The Norwegian government is making a booklet to its embassies on how to support and protect human rights defenders internationally. The Human Rights House Foundation welcomes the initiative, and asks its government to ensure adequate reporting and transparency. (26-OCT-05)

At a human rights defenders conference hosted by Front Line in Dublin earlier this month, Marit Gjelten from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that her government were in the process of developing a booklet on how to support and protect human rights defenders internationally. The booklet is to be ready by the end of the year. It is inspired by the EU Guidelines from June 2004 on how to support and protect human rights defenders.

– We welcome this initiative from our government. An alarming number of human rights defenders are harassed and even killed, and this has escalated after September 11th 2001. It is important that governments adopt comprehensive policies to help prevent this, says Borghild T?sen-Krokan, Project Manager at the Human Rights House Foundation (HRH).

Since 2004, HRH has urged the Norwegian government to develop a policy similar to the EU. It also asked governments to offer immediate protection to human rights defenders at grave risk. Such protection could be in the form of emergency (temporary) visas or by providing sanctuaries, for example within embassies. In a statement adopted by the Human Rights House Network in October last year, a number of recommendations were made to governments worldwide, including the Norwegian. At that time, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed that it preferred quiet diplomacy. In May 2005 however, Vidar Helgesen from the Ministry announced that the Norwegian government would adopt a more “systematic approach”.

– We look forward to studying the Norwegian booklet. It is important that it is implemented  efficiently by Norwegian embassies abroad, and that the Ministry allows NGOs to evaluate this, T?sen-Krokan continues.

Norway played a key role in the drafting and lobbying of the 1998 UN Declaration on human rights defenders, and in supporting the mandate of UN Special Representative on human rights defenders, Ms Hina Jilani and its extension until 2006. Norway will continue to sponsor the UN resolution on human rights defenders when the UN Human Rights Commission convenes in March/April 2006, and is prepared for a tough battle.

The enforcement of security legislation and special measures for countering terrorism have in many places served to deteriorate the security and working conditions of human rights defenders. Playing an important role in monitoring the use of such legislation, human rights defenders have been targeted as a result. Under the pretext of national security, activities protected by the UN Declaration have been criminalized.