Joint statement: Human Rights Defenders are not criminals
JOINT STATEMENT
Human Rights Defenders are notcriminals
Brussels, November 29, 2016 - Human rights defenders worldwide areregularly subjected to harassment and trumped-up criminal charges aiming atparalysing, intimidating and delegitimising their human rights activities. Theyface difficulties carrying out their work in increasingly restrictivelegislative and administrative environments denying the right to freedoms ofassociation, expression and peaceful assembly. Licences of human rights NGOshave been steadily cancelled, bank accounts seized and their right to accessforeign funds violated. A growing number of States have also developed asystematic pattern of obstacles to human rightsdefenders' freedom of movement (in particularthrough the use of travel bans) in a clear attempt to isolatethem.
Within the first year of the project,ProtectDefenders.eu, the EU Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented byinternational civil society, has perceived this phenomenon as a worldwidegrowing trend, which undermines the existence of an enabling environment forhuman rights defenders. Only in 2016, as per ProtectDefenders.eu's findings1,more than 425 defenders have faced judicial harassment and at least 193defenders have been charged or sentenced to prison.
The misuse of domestic criminal justicesystems and the development of restrictive legislations and regulations againsthuman rights defenders have a threefold impact on their work. Firstly, itpractically interferes with their daily human rights activities. It obligesthem, for instance, to present themselves regularly to summons, to serve longperiods of pre-trial detention or, when convicted, to serve sentencespreventing them from pursuing their human rights activities. Secondly, itcontributes to the stigmatisation of human rights defenders and organisationsdepicting them as criminals, therefore delegitimising their positive role insociety. Thirdly, criminalisation and judicial harassment of defenders createsa chilling effect on civil society as a whole, specifically within thecommunities or groups to which the defenders belong, in many cases leading tosocial fragmentation and isolation of the defenders themselves.
Some groups of defenders have been more frequently thetarget of criminalisation by State and non-State actors, due to the issues theywork on. In particular, land and environmental rights defenders, defendersworking on economic, social and cultural rights, women’s rights (includingsexual and reproductive rights), LGBTIQ rights, freedom of expression, rule oflaw or accountability issues, often face trumped-up criminal charges.
Criminalisation is generally accompaniedby major violations of the right to a fair trial. Criminal proceedings areoften characterized by lack of independence of the judiciary, summaryprocedures, failure to inform the accused of charges brought against them,obstacles to their right to defence and access to a lawyer, lack of translationand failure to comply with the principle of publicity of the hearings, amongother violations.
An increasing number of countries aroundthe world have developed repressive legal environments that undermine theexercise of the right to freedoms of association (including the right to accessfunding), expression and peaceful assembly. Thoserestrictions not only violate universally recognised human rights standards,but also seriously impact efforts by civil society to promote and protect humanrights and ensure that the voice of victims of violations is heard. These laws and regulations, as well as restrictiveofficial practices and procedures, are very detrimental to the work of NGOs,and result in a limitation of their activities, the criminalisation of theirstaff and/or even the closure and dissolution of the organisation. In many countries, these new laws and policies threaten thevery existence of a human rights civil society.
ProtectDefenders.eu strongly calls uponall national authorities to:
- Publicly recognise thelegitimate and crucial role played by human rights defenders in society andcondemn systematically all acts of harassment and violence against them.
- Protect them from any kind ofharassment, particularly at the judicial level, so that they are able tocarry out their human rights activities without any hindrances.
- Remove all legaland administrative obstacles placed on the activities of human rightsdefenders.
- Immediately andunconditionally release all arbitrarily detained human rights defenders anddrop all charges against them, as their detention only aims at sanctioningtheir human rights activities.
- Guarantee the right todefence of all detained defenders by lifting obstacles undermining access totheir lawyers and putting an end to the practice of depriving defenders fromthe support of their designated lawyers by calling them as witnesses in thecase.
- Investigate in aneffective, transparent and independent manner and sanction accordingly allpublic officials involved in cases of undue use of the criminal system againsthuman rights defenders and guarantee the access to justice and redress to allvictims.
ProtectDefenders.eu also calls upon theEuropean Union and its Member States to:
- Publicly recognise the trend ofcriminalisation of human rights defenders as an urgent issue to address, as oneof the biggest threats to the security and the work of defenders, andincorporate this as a priority focus into their human rights advocacy strategy.
- Work on a strategic approach to advance humanrights with a global perspective and specially condemn every form ofcriminalisation of human rights defenders.
- Monitor more closely the trends ofcriminalisation in countries of concern and systematically observe trialsagainst human rights defenders in countries with presence of EU Delegations.
- Take steps to combat the stigmatisation ofhuman rights defenders by public officials: condemn public statements made bypublic officials that negatively affect the image and reputation of humanrights defenders and reiterate the damaging effect this has; and conductpositive awareness work and encourage governments to do the same. Encouragegovernments and media bodies to take affirmative action to clear human rightsdefenders’ name, support their work, and restore their reputation andlegitimacy.
- Afford special attention to groupsmarginalised due to their identity - such as women, LGBTIQ, and ethnic orindigenous groups - who are particularly vulnerable to all types of harassment,including criminalisation.
#HRDsNotCriminals
ProtectDefenders.eu is the European Union Human Rights DefendersMechanism, establishedto protect defenders at high risk and facing the most difficult situationsworldwide.
ProtectDefenders.eu is implemented by a Consortium of 12 internationalorganisations with aproven track record in the field of protection, campaigning and advocacy in favourof human rights defenders.
ProtectDefenders.eu is a project funded by the European Union
