society organisations, including their cooperation with any entities outside of Egypt. Worryingly, the law includes overly broad and vague provisions that could lead to its arbitrary application and targeting legitimate activities. Article 13 of the law broadly prohibits civil society organisations from conducting activities that could be deemed harmful to national security, public order, public morality, or public health. The law further violates the right to freedom of association and criminalises activities considered to be of a “political nature” as well as legislative reform work thereby impeding the important work of independent civil society groups in Egypt.
In addition, the government has imposed unwarranted restrictions on the right to freedom of expression online and the ability of individuals to communicate freely and seek and receive information. On 25 May, the government blocked 21 websites and accused them of spreading “terrorism and extremism” and “publishing lies". The block was carried out without any legal process or judicial oversight. These websites include Mada Masr - one of the few independent news outlets that carries out investigative journalism.
On 25 May 2017, more than 10 media outlets published articles and reports as part of a smear campaign against human rights defenders who had travelled to Rome a few days before to participate in a meeting with civil society representatives from other countries. The articles labelled the human rights defenders “traitors,” and urged the Egyptian intelligence service to try them on criminal charges upon their return. This smear campaign is intended to discredit and delegitimise the work of peaceful activists by tarnishing their reputation.
Human rights defenders continue to be intimidated and harassed by the authorities. On 24 May, human rights activist and Director of the Egypt Programme for the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Mohamed Zaree, was released on bail of 30,000 EGP (1,650 USD) after being interrogated for several hours by a judge. He was accused of receiving foreign funding for CIHRS, together with other civil society organisations, and for using the funds to promote activities that the authorities perceive to be against national security. He was also accused of tarnishing the reputation of Egypt by preparing human rights reports for the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Over the past few years, Egyptian authorities banned 24 human rights defenders and NGO staff from traveling abroad, and froze the assets of seven human rights organizations and 10 human rights defenders. These punitive measures have been implemented by an investigative judicial panel appointed to investigate the activities of human rights organizations.
What is also clear from recent events in Egypt, is that the Egyptian state seems determined to close down the civic space of feminists and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in particular. The stifling of the activism of Egyptian feminists and WHRDs such as Azza Soliman and Mozn Hassan who work on critical issues of violence against women, the closure of the El Nadeem center, and the travel ban against WHRD, Aida Seif el-Dawla, etc, are typical of the tools normally used against WHRDs under repressive governments.
We urge the Egyptian authorities to repeal Law 70 of 2017, close the ongoing criminal investigation into the work of human rights groups and ensure a safe and enabling environment in which civil society organisations and human rights defenders can carry out their work without fear of reprisals.
Signatories
Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti Violence Studies
Amnesty International
Article 19
Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
CIVICUS
EuroMed Rights
Front Line Defenders
International Women’s Health Coalition
Nazra For Feminist Studies
MENA Women Human Rights Defenders Coalition
Muslims for Progressive Values, Nederland
The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy
Transparency International
Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition -
Egyptian women's rights defenders risk life in prison
Azza Soliman and Mozn Hassan have both been working to improve women's rights in Egypt. They have campaigned to end violence against women, amongst many other campaigns, and are now wrongfully accused of receiving foreign funding against national interest and "irresponsible liberation" of women.
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Join the #SheDefends campaign to shine a spotlight on "The Price of Activism" paid by human rights defenders by posting pictures on your own social media urging the international community to "Protect Women Who Defend Our Human Rights" and tagging CIVICUS (@CIVICUSalliance) and using the hashtags #CSW61 #SheDefends.
Promo pack available here: http://bit.ly/2niENW5
See Flikr album in progress here https://t.co/dPIxhDQTiWFollow them at @NazraEgypt @Mozn @AzzaSoliman1
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European States and US must take measures to protect Egyptian human rights defenders, both home and abroad
The undersigned civil society organisations express their outrage at the latest death threats targeting the Director of Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Bahey el-Din Hassan, as a result of his human rights work on Egypt in Europe and the US. On 21 March 2018, in reaction to a memo sent by seven Egyptian independent human rights groups, including CIHRS, to the UN Secretary-General regarding the presidential elections in Egypt, a TV show host called on the Egyptian authorities to “deal with him [Bahey el-Din Hassan] the same way the Russian spy was dealt with,”[1] in reference to the nerve agent attack on Serjei Skripal in the United Kingdom.
Given the gravity of these threats against Bahey el-Din Hassan, the undersigned organisations call on the European States and the United States to:
1. take all necessary measures to protect Egyptian human rights defenders (HRDs), both home and abroad, and
2. to urge the Egyptian authorities to carry out immediate, thorough and impartial investigations on these threats. HRDs should be able to engage with regional and international human rights systems without fear for their lives. Support for HRDs is a stated priority of EU, Swiss, Norwegian and US foreign policies, and lies at the heart of the 1998 UN Declaration on HRDs.
CIHRS is an indispensable and internationally recognised organisation, which has been a champion of human rights across the Middle East and North Africa for over 20 years.
These events not only constitute the latest example of the harassment that Mr Hassan has faced in the last years, which forced him into exile in 2014 following the election of President el-Sisi, but also represent an extremely worrying pattern of reprisals against HRDs in Egypt and many other parts of the world.
While pro-democracy activists in Egypt are being jailed for expressing their views on social media, these repeated and serious incitements on television calling to inflict physical harm against Bahey el-Din Hassan as well as other HRDs have not been adequately addressed by the Egyptian authorities. Amidst an unprecedented crackdown on human rights and civil society, together with a soon-to-be implemented draconian NGO law, the Egyptian authorities appear determined to silence HRDs by any means, including instructing security services and State-sponsored media to intimidate them in Egypt and abroad.
Egyptian NGOs already witnessed this kind of harassment during a human rights workshop in Rome in May 2017, when two persons pretending to be Egyptian journalists intimidated and took pictures of the Egyptian participants. Subsequently, a smear campaign was launched in Egypt where Moustafa Bakry, a political figure closely associated to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and a member of the pro-Sisi parliamentary bloc, stated on his TV show that the Egyptian security agencies should “kidnap” Egyptian human rights defenders, including Bahey el-Din Hassan, from Europe and bring them back to Egypt “in coffins”,[2] reminding them that this had been done in the past.
AboutBahey el-Din Hassan
Bahey el-Din Hassan is a journalist, he has published articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is a leading initiator of the human rights movement in Egypt and the Arab region, director and co-founder of CIHRS, and a member of the boards and advisory committees of several international human rights organisations, including the Euro Mediterranean Foundation of Support to Human Rights Defenders (EMHRF), Human Rights Watch (HRW) Middle East and North Africa Division, and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Hassan is also one of the founding members of EMHRF and EuroMed Rights.
Signatories
- Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
- Asian Forum For Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
- Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC)
- Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE)
- Caucasus Civil Initiatives Center (CCIC)
- Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS) – Argentina
- CIVICUS - World Alliance for Citizen Participation
- Conectas
- DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project)
- EuroMed Rights
- FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
- Front Line Defenders
- Human Rights First
- Human Rights Watch
- International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
- JOINT Liga de ONGs em Mozambique
- Karapatan (Philippines)
- Odhikar (Bangladesh)
- Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)
- Reporters Without Borders
- Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
- The Working Group on Egypt (USA)[3]
- World Organisation against Torture, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
[1] Link to the video (in Arabic) https://youtu.be/gZE8zCePfqw
[2] Link to the TV show (in Arabic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eirJclgosPs (min 34)
[3] Elliott Abrams, Michele Dunne, Jamie Fly, Reuel Gerecht, Amy Hawthorne, Neil Hicks, Robert Kagan, Tom Malinowski, Steve McInerney, Tamara Wittes
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Global Letter in solidarity with Belarusian civil society
‘You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep the Spring from coming’
Pablo Neruda161 human rights organisations demand an end to the repression against the Human Rights Center Viasna and all other human rights defenders in Belarus. We condemn the systematic arbitrary arrests, beatings and acts of torture they are subjected to. Despite all-out repression by the Belarusian authorities, human rights defenders in Belarus continue to strive to protect human rights. Inspired by their courage, we will not stop fighting until they are all released and able to continue their human rights work freely and unhindered.
Over the past few days, we have witnessed another wave of raids and detentions against Belarusian human rights defenders and activists. This repression is a blatant retaliation for their work denouncing and documenting human rights violations ongoing since the brutal crackdown against peaceful protesters in the wake of the August 2020 election. Since August 2020, more than 35,000 Belarusians were arrested for participating in peaceful protests, around 3,000 politically motivated criminal cases were initiated, at least 2,500 cases of torture of Belarusian citizens were documented. We believe these systematic and widespread human rights violations may amount to crimes against humanity. As of July 19, 561 persons in Belarus are considered political prisoners.
Between July 14 and 16, 2021, more than 60 searches were conducted at the homes and offices of Belarusian human rights organisations and their staff, including the Human Rights Centre ‘Viasna’, two member organisations of the International Committee for the Investigation of Torture in Belarus, Human Constanta and Legal Initiative, as well as the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the Legal Transformation Center LawTrend, Ecodom and many others. Documents and IT equipment, including laptops, mobile phones and computers were seized during the searches.
During these latest raids, more than 30 people were interrogated. 13 of them were detained for a 72-hour period, reportedly in connection to an investigation into public order violations and tax evasion. Most of them were subsequently released, namely, Mikalai Sharakh, Siarhei Matskievich, and Viasna members Andrei Paluda, Alena Laptsionak, Yauheniya Babaeva, Siarhei Sys, Viktar Sazonau, Ales Kaputski and Andrei Medvedev. Several of them, however, remain under travel ban and face criminal charges. Notably, Ales Bialiatsky, Viasna Chairperson Valiantsin Stefanovic, Viasna Deputy Head and Vice-President of the FIDH, and Uladzimir Labkovich, a lawyer and Viasna member, remain detained. On July 17, all four were transferred to a pre-trial detention center “Valadarskaha”. Four other Viasna members Leanid Sudalenka, Tatsiana Lasitsa, Marfa Rabkova and Andrey Chapyuk, as well as Aleh Hrableuski of the Office for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, remain in pre-trial detention since late 2020 or early 2021.
Viasna, one of the country’s top human rights organisations, and a member of the OMCT and FIDH networks, has been targeted by the Belarusian government for over two decades. In August 2011, its chairperson Ales Bialiatsky was sentenced to four and a half years of imprisonment on trumped-up charges, and released in June 2014 after spending 1,052 days in arbitrary detention in appalling conditions. In retaliation for Viasna’s courageous work and unwavering stance for human rights, the Belarusian authorities are trying to destroy the organisation by putting seven of its members behind bars.
The raids started only one day after the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the situation of human rights in Belarus, demanding the release of all persons arbitrarily detained and an investigation into allegations of torture and other human rights violations.
On July 8-9 and July 16, 2021, the authorities also raided the homes and premises of various independent media outlets and their staff, including ‘Nasha Niva’, one of country’s oldest independent newspaper, and detained three of its journalists. The offices of RFE/Radio Liberty and Belsat, the largest independent TV channel covering Belarus, were also searched, and several of their journalists were detained. As of now, over 30 media workers and dozens of bloggers remain in detention.
We, the undersigned civil society organisations, condemn the massive human rights violations perpetrated by the Belarusian authorities, which we fear may trigger more violence. This latest wave of repression, together with the brutal crackdown over the last months, demonstrates that the authorities aim at having every human rights defender either detained or exiled.
We stand in solidarity with our colleagues and friends who are detained, harassed, and persecuted for their brave work. We regard their struggle with great concern and sorrow, and we are inspired by their commitment and resilience.
We urge the Belarusian authorities to stop the harassment and intimidation of critical voices, and to free all unjustly detained human rights defenders, journalists and activists.
We call on the international community to take a strong stance in support of the Belarusian human rights community, and to speak out for the release of all those who are still behind bars, and whose only crime is to demand a society based on justice instead of fear.
Signatories
1. Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran - Iran
2. ACAT Belgique - Belgium
3. ACAT Burundi - Burundi
4. ACAT España-Catalunya (Acción de los Cristianos para la Abolición de la Tortura) - Spain
5. ACAT Germany (Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture) - Germany
6. ACAT Italia - Italy
7. ACAT République Centrafricaine - Central African Republic
8. ACAT République Démocratique du Congo - Democratic Republic of Congo
9. ACAT Suisse - Switzerland
10. ACAT Tchad - Tchad
11. ACAT Togo - Togo
12. Action Against Violence and Exploitation (ACTVE) - Philippines
13. Action des Chrétiens Activistes des Droits de l’Homme à Shabunda (ACADHOSHA) - Democratic Republic of Congo
14. Advocacy Forum – Nepal - Nepal
15. Agir ensemble pour les droits humains - France
16. Albanian Human Rights Group
17. ALTSEAN-Burma - Myanmar
18. Anti Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) - Malaysia/Asia-Pacific
19. Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial - Belgium
20. ARTICLE 19
21. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights - Indonesia
22. Asia Pacific Solidarity Coalition (APSOC) - Philippines
23. Asociación para una Ciudadanía Participativa (ACI PARTICIPA) - Honduras
24. Asociación pro derechos humanos (Aprodeh) - Peru
25. Association Mauritanienne des droits de l'homme (AMDH-Mauritanieuri) - Mauritania
26. Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) - India
27. Association Tchadienne pour la promotion et la Défense des Droits de l'Homme (ATPDH) - Tchad
28. Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates - Tunisia
29. Avocats Sans Frontières France (ASF France) - France
30. Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) - India
31. Belarusian-Swiss Association RAZAM.CH - Switzerland
32. Bulgarian Helsinki Committee - Bulgaria
33. Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) - Cambodia
34. Capital Punishment Justice Project (CPJP) - Australia
35. Center for Civil Liberties - Ukraine
36. Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) - United States of America
37. Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR), University of York - United Kingdom
38. Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights (CDDHR) - Russia
39. Centro de Derechos humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas A.c. (Frayba) - Mexico
40. Centro de Derechos Humanos Paso del Norte - Mexico
41. Centro de Investigación y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (CIPRODEH) - Honduras
42. Centro de Prevención, Tratamiento y Rehabilitación de Victimas de la Tortura y sus familiares (CPTRT) - Honduras
43. Centro de Salud Mental y Derechos Humanos (CINTRAS) - Chile
44. Changement Social Bénin (CSB) - Benin
45. CIVICUS
46. Civil Rights Defenders (CRD) - Sweden
47. Comision Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH-RD) - Dominican Republic
48. Coalition Burkinabé des Défenseurs des Droits Humains (CBDDH) - Burkina Faso
49. Coalition Marocaine contre la Peine de Mort - Morocco
50. Coalition Tunisienne Contre la Peine de Mort - Tunisia
51. Collectif des Associations Contre l'Impunité au Togo (CACIT) - Togo
52. Comisión de derechos humanos – COMISEDH - Peru
53. Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (COFADEH) - Honduras
54. Comité de solidaridad con los presos políticos (FCSPP) - Colombia
55. Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) - Northern Ireland (UK)
56. Crude Accountability - United States of America
57. Czech League of Human Rights Czech Republic
58. Death Penalty Focus (DPF) - United States of America
59. Defenders of human rights centre - Iran
60. DEMAS - Association for Democracy Assistance and Human Rights - Czech Republic
61. DITSHWANELO - The Botswana Centre for Human Rights - Botswana
62. Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) - Belgium
63. Eleos Justice, Monash University - Australia
64. Enfants Solidaires d'Afrique et du Monde (ESAM) - Benin
65. Federal Association of Vietnam-Refugees in the Federal Republic of Germany - Germany
66. FIDU - Italian Federation for Human Rights - Italy
67. Finnish League for Human Rights - Finland
68. Free Press Unlimited - The Netherlands
69. Fundación Regional de Asesoría en Derechos Humanos (INREDH) - Ecuador
70. GABRIELA Alliance of Filipino Women - Philippines
71. German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (GCADP) - Germany
72. Greek Helsinki Monitor Greece
73. Helsinki Citizens' Assembly – Vanadzor - Armenia
74. Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights - Poland
75. Citizens' Watch Russia
76. Human Rights Alert - India
77. Human Rights Association (İHD) - Turkey
78. Human Rights Center (HRC) - Georgia
79. Human Rights Center (HRC) "Memorial" - Russia
80. Human Rights House Foundation
81. Human Rights in China (HRIC) - USA
82. Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI) - Lithuania
83. Human Rights Mouvement “Bir Duino-Kyrgyzstan” - Kyrgyzstan
84. Human Rights Organization of Nepal - Nepal
85. Humanist Union of Greece (HUG) - Greece
86. Hungarian Helsinki Committee - Hungary
87. IDP Women Association "Consent" - Georgia
88. Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) - Kenya
89. Instituto de Estudios Legales y Sociales del Uruguay (IELSUR) - Uruguay
90. International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) - Kenyan Section - Kenya
91. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) - France
92. International Legal Initiative - Kazakhstan
93. International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) - Belgium
94. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) - Switzerland
95. Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society - India
96. JANANEETHI - India
97. Justice for Iran (JFI) - United Kingdom
98. Justícia i Pau - Spain
99. Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law - Kazakhstan
100. Kharkiv Regional Foundation "Public Alternative" - Ukraine
101. La Strada International - The Netherlands
102. La Voix des Sans Voix pour les Droits de l'Homme (VSV) - Democratic Republic of Congo
103. Latvian Human Rights Committee (LHRC) - Latvia
104. Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights YUCOM - Serbia
105. League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) - Iran
106. Legal Policy Research Centre (LPRC) - Kazakhstan
107. Libereco Partnership of Human Rights - Germany/ Switzerland
108. LICADHO - Cambodia
109. Lifespark - Switzerland
110. Liga Portuguesa dos Direitos Humanos - Civitas (LPDHC) - Portugal
111. Liga voor de Rechten van de Mens (LvRM) (Dutch League for Human Rights) - The Netherlands
112. Ligue des droits de l'Homme (LDH) - France
113. Ligue Tchadienne des droits de l'Homme - Tchad
114. Maldivian Democracy Network (MDN) - Maldives
115. Martin Ennals Foundation - Switzerland
116. Minority Rights Group - Greece
117. Mouvance des Abolitionnistes du Congo Brazzaville - Congo Brazzaville
118. Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains (MIDH) - Côte d'Ivoire
119. Mouvement Lao pour les Droits de l'Homme - Laos
120. Movimento Nacional de Direitos Humanos (MNDH) - Brazil
121. Netherlands Helsinki Committee - The Netherlands
122. Norwegian Helsinki Committee - Norway
123. Observatoire du système pénal et des droits humains (OSPDH) - Spain
124. Observatoire Marocain des prisons - Morocco
125. Odhikar - Bangladesh
126. OPEN ASIA|Armanshahr - France
127. Organisation contre la torture en Tunisie (OCTT) - Tunisie
128. Organisation Guineenne de Defense des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen (OGDH) - Guinea
129. Österreichische Liga für Menschenrechte ÖLFMR - Austria
130. Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) - Palestine
131. Pax Christi Uvira - Democratic Republic of Congo
132. People's Watch India
133. Programa Venezolano de Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos (Provea) - Venezuela
134. Promo LEX Association - Republic of Moldova
135. Protection International (PI)
136. Public Association "Dignity" - Kazakhstan
137. Public Association Spravedlivost Human Rights Organization - Kyrgyzstan
138. Public Verdict Foundation - Russia
139. Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l'Homme RADDHO - Senegal
140. Repecap Academics - Spain
141. Réseau des Defenseurs des Droits Humains en Afrique Centrale (REDHAC) - Cameroon
142. Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH) - Haïti
143. Rights Realization Centre - UK
144. Rural People's Sangam - India
145. Salam for Democracy and Human Rights - UK, Lebanon, Bahrain
146. Social-Strategic Researches and Analytical Investigations Public Union (SSRAIPU) - Azerbaijan
147. SOHRAM-CASRA - Centre Action Sociale Réhabilitation et Réadaptation pour les Victimes de la Torture, de la guerre et de la violence - Turquie
148. SOS-Torture/Burundi - Burundi
149. SUARAM - Malaysia
150. Syndicat national des agents de la formation et de l'education du Niger (SYNAFEN NIGER) - Niger
151. Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) - Philippines
152. Thai Action Committee for Democaracy in Burma (TACDB) - Thailand
153. The Advocates for Human Rights - United States of America
154. The Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House (BHRH) - Lithuania
155. The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) - Indonesia
156. The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT)
157. Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights United States of America
158. Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) - France
159. World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP) - France
160. World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) - Switzerland
161. Xumek asociación para la promoción y protección de los derechos humanos - ArgentinaCivic space in Belarus is rated as Repressed by the CIVICUS Monitor
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GUATEMALA: ‘Disregard for the will of the people expressed at the ballot box is the greatest possible insult to democracy’
CIVICUS speaks with Jorge Santos, General Coordinator of the Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders Protection Unit (UDEFEGUA), about the imminent inauguration of a new president, which comes after 100 days of mobilisation to demand respect for the election results.
Founded in 2000, UDEFEGUA is a civil society organisation dedicated to documenting, verifying and recording attacks against human rights defenders in Guatemala.
What was the significance of the election of Bernardo Arévalo as president, and what’s the reason for the enormous resistance he has faced?
29 December 2023 marked 27 years since the signing of the peace accords that put an end to 36 years of internal armed conflict in Guatemala. That conflict claimed more than 200,000 direct victims and left deep scars on Guatemalan society. The peace accords established a structural transformation agenda to tackle the root causes of the conflict. Instead, the last three governments – and particularly that of current president Alejandro Giammattei – have done nothing but produce a severe authoritarian regression.
The presidential elections held in June and August 2023 were meant to consolidate this authoritarian regression and to finish burying the peace and democracy-building agenda.
More than 20 parties competed in the first round of the presidential election, most of them located on the right and far right and identified with the groups that have captured the state, closely linked to economic, political and military elites and organised crime.
The mere fact that the election took place was a milestone. That the winning candidate had clear democratic and progressive views made it all the more remarkable. Bernardo Arévalo’s victory represents society’s repudiation of the corrupt political elite. We were at a historic crossroads, between an authoritarian past and a possible future in which we could build a democratic state.
This explains the enormous resistance the president-elect has faced. Bernardo is the son of former president Juan José Arévalo, the first popularly elected president following the October 1944 revolution and the architect of what was called the democratic spring of those years. His legacy is still very much alive: it was then that the right to vote was extended to women, the labour code was passed and the Guatemalan Social Security Institute was established. In other words, it led to the transformation of the state.
It’s been 79 years that we have been dominated by particular groups interested in maintaining the privileges of a small segment of the population. They would obviously resist a government like Arévalo’s coming to power. However, although very powerful, these groups are in the minority and at last it seems that they are beginning to lose the privileges they have always enjoyed.
How has democracy in Guatemala been at risk?
Recent governments have completely bypassed legality. The outgoing government practically broke the rule of law. One indicator of this, which we have identified as part of the overall context of aggression against human rights defenders, is the violation of the republican principle of the separation of powers. The three branches of the Guatemalan state – executive, legislative and judicial – have been captured by mafia elites.
Repeated attempts to violate the popular will expressed at the ballot box only aggravated the situation. The Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office have pressured the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to reverse the election results, carrying out four illegal and arbitrary raids against the Tribunal.
It is important to note that national and international election observation missions, including from the Organization of American States and the European Union, corroborated the transparency of the process and stated that the allegations of fraud were unfounded.
Disregard for the will of the people expressed at the ballot box is the greatest possible insult to democracy. In the face of this, people have mobilised. Starting on 2 October, a national strike was called for an indefinite period of time to demand respect for the will of the people. 9 January marked the 100th day of peaceful resistance, led by Indigenous peoples, in defence of democracy.
What was new about these protests?
The protests called by the ancestral authorities of Indigenous peoples have been joined by numerous spontaneous expressions of citizen mobilisation. In the past, the urban and mestizo – mixed ancestry – middle classes opposed mobilisation by Indigenous peoples. This time, however, the protests led by Indigenous peoples have been supported and legitimised by broad segments of society. This broke with a long tradition of prejudice and racial discrimination by urban and mestizo society towards Indigenous peoples, and resulted in massive and widespread demonstrations throughout the country.
The protests succeeded in bringing together the 23 peoples that make up Guatemala. Broad segments of society carried out road blockades at the country’s main transit points. Passage of vehicles transporting food or providing medical services was not obstructed, as protesters cleared the way for them.
The blockades were an unprecedented demonstration of citizen joy. People rediscovered and recovered public spaces, danced on blocked streets and organised football games, yoga and chess classes on occupied spaces.
A key characteristic of the protests was their peaceful character. In the face of provocations by external forces and the national police, people responded with non-violent actions. For 100 days they held a rally in front of the headquarters of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The protesters did not leave their place and continued to demand the resignation of the attorney general, Consuelo Porras Argueta, for her repeated attempts to annul Bernardo Arévalo’s presidential victory.
What should be the new government’s priorities?
The Seed Movement – Arévalo’s party – faces important challenges. Although it will control the executive branch, the legislative branch remains highly captured by mafias. Out of 160 parliamentarians, around 130 belong to groups that make up what is popularly known in Guatemala as the ‘corrupt pact‘. The same is true of the justice system.
Bernardo Arévalo faces the enormous challenge of rebuilding public institutions. Corruption and impunity have reached such levels that services as essential as obtaining an identity card have become an ordeal. Infrastructure must be rebuilt so that people can access essential services such as health and education free of charge. The long list of human rights violations experienced by the Guatemalan people must stop.
Another major challenge is to generate a systematic and permanent process of dialogue with civil society. In particular, Indigenous peoples, historically excluded, their rights violated by the Guatemalan state, must be recognised as key political subjects.
The government of the Seed Movement will have only four years to address these challenges. We hope that its mandate will be part of a transition that will usher in a long period of governments that respond to the interests of the majority of the population.
What improvements in the situation of human rights defenders can be expected following the change of government?
In 2014, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in the case Human Rights Defender against the State of Guatemala, initiated following the murder of a human rights defender in 2004. Our request to the Court was to include as a reparation measure the introduction of a public policy for the protection of human rights defenders. The Court accepted this request and included it in its ruling, imposing five parameters for the design of such a policy.
But efforts to develop this policy were truncated and there is only a draft document to date. It will therefore be a key responsibility of the new government to complete this process and commit itself to approving the policy and providing the resources required for its implementation.
Another of its responsibilities in this area will be to push forward a legislative agenda to dismantle all the criminalising legislation passed in recent years. This process must go hand in hand with an activation of the institutions in charge of ensuring the state’s compliance with its human rights obligations.
How can the international community support the strengthening of democracy in Guatemala?
The risk of a break with the constitution remains. The new government will have to confront one of the continent’s most conservative and backward oligarchies, responsible for the crime of genocide. Stripping these groups of their privileges will be no easy task.
Continued support and vigilance by the international community will be extremely necessary. Crucial forms of support would include the sharing of information and best practices, denouncing of human rights violations and provision of technical assistance.
On 14 January, the date of the presidential inauguration, a period of democratic transition begins that promises to leave corruption and lawlessness behind. Both the new government and Guatemalan civil society will need all the support they can get in order to achieve this.
Civic space in Guatemala is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with UDEFEGUA through itswebsite or itsFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@UDEFEGUA and@JorgeASantos197 on Twitter.
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Guinea placed on human rights watchlist ahead of referendum
- Guinea placed on CIVICUS Monitor watchlist ahead of referendum
- Escalating rights violations include use of excessive force on protesters
- CIVICUS calls for release of human rights defenders and urges President Condé to step down
Guinea has been placed on the CIVICUS Monitor human rights watchlist ahead of the proposed referendum on 22nd March. This list draws attention to countries where there has been a rapid decline in civic and democratic freedoms in recent months.
Guinea was placed on the Monitor’s watchlist in October after deadly crackdowns and arbitrary arrests of protesters. It remains on the watchlist because the CIVICUS Monitor is concerned that if the government pushes ahead with the controversial referendum later this week, then further violence and unrest will follow.
Guinea is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor, which is the third worst rating a country can receive by the global index, in the same category as Mali, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In obstructed countries, civic space is often monopolised by those in power and excessive force is commonly used by law enforcement agencies.
Since October 2019, more than 30 people have been killed and dozens injured in widespread protests that have engulfed Guinea, as protesters call on the government to respect the provisions of the current constitution. The current constitution limits presidential tenures to two five-year terms and can only be changed via a referendum. If changed, it could pave the way for President Alpha Condé to remain in power.
Le Front national de la défense de la Constitution, or the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), a movement composed of civil society and the political opposition, have been leading calls against a potential third term bid for President Condé.
The leaders of the FNDC, human rights defenders Ibrahima Diallo and Sekou Koundouno, were arrested by masked men from the BRI (Investigation and Intervention Brigade) on 6 March and taken to an unknown destination. They were arrested immediately after expressing concerns over the ongoing arbitrary arrests of activists during a press conference. On 12th March they were released on bail and placed under judicial control.
In October 2019 thirteen FNDC leaders were arrested ahead of planned protests in Conakry and accused of organizing banned protests and inciting civil disobedience. Five of them were sentenced to jail terms ranging from six months to one year. Journalists have also been physically assaulted for covering the protests and their equipment seized to prevent them from broadcasting images of the protests.
The arrest and detention of human rights defenders highlights how the Guinean authorities are trying to silence pro-democracy voices and pave the way for President Condé to extend his term in office:
“By arresting human rights defenders, the Guinean authorities aim to silence the voices of those who are against a new constitution. It is time for President Condé and his administration to respect the wishes of Guinean people and allow a political transition which will usher in a new era in Guinea’s nascent democracy,” said David Kode, head of advocacy and campaigns at CIVICUS.
CIVICUS calls on the government of Guinea to immediately release all human rights defenders in detention.
CIVICUS also calls on the African Union to ensure that the government of Guinea respects provisions of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance: it urges President Condé to respect the current constitution and step aside when his mandate ends to allow for a peaceful political transition.
ENDS
Contact:
Nina Teggarty, CIVICUS Communications Officer, Campaigns & Advocacy
Phone: +27 (0)785013500
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Guinée : CIVICUS appelle à la libération des défenseurs des droits humains et place la Guinée sur la liste de surveillance des droits humains
- L'alliance mondiale de la société civile CIVICUS demande la libération des défenseurs des droits humains Ibrahima Diallo et Sekou Koundouno.
- La Guinée placée sur la liste de surveillance de CIVICUS Monitor à l'approche du référendum
- Appel au retrait du président Condé à la fin de son mandat présidentiel
CIVICUS, l'alliance mondiale des organisations de la société civile, appelle le gouvernement de Guinée à libérer les défenseurs des droits humains Ibrahima Diallo et Sekou Koundouno.
Les deux défenseurs des droits humains ont été arrêtés le 6 mars par des hommes masqués de la BRI (Brigade d'Investigation et d'Intervention) et emmenés vers une destination inconnue. Ils ont été arrêtés immédiatement après avoir exprimé leurs préoccupations concernant les arrestations arbitraires en cours de militants lors d'une conférence de presse.
Diallo et Koundouno sont les dirigeants du Front national de la défense de la Constitution, ou FNDC (National Front for the Defence of the Constitution), un mouvement composé de la société civile et de l'opposition politique. Ils ont mené des appels contre une éventuelle candidature pour un troisième mandat du président Condé.
L'arrestation et la détention de défenseurs des droits de l'homme mettent en évidence la manière dont les autorités guinéennes tentent de faire taire les voix pro-démocratiques et d'ouvrir la voie à la prolongation du mandat du président Condé.
Plus de 30 personnes ont été tuées et des dizaines d'autres blessées depuis que des manifestationsde grande ampleur contre une nouvelle constitution ont englouti la Guinée en octobre 2019. Les manifestants ont appelé le gouvernement à respecter les dispositions de la constitution actuelle qui prévoit que le mandat présidentiel ne peut excéder deux mandats de cinq ans.
En octobre 2019, treize dirigeants du FNDC ont été arrêtés avant les manifestations prévues à Conakry et accusés d'avoir organisé des manifestations interdites et d'avoir incité à la désobéissance civile. Cinq d'entre eux ont été condamnés à des peines de prison allant de six mois à un an. Des journalistes ont également été agressés physiquement pour avoir couvert les manifestations et leur matériel a été saisi pour les empêcher de diffuser des images des manifestations.
"En arrêtant Ibrahima Diallo et Sekou Koundouno ainsi que d'autres défenseurs des droits de l'homme, les autorités guinéennes visent à faire taire les voix de ceux qui sont contre une nouvelle constitution. Il est temps que le président Condé et son administration respectent la volonté du peuple guinéen et permettent une transition politique qui ouvrira une nouvelle ère dans la démocratie naissante de la Guinée", a déclaré David Kode, responsable du plaidoyer et des campagnes à CIVICUS.
Pour contourner la constitution actuelle et ouvrir la voie à un troisième mandat, le président Condé a déclaré qu'il pourrait entamer le processus de modificationde la constitution par le biais d'un référendum.
Le référendum a été reporté pour la deuxième fois le 11 mars 2020 et une nouvelle date n'a pas été fixée. Cependant, le CIVICUS Monitor a ajouté la Guinée à sa liste de surveillance car si le gouvernement poursuit ce vote controversé, de nouvelles violences et de nouveaux troubles sont à prévoir.
La Guinée est classée dans la catégorie "Obstruée" par le CIVICUS Monitor. Dans les pays "obstrués", l'espace civique est monopolisé par ceux qui sont au pouvoir et la force excessive est couramment utilisée par les forces de l'ordre.
CIVICUS demande à l'Union africaine de veiller à ce que le gouvernement de Guinée respecte les dispositions de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance : elle exhorte le président Condé à respecter la constitution actuelle et à se retirer à la fin de son mandat pour permettre une transition politique pacifique.
CIVICUS appelle également le gouvernement guinéen à libérer immédiatement Ibrahima Diallo et Sekou Koundouno, ainsi que tous les défenseurs des droits de l'homme en détention.
FIN
Contact:
Nina Teggarty, Responsable de la communication, des campagnes et du plaidoyer chez CIVICUS
Téléphone: +27 (0)785013500
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HONDURAS: ‘Human rights should be more than just talk. They should be reflected in practice’
CIVICUS speaks with Christopher Castillo, General Coordinator of Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication of Honduras (Alternativa de Reivindicación Comunitaria y Ambientalista de Honduras, ARCAH), about progress made and pending issues after two years of Xiomara Castro’s presidency.
ARCAH is a community social movement that defends territories and common goods against projects that threatens peace and the wellbeing of communities, from an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonialist and anti-classist perspective.
To what extent has Xiomara Castro’s government, as it nears its second anniversary, lived up to expectations?
The greatest expectation of Hondurans was to put an end to an authoritarian government. The key focus of Castro’s campaign was therefore to dismantle the authoritarian state and a series of associated issues, particularly corruption, influence peddling and the capture of institutions by drug traffickers and organised crime. That goal has been partly achieved: we seem to no longer live under arbitrary power, although we continue to coexist with deep-rooted corruption and high levels of crime, insecurity and violence.
Another issue of great concern to grassroots activists are what are called ZEDEs – employment and economic development zones. In April 2022, when reporting on her first 100 days in office, President Castro proudly declared that national sovereignty was being restored, emphasising that her government had repealed the law that established these areas and provided special conditions to attract investment. However, her repeal decree had not yet been ratified by Congress. The removal of conditions for the continuation of extractive processes was still pending, and to a large extent this has remained unchanged.
The new government also promised to halt water privatisation. However, so far there are 81 Honduran municipalities where water has been privatised, and the government has continued to strengthen service providers that take the function away from public companies, particularly in Comayagüela and Tegucigalpa, the two cities that make up the Central District.
In sum, citizens’ expectations have been met in terms of overcoming the more authoritarian and repressive features of the state, but not regarding extractivist and privatisation policies, which have not yet seen significant changes.
Has the situation of human rights defenders improved?
To the extent that their struggles are linked to resistance against extractivism and privatisation, the situation of human rights defenders has not improved. We have experienced reprisals for our work, which have included death threats, kidnapping attempts and criminalisation processes. In 2023, ARCAH counted 125 attacks against the organisation and its members. In August, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures in favour of 11 ARCAH members, but more than five months have passed and the government has yet to implement anything in response to these precautionary measures.
Many activists seeking assistance from state protection mechanisms are being ignored or have their petitions systematically obstructed, even when they provide evidence that they are experiencing attacks and their lives are in danger.
According to the latest report by the Human Rights Secretariat, 54 cases are currently being processed, more than 100 are in the queue and only eight have measures in place. The excuse given to justify this poor performance is its limited budget, which currently stands at 32 million lempiras (approx. US$1.3 million). There are government officials who have larger budgets for foreign travel and business. Human rights should be more than just talk. They should be reflected in practice.
What’s the current state of public opinion?
A survey published by the Jesuit Reflection, Research and Communication Team (ERIC-SJ) in early 2023 showed that after one year in office Castro’s popularity had dropped by 20 percentage points. It also showed that for the majority of Hondurans the most urgent issues to tackle were the economic crisis and unemployment. Honduras is the second-poorest country in Latin America, despite a six per cent growth rate, one of the region’s highest.
According to the ERIC-SJ survey, the third most important problem, close behind economic issues, was crime and insecurity. A very large majority also perceived that murders had increased. Regarding corruption and justice delivery, however, the majority thought the situation had remained unchanged, although the new International Mission against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras received high levels of support.
What should Castro’s priorities be for the second half of her term?
The main public policy priorities in Honduras continue to be education, health and the environment – in addition to the situation of excluded groups, including Indigenous peoples, women, LGBTQI+ people and peasants. Much of this exclusion is linked to the problem of extractivism, which accounts for high levels of violence against environmental activists, and almost total impunity for these attacks.
The situation of education and its link to employment is dramatic. Many people no longer want to send their children to school, because even if they graduate they still can’t get a job. It’s more profitable to bring them into the informal market to work as vendors. This has resulted in increasing numbers of school dropouts.
Change in this area must focus not only on increasing school enrolment and retention but also on providing quality education. Public education must be made attractive again to the middle and upper-middle classes to reverse the privatisation and segmentation of education.
The issue of health goes beyond hospital services to include the quality of food and consumption habits. Honduras has very high levels of malnutrition not just because of limited access to food but also because the quality of food has decreased. This is partly due to the fact that the best-quality products, such as bananas, are destined for export, and only the worst-quality products are left for domestic consumption.
Finally, the issue of extractivism should be prioritised. Announcements made about this have not yet been fulfilled. For instance, the Ministry of the Environment has issued statements on the prohibition of open-pit mining but no decree has been issued to formally prohibit this practice and the 20 existing concessions continue to operate.
There are 2,100 extractive projects underway in Honduras, of which 300 are hydroelectric dams and 900 are mining projects. Overall, 33 per cent of national territory has been handed over in concessions to transnational corporations that are developing extractive projects. ZEDEs, meanwhile, occupy 67 per cent of national territory, including all of the coast.
In 2023, 12 human rights defenders were killed. Last year Honduras was the country with the most murders of environmental activists per capita in the world, and the fourth in absolute terms. This problem has not abated with the change of government. It should be a priority to tackle this continuing violence and impunity.
Civic space in Honduras is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with ARCAH through itsFacebook account and follow@Arcah_hn on Twitter.
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HONDURAS: ‘We must address the roots of the conflict: the handing over of natural resources’
CIVICUS speaks about the criminalisation of environmental, land and territorial defenders in Honduras with Edy Tábora, director of the law firm Justicia para los Pueblos (Justice for the Peoples) and coordinator of the group of defence lawyers of eight defenders of the Guapinol river who were recently released from detention.
Why were the Guapinol defenders criminalised?
The case of the eight Guapinol comrades deprived of their freedom is one of the most revealing expressions of the conflicts around mining and energy and the dispossession of land and natural resources in Honduras. Along with that of Berta Cáceres, the Guapinol case is one of the most significant ones.
Berta’s case, which culminated in her assassination, was the first in a new wave of criminalisation surrounding dispossession projects following the 2009 military coup. Her case displayed all the typical elements: stigmatisation, surveillance, rupture of the social fabric, criminalisation. The same pattern can be seen in many parts of Honduras.
After the coup, there was a privately conducted exploration of mineral deposits and businesspeople realised there was a lot of money to be made here. In the case of Guapinol, the process kicked off with the granting of an iron oxide mining concession – one of the largest in the country – to Los Pinares, a holding company registered in Panama, owned by an extremely wealthy Honduran family. Its mining business was developed jointly with the US company Nucor.
Nucor claims to have withdrawn from the project in late 2019 due to the conflict triggered by the criminalisation of the Guapinol defenders, but there is no evidence of this and we do not believe it to be true. Los Pinares is simply the mining arm of a company whose power comes from airport concessions at home and abroad. It is a company with high-level political connections, and with so much power that in 2013 it succeeded in getting the National Congress to change the delimitation of the core zone of a national park.
On 22 April 2013, the day before a new mining law came into force, applications were submitted for the two mining concessions related to the Guapinol case, both located in the core zone of the Montaña de Botaderos National Park. This had been declared a national park in 2012, as part of a ‘friendly settlement’ with the relatives of Carlos Escaleras, a social leader and environmental defender active in the 1980s and 1990s, who was assassinated for defending this mountain. The statute of the national park, which bears the name of Carlos Escaleras, prohibited the granting of mining concessions in its core zone and even its buffer zone.
However, in 2014, engineers began to arrive on the mountain to collect information and check how deep down metal was deposited. People noticed this, began to demand an explanation and organised in the Municipal Committee of Public and Common Goods of Tocoa.
In June 2016 they began to file complaints; some were filed by the Guapinol defenders who ended up in prison. They requested information from the institutions in charge of granting mining permits but only obtained some information in November 2019, after three years of back and forth. Tired of not getting answers, in June 2018 people started protesting at the Municipality of Tocoa Colón. It was then that systematic surveillance by the national police and Los Pinares security began.
In August 2018, the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise held press conferences in which it complained to the government about an alleged loss of 20 billion dollars caused by ‘vandals’ protesting in various parts of Honduras.
Criminalisation was a nationwide strategy, but the criminalisation of the Guapinol comrades was the most serious case. On 8 September 2018, the Public Prosecutor’s Office presented the first accusation against 18 comrades for the crimes of usurpation, damage and usurpation of public space. Los Pinares appeared in the hearings as the accuser. Fourteen comrades were put on trial and all their cases were closed, but the fact that they were accused enabled the illegal eviction, in October 2018, of the Camp for Water and Life, one of many set up around Honduras. This was one of four charges brought by the Public Prosecutor’s Office as part of the strategy to criminalise resistance movements against mining and energy projects.
In January 2019, in response to a complaint filed by Los Pinares, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed another indictment against 32 people, including eight Guapinol comrades. The nature of the charges changed: it was no longer about usurpation of public space but about organised crime. Human rights defenders were now treated as taking part in organised crime, with charges including criminal association, theft, damage, unjust deprivation of liberty and aggravated arson. The case was assigned to the Specialised Court for Organised Crime, which meant it was transferred from local to national jurisdiction, in violation of the right to be tried by one’s natural judge.
Of the 32, a first group voluntarily submitted to trial in February 2019 and was kept in prison for only 10 days before the accusations against them were dismissed. The Guapinol eight, however, despite having voluntarily submitted to trial, were subjected to arbitrary detention from 26 August 2019 until 24 February 2022, when they finally regained their freedom.
What did civil society do to secure their release?
During the pandemic, Guapinol was one of the most high-profile cases globally. Not even the pandemic could stop our comrades’ defence. We quickly moved our activities online, and by late April 2020 we were already filing habeas corpus writs for our comrades’ right to health, alongside international organisations. Even under these conditions, we managed to set up discussions with important organisations, and three months after the pandemic began, we restarted our advocacy work, which meant that by the time the trial started, the case had become very well known around the world.
Initially the case was promoted by the Coalition Against Impunity, which brings together more than 50 Honduran civil society organisations (CSOs). Later, many CSOs joined a kind of international support group for the case.
First, we publicly denounced the violence and criminalisation against the Municipal Committee. Second, before our comrades were imprisoned, we documented the irregular granting of concessions for natural resources. Third, alongside several Honduran CSOs, we organised our comrades’ legal defence. A working group was then organised including national and international CSOs to support the defence. A lot of advocacy work was done, both nationally and internationally, to convince the public that this was a very important case and to counter the company’s account of the violence allegedly committed by our comrades.
Documentary and testimonial work was crucial to expose our comrades’ real activism. We had many meetings with international CSOs. Canadian, US and European organisations and academics reported on the concession and the legal process. International CSOs filed amicus curiae – friend of the court – briefs with Honduran courts. We participated in multiple forums with national and international organisations.
Many actions converged to create a powerful wave of demands for our comrades’ release. CIVICUS’s and Amnesty International’s campaigns, for example, allowed us to reach wider audiences. When the trial came, the case was widely known, and less than 24 hours after the end of the trial, in which our comrades were convicted with two thirds of the court’s votes, the Supreme Court of Justice annulled the whole process and ordered them to be released.
This was an unprecedented decision, surely motivated by the strength of the demand for their freedom and by the evidence presented, both in and out of court, which demonstrated that our comrades were innocent and that they fight for a just cause that is of great interest to humanity.
Are there other cases like the Guapinol case in Honduras?
There are many defenders criminalised for defending land, including some from the Garífuna people, a marginalised minority, but they are not in prison. Many comrades were also imprisoned for defending democracy in the aftermath of 2017’s electoral fraud: around 30 people were imprisoned in maximum security prisons, but they are currently free. Most pending cases are being closed as a result of an amnesty issued by the National Congress in February 2022.
In that sense, the Guapinol case was an exception, because this amnesty did not apply to them. What’s important about this case is that we managed to close the process by defending ourselves even with the highly questionable tools offered by the Honduran judicial system.
However, there were other cases at the same time as Guapinol, such as that of the Indigenous comrades of the Lenca people in the department of La Paz, who were accused of forced displacement. They were imprisoned for more than a year for a crime that is the craziest thing I have ever heard: they were accused of displacing landowners. The Public Prosecutor’s narrative uses the made-up concept of ‘reverse racism’, according to which Indigenous peoples can also commit discrimination against minorities within their communities – the minority in this case being the landowners.
Do you view Guapinol as part of a pattern of criminalisation against environmental defenders?
We have detected patterns of criminalisation by sector in the cases we have monitored. For example, between 2011 and 2016 one of the most criminalised sectors was the student movement mobilised in defence of public education. Some 350 students, mostly university students, were criminalised.
In the case of environmental defenders, we were able to document several patterns of criminalisation. Again and again, prosecutions were initiated only a few days after pronouncements by companies or employers’ organisations. The behaviour of the police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office has also been similar in all cases, with an initial focus on eviction and accusations changing over time following the same pattern. The narrative peddled by companies is always the same as well, often because they share the same lawyers.
Criminalisation follows different patterns depending on the interests affected. The crimes people are accused of when challenging mining interests differ from those used to dispossess communities of land for the construction of tourism megaprojects or the plantation of African palm in the Atlantic zone, and from those used against peasants claiming access to land and crops.
However, all the groups criminalised over the past 15 years have something in common: their resistance to the project, promoted since the 2000s, of handing over natural resources to private companies. Land grabbing was politically supported the state following the coup: from that moment on, national regulations were made more flexible to facilitate dispossession and the national police and the security forces of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary were placed at the service of the private sector, which used them to criminalise land rights defenders.
Has there been any improvement in the situation of environmental defenders since the new government came to power in January 2022?
The new government brought several positive changes. First, while we had already achieved the closure of several emblematic cases, it decreed an amnesty that resulted in the closure of most legal proceedings against defenders, although there are still some cases pending.
Second, the new government has put an end to the state’s stigmatisation of land struggles, which used to make use of information obtained by state security forces. And third, for the time being the government has not tackled conflicts with violence. People who protest are not being repressed.
In recent years state violence was deployed to manage social protest, private violence was reflected in the assassination of defenders, and hybrid violence was seen in the area of surveillance. Over the four years of the current government we may no longer witness violent management of social protests, but there is a chance that state violence will be replaced by private corporate violence.
What are the challenges ahead?
The challenge right now is to address the causes of criminalisation. We have worked to defend and support our comrades criminalised by the state and private companies, but we have never been able to address what’s at the root of the conflict: the handing over of natural resources. Preventing the criminalisation of defenders is a big step, but we must address the issue of concessions, which in fact continue. Approved projects are waiting to be implemented. If we don’t seize the moment to address this problem, then when the government’s political colour changes, private companies will come back stronger and criminalisation will intensify.
Moreover, social movements are worn out after 12 years of resistance against the handing over of natural resources. There must be accountability, reparations for victims and guarantees of legal security for defenders to be able to do their work. The hostile legal framework for exercising rights and defending human rights that has been established in recent decades must be reversed.
Civic space in Honduras is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Learn more about the Guapinol case on itswebsite and follow@Edy_Tabora on Twitter.