Issue Fourteen: April 4, 2008
After more than five years as Director of the Human Rights Defenders Program I am handing over my duties to my colleague, Matt Easton. Matt has been a Senior Associate with Human Rights First since September 2004 and in that time he has spearheaded our work on behalf of human rights defenders in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia and Thailand. I am delighted to be able to leave the program in such capable hands.
I am proud that after small beginnings, the program has grown to be one of the most visible and effective anywhere working to support independent, non-violent human rights activists around the world. Our appeals sent out through the Defender Alert Network (DAN) now reach over 10,000 people. With the help of participants in DAN appeals we have been able to contribute to assisting scores of human rights defenders in measurable ways: in some cases, our intervention has contributed to activists being released from detention; in others, we have helped to persuade governments to grant activists the protective measures they need in order to work in high risk locations; elsewhere, pressure we have mobilized has helped to move forward investigations into attacks against human rights activists.
I will be staying with Human Rights First as International Policy Advisor. In this new position, I will remain involved in some aspects of work in the HRD program, while also contributing to our expanding work in other international program areas through our Crimes against Humanity and Fighting Discrimination programs.
It has been my privilege to have been involved in the development of our work on behalf of human rights defenders, and I thank you for your support and interest throughout that time.
Best Wishes,
Neil Hicks
Director of the Human Rights Defenders Program
Director Detained while Attending Human Rights Conference in Russia
On October 6, 2007, Russian authorities in the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod disrupted a planned international conference to commemorate the first anniversary of the unresolved murder of the journalist and human rights defender, Anna Politkovskaya. Human Rights First Defenders Program Director Neil Hicks was among five representatives of international human rights organizations detained by immigration police.
Read Neil Hicks' blog>>
Read HRF Press Release>>
Advocacy in Colombia Follows New Report on Legal Attacks on Defenders
In September 2007, Human Rights First published Colombia's Human Rights Defenders in Danger: Case Studies of Unfounded Criminal Investigations. The report documents the use of trumped-up criminal charges and arbitrary detention to discredit and endanger Colombian defenders. Human Rights First's Andrew Hudson and Mike McClintock went to Colombia in November to urge senior government officials to implement the recommendations contained in the report. The report was well-received and the President of the Supreme Court promised to advocate for the recommendations. Human Rights First also identified scores of new cases of defenders subject to specious criminal charges and will publish a new report on the issue in 2008. See Andrew Hudson explain the issue on a Colombian television news program (in Spanish).
Trial observation and government meetings in Thailand
In October, Human Rights First's Matt Easton traveled to Thailand, where he attended a rare habeas corpus hearing for young men detained in the southern provinces and held without charge in army-run "vocational training" camps. He also attended an inquest into the deaths in custody of 78 people at Tak Bai in 2004. Matt met with human rights defenders in Bangkok and southern Thailand, and conveyed concerns about Somchai Neelaphaijit's disappearance and other important defender cases to officials from the Ministry of Justice. See HRF press release on the training camps.
Human Rights First Hosts Women Human Rights Defender Event at the U.N.
On October 24, 2007, Human Rights First hosted a panel of experts at the United Nations entitled "Challenges faced by Women Human Rights Defenders: Showcasing the UN Special Representative on human rights defenders." The panel included senior government representatives from Norway, Brazil, Indonesia and Nigeria. The panel discussed the ongoing challenges faced by women human rights defenders and highlighted the importance of the UN mandate on human rights defenders. The event also introduced Claiming Rights, Claiming Justice: A Guidebook on Women Human Rights Defenders, a toolkit to assist and support activists in the field.
Human Rights First Hosts Conference on Twentieth Anniversary of Coup in Tunisia
To mark the 20th anniversary of the bloodless coup in which Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali took power, Human Rights First co-hosted a conference entitled "Tunisia: A Model of Middle East Stability or an Incubator of Extremism?" on November 12. Although Tunisia was once one of the most open societies in the region, its government now uses torture, trumped-up legal charges, and other forms of repression to silence civil society, as Human Rights First has described here. Conference panelists discussed the challenges of promoting rights in a repressive context, emphasizing that the absence of basic freedoms risked fostering extremism.
Human Rights First and our co-sponsors hosted six prominent Tunisian defenders for the conference and subsequent meetings: Khadija Cherif, Radhia Nassraaoui, Moncef Marzouki, Omar Mestiri, Naziha Rjiba, and Mokhtar Trifi. The Tunisian government barred two other defenders-Mohamed Abbou and Ahmed Rahmouni-from traveling to the U.S., a common occurrence. The event was cosponsored by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International-USA, IFEX-Tunisia Monitoring Group, the International Federation for Human Rights, and the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center.
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COLOMBIA:
* In August 2007, Human Rights First wrote to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urging her to press Colombian government officials to recognize the importance of human rights defenders. After she met with Colombian government officials and made this point, the Colombian Vice-President made strong public comments recognizing the valuable contribution that defenders make to the attainment of human rights in Colombia.
* After our annual human rights defenders policy forum in September, Human Rights First organized meetings in Washington for Colombian defender Berenice Celeyta. Representative Engel, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, later wrote a strong letter to the Colombian attorney-general asking him to finally charge those responsible for Operation Dragon, a 2003 government plot to kill Colombian defenders including Celeyta. Senator Kennedy presented a letter from HRF to the Colombian Ambassador about Operation Dragon and the Colombian vice-president subsequently agreed to meet with Berenice.
* Thanks to the over 1,000 of you who took action on our alert about Colombian lawyer Jose Humberto Torres, the Colombian government has now provided him with the security protective measures we requested. Human Rights First also encouraged many other organizations in the U.S. and Europe to take action on the case and encouraged the U.S. government to discuss the case with the Colombian Interior Ministry.
GUATEMALA:
In September 2007, UN Secretary-General appointed Spanish prosecutor Carlos Castresana to head the innovative International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Human Rights First has long advocated for the creation of CICIG and is now working to influence the commission's priorities. Human Rights First wrote to Dr. Castresana analyzing the key challenges facing CICIG. In December, Andrew Hudson was invited to Guatemala by a coalition of human rights organizations to deliver a key-note speech at the first international conference on CICIG in Guatemala. Read his speech in Spanish, where he discusses the importance of human rights defenders in CICIG's work. Watch and listen to Andrew Hudson discuss the importance of CICIG on Guatemalan television and radio.
INDONESIA:
In the Munir case, two airline officials are now on trial for their role in creating questionable documents that may have been used in the murder. (Human Rights First attended a December session of one of these trials at the Central Jakarta District Court.) A decision is also expected soon from the Supreme Court that might overturn its own 2006 decision to free Pollycarpus, the only person ever convicted in the case. We hope that these court decisions will be followed by a full investigation of the former intelligence officials linked to the crime through phone records and courtroom testimony. Munir died on September 7, 2004, on a flight to the Netherlands after being poisoned with arsenic; more information on the case is here.
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