– Human rights defenders working on the front line are the ones who bring about change. It is our job to try to keep them alive and contribute to creating the space for them to be able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear of persecution, said Mary Lawlor from Front Line at HRH´s Anniversary conference ´Activists under Attack. Defending the Right to be a Human Rights Defender. Frontline provides practical assistance to defenders at risk. (22-OCT-04)

Mary_Lawlor_01_400px.jpgRead the speech below

I am delighted to be here with you today and very disappointed I missed yesterday – I am sure I would have learned something that would have enabled us to do our work for human rights defenders at risk more effectively.  I am very grateful to the Human Rights House Foundation for organising this conference on human rights defenders and I hope we in Front Line can build on this and co-operate with you in the future.
In each of you there is the spirit of unspoken personal commitment.  That is what drives you on and it is what drives my comrades in Front Line on as they enter the lives of  Human Rights Defenders  (hrds) at risk whose awesome courage stuns  us all.
At the heart of the work of Front Line is the spirit of those we work for and our accountability to them. The spirit of those like Aloysius Toe from Liberia.
Aloysius  was arrested after he emerged from almost a week in hiding because his wife  Vivian had been detained.  He was charged with trumped up treason charges and imprisoned for 8 months pending trial. On 22nd June 2003 when the rebels attacked Monrovia Aloysius escaped from the prison and went into hiding. This is when Front Line became involved , working through an intermediary to try to  get Aloysius out of the country.  As he was on a black list the airport was out. We got money to a bank in Monrovia, who opened up specially to allow his intermediary collect the funds.   We made direct contact with the American Embassy to try to get them and take him in to their compound without success. We contacted the Robert F Kennedy Centre to see if they could do anything and shared information with the researcher on Liberia from Amnesty Int. We asked the officials in the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to put pressure on the Americans – they refused.  I then spoke to Minister for Human Rights Tom Kitt who was willing to help but it was a Friday 4th July so all American Embassies were shut.  By Monday Aloysius had fled.  He hid on the beach under fishing nets and finally made his way on a tiny fishing canoe  which arrived 4 days later  in the Ivory Coast after a treacherous voyage. There he got a lorry overland to Ghana . We gave Aloysius a direct contact no for the office of the Minister, if there was an emergency en route.  We gave his wife emergency money for mattresses and food to tide her and the children over.  We organised for him to come to Ireland to speak at our conference in September.   With the fall of Charles Taylor, he returned immediately after the conference to Liberia to continue his work as a human rights defender.  To help him on his way, we provided a laptop as his office had been looted and introduced him to possible funders in Ireland and the Irish peacekeepers in Monrovia. We stayed in contact and arranged for him to be interviewed when a documentary was being made a few months ago.

The lesson we learned was
· there´s a way round everything

· Go first to the officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs .  Ýf they are reluctant to take concrete action on a heroic human rights defender then go their  political masters. Use the twin track approach of  letting officials know that you will, if necessary bypass them .
Let me start by saying a bit about Front Line, then I will move on to talk about what hrds have said they need and how we try to meet their needs.  The main bulk of this talk willl be to look at the situation of individual hrds such as Aloysius for whom we work and how we have tried to meet their needs and confront the challenges they face in partnership with them and in co-operation with other international organisations.

Front Line was founded in Dublin in 2001 with the specific aim of protecting Human Rights Defenders at risk, people who work, non-violently, for any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) .
It cannot be said often enough that Human Rights Defenders often face harassment, detention, torture, defamation, suspension from their employment, denial of freedom of movement and difficulty in obtaining legal recognition for their associations. In some countries they are killed or “disappeared.”
Front Line aims to address some of the needs identified by defenders themselves, including protection, networking, capacity building and access to the thematic and country mechanisms of the UN and other regional bodies. Front Line runs a small grants program to provide for the security needs of defenders.
In creating our strategy the first thing we had to do was to change our mind set –we had come from backgrounds of working broadly on all victims of human rights violations.  In order to be effective we had to learn how to narrow our focus  to concentrate  solely on how to protect human rights defenders at risk.  We could not get involved in their work nor could we allow ourselves to  drift into familiar general human rights work.
In listening to HRDS and in thinking about their needs, the starting point had to be the realisation that Human Rights Defenders working on the front line were the ones who would bring about change in their societies and it was our job to try to keep them alive and contribute to creating the space for them to be able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear of persecution.  From the beginning as we started and developed the work of Front Line, it was a core value that we would only do what HRDs said they needed themselves and not what we thought they might need.  The Dublin Platforms for Human Rights Defenders where we invite 100 human rights defenders at risk every two years, continuously informs the work of Front Line.  There they share experiences, affirm what has been achieved and struggled for, learn from each other, analyse and prepare for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead and just have a rest from the relentless stress under which they live.
The 5 key objectives we set ourselves are:
· Developing an effective and authoritative research base on situation of HRDs
· Campaigning and lobbying for the protection of hrds and against the impunity enjoyed by those who attack them
· Providing practical assistance to improve their security so that they can continue with their work, in exceptional circumstances we can also provide  assistance with relocation, on a temporary or occasionally more long term basis
· Supporting opportunities for training, capacity building and exchange of experiences
· Developing the operational and organizational capacity of Front Line to meet these objectives.

Now these are just the usual kind of words and in themselves they mean nothing.  I would like now to share the lives of some of those we try to support and how we try to learn from them to build the kind of support they want.

 

 Luz Perly   COLOMBIA
Colombian human rights defenders Luz Perly Cordoba Mosquera is being denied due process.  Luz Perly, is the Secretary General of FENSUAGRO-CUT, an agrarian federation constituted of different trade unions, social associations and committees working for justice and social change in Colombia.  She was arrested 18 February 2004 in Bogotá.  Luz attended the Second Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders in September 2003 and is responsible for the Human Rights department of the federation and is also the President of ACA, the Peasants Association of Arauca. On the order of the Attorney General’s office, Luz Perly‘s arrest was followed by raids in the department of Arauca and further arrests. According to Fensuagro, about 75 peasant and agrarian leaders are currently detained.  

The charges against her now include being funded to travel to Europe by FARC to promote their cause.  An Italian MEP Giusto Catania, who visited Luz in prison is going to hold a meeting in the EU Parliament to discuss the situation in Aruaca and will be using Luz´s case as an example. 

Now this is an example of getting nowhere despite consistent and rigorous action since February.
These included maintaining contact with Luz and giving financial support to her family, ongoing appeals, raising the case directly at meeting with Vice President Francisco Santos and getting  an Irish Senator to raise it in the Irish Parliament.  Our current action has been to provide photos of her at our conference and her travel information to Dublin to the MEP organizing the meeting in the European Parliament which an Irish MEP will also attend. We are trying to get precise details of the charges in order to assess what further strategies might prove to be effective. 

The lesson learned is
· To stay with the defender for the long term and the challenge is to take the work forward

Mr. Imran Abdulsalamovich Ezhiev, head of SRCF´s Information Centre in the Northern Caucasus – Ingustetia and regional coordinator of the Moscow Helsinki Group


Imran Ezhiev was born in Kazkahstan of Chechen parents in 1953, a time when all Chechens were forcibly extradited by Stalin from the Caucases. He moved back and worked as an engineer later on in life. The sufferings and injustices that were brought to the Chechen Republic with the beginning of the first war, moved Imran to working for Human Rights and founding the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship in 2000.

In his years as a human rights defender, Imran has been jailed and unlawfuly detained over twenty times, beaten and tortured whilst in custody, slandered and ridiculed through the media. He suffers chronic back and tooth pain as a result of the torture he sustained. His family was attacked on numerous occasions, yet many of them have also chosen to work in defending Human Rights in the Chechen Republic and Ingushetia today.     

However hard and bleak the reality of his fight may seem, there are a number of ideas and requests that he presents to Front Line in order to assist him and his colleagues´ work. One ongoing request is a form of accreditation and identification from Front Line. In his words, having some form of identification and recognition from an international organization with a good reputation would provide initial security from federal and rebel forces. Soldiers seeking to use force or put HRDs into unlawful detention may think twice when knowing the possible repercussions of detaining an internationally recognised person, and the presence of such a person in a situation or incident, may give others a sense of security and the perpetrators – some sense.    Many other Human Rights defenders – particularly in Africa -have also asked for some form of identification and recognition as a form of protection.

Front Line is also supporting the SRCF with communýcatýons equipment  and in the preparation a legal action pushing for a proper investigation of the killings 3 of the  members of the SCRF including the nephew of Imran Ezhiev in December 2001, as well as the “disappearance” of  a 4th member  in April 2003. The continued impunity enjoyed by those responsible for the killings and “disappearance” ensures that other human rights defenders continue to be at grave risk and Front Line is keen to support efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The lesson learned was

· to develop an identification card bearing the latest practical security measures with the photo and signature of the defender, the name and contact details of Front Line, the names of the Leadership Council , the fact that it has consultative status with ECOSOC.  The card “certifys that XX is a Human Rights Defender and is registered with Front Line”.
· To help the Russian Chechen Society take a case to the European Court of Human Rights should their legal case in the Russian Federation fail and to use this pilot case to start developing a methodology for other human rights defenders which we hope will eventually help contribute to tackling the curse of impunity.

 

Golden Misabiko
ASADHO , Democratic Republic of Congo

When Golden Misabiko from Asadho DRC spoke at the Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders, he had already been tortured and imprisoned for 7 months.  On his return to Lubumbashi he did an interview on Voice of America calling for all parties to be involved in the peace talks.   He received a summons to report to a military tribunal and went into hiding.  He rang  us to ask us for help and said he could not bear to be tortured and imprisoned again.  He was quite understandably frozen with fear when he rang so I asked him  to discuss with a colleague what were his options.  Where could he go? what would he need? I told him I´d ring him back in 1/2 hr.  When I did, he told me he could hire a car and a colleague would try to drive him over the  border into Zambia that night. We got money to him immediately and they hired a car. All through the night I was on edge and my beloved father prayed for his safe passage. At 5 am my mobile rang again and it was Golden crying with joy that he had safely crossed the border crossing.    We then worked with UNHCR on emergency resettlement for him.   He was given asylum in Sweden. We sent his wife Rose and 6 children some money to help them as they had none
He decided to return to DRC last April so we did some preventive work on his behalf writing to the embassies on the ground to introduce him and contacting the UN Country team  and UNHCR to create awareness of his case and contribute to his protection.

 The lesson learned  was:

· If somebody is in real danger ,immediate action is required.
· One can´t always stick to the formula of checking facts and issuing an appeal as a first step, in extreme cases   –  he or she will be dead or imprisoned before it gets out.
· It is important to ask the human right defender what are their options, one should not lead them into a particular course of action, they will have the best information on what is possible and what the security factors are but it may be necessary to check they have thought through the options and possible consequences,   he/she knows best.
· The Defender must know what he/she can expect from you in terms of moral support.  He/she must know how much and for how long you are able to give them financial support

Moving away from individuals to protection for hrds as a group, we set ouselves the goal of trying to make the Ýrish presidency of the EU prioritise hrds as one of their goals.   We started our twin track lobbying  8 months before Ireland took over the Presidency.  We lobbied the Minister and the Political Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs separately.  The Minister committed himself  4 months in advance of the Presidency at a press launch we had for the Dublin Platform.  We then went to the Political Director because as we all know, if the officials are not committed, they can obstruct the outcome.  Selected HRDS from different regions and all the international organisations that have a programme on hrds were invited to input into the draft paper we did for the Irish government.  The response to this request was patchy but we included those points that were made to us in time. The Ýnternational organisations also had the opportunity to present their own papers  and were invited to a meeting in Dublin in May to discuss the proposed guidelines .  The guýdelines had a rocky ride with none of the EU partners initially supporting them when they were presented at COHOM which is the working group of eu officials who meet regularly on human rights.  They then were moved up to the Ambassadorial level of the COPS committee We also got a friend of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to hand deliver a letter to his driver at thýs crucial stage when he was collecting him from the airport from Mexico. We were delighted when the guidelines were adopted and that the Dutch Presidency are doing the implementation .  We hope that in the application of the guidelines,  EU Governments will apply the energy and tenacity that they sometimes display, in pursuing more consistently the cases of human rights defenders at risk.  We will now use these guidelines rigorously in our approaches to EU governments.
The lesson learned is
· Lobbying is about the right people at the right time with a clear request.
· If successful, use the results actively to work for you


We are supporting two projects on security and protection for HRDs. We have commissioned Peace Brigades International to produce a training manual on security for HRDs and we have held some pilot training workshops in Bukavu and Goma to test the methodology with HRDs on the ground. The approach of the manual includes risk assessment, analysis of threats and developing a security strategy. We also intent to produce a practical checklist of security issues to consider.

Our second project focuses more specifically on electronic communications and security for human rights defenders. We are working together with Privaterra to develop a manual and some software applications that can be used to improve the security of electronic information as it is stored and transmitted. We held a first pilot workshop on this subject in Dubai for HRDs from the Gulf in January and will hold a second workshop in the next weeks in Moscow for Central Asian and Russian HRDs.
Currently we are piloting secure communications with defenders from Saudi and chechnya

Jean Paul Ngongo, Bukavu, DRC


Arising from a workshop on security for human rights defenders we held in Bukavu, Eastern DRC in May, one of the participants  Jean Paul Ngongo told us the story of soldiers coming to arrest him. The soldiers arrived around midnight and banged on the door and demanded that he accompany them. He refused and said that he would only agree to go in the morning. They eventually agreed and waited outside his house until daylight to take him.

At this moment of crisis Jean Paul discovered he had no credit on his phone. It was only a couple of hours after the soldiers arrived that he remembered his wife also had a phone that he might try to use.

Jean Paul was able to contact a Banyamulenge businessman that he knew. This friend contacted the local military commander (also Banyamulenge) to ask why Jean Paul was being detained and what was going to happen to him.

When Jean Paul arrived at the barracks he was treated better than he expected. He was questioned about his human rights work but not tortured or threatened.

The businessmen came to the barracks to check on him as did members of the Societe Civile (the network of NGOs in Bukavu). He was released at the end of the day and ordered to report to the barracks the following morning. He was again kept all day but was then released in the evening and there was no further follow-up.

Jean Paul felt that the lessons to be learned were:

1) the advantage of having channels of communication with the authorities via community leaders who would not necessarily be seen as hostile;

2) the importance of always having credit in your phone;

3) the importance of having several contact numbers for the societe civile – the only contact he had was not reachable the night he was arrested, his wife had only been able to alert them after he was detained


In working for human rights defenders we need to bring a mix of tactics using  different combinations depending on the situation of the individual.
The main thing is that the tactics are flexible and fast enough to respond effectively to the situation of the individual and the same tired old actions are not automatically trotted out.

We have to keep asking who do we have to influence and how can we influence them in a way that will change their behaviour.  We almost have to see them as our “customers” and find out what their interests are, who has influence over them, what are they scared of  e.g. ICC ,what are they attracted by e.g. good salary with UN and use that knowledge in a way that will protect the human rights defender.  In short we have to start investing the same kind of time and energy in our “customer” the violater as we do in our partner the defender. Neither can be seen in isolation but in terms of their relationship with the other.

Coming to Norway was a very poignant, raw journey for me as my beloved father died recently after  brutally sufferýng for  four and a half months.  Hýs name was Arthur Lawlor and he taught me to love life and living, to understand the frailty of being human but to try to act in a humane way – something Ý have always believed to be true of hrds at risk.

As Ý looked out on the clear blue startling sky above the magical fluffy white clouds searching for him,and trying to tap into his spirit – yet again Ý realised that HR work ýs always about rising above the clouds where the air is clear and the view is wide.

Mary Lawlor – Front Line   
 Human Rights House Foundation Conference 14th October