Protecting Human Rights Defenders

by Annie Ben-Ami

Shirin Ebadi
Courtesy of BBC

Many of us immersed in the human rights world consider ourselves human rights advocates— promoters of fair treatment for all, supporters of the rights of the oppressed, activists committed to human rights standards.  Whether it is on a personal, local, national, or global level, human rights defenders are those individuals who fight day after day to promote human rights who ensure that no person or group is denied the basic, fundamental rights that everyone deserves.  

But what happens when it is these very fighters who are deprived of their rights?  Sadly, more and more of these critical human rights defenders’ own rights are being threatened and taken away.  Defenders are the targets of violence, intimidation, and repression which aim to stop them from doing their critical work, and often carried out by their very own governments.  What can be done to protect these important individuals in the face of repression?  How do they still fight to be effective advocates despite the many obstacles placed in their path?

The Demand for Quality Education in Florida Public Schools

By Michelle Nguyen




http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gulliver_academy.jpg

Florida, a state with one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation, is also a state with one of the strongest constitutional provisions for protecting the right to education.

In 1998, voters demonstrated their commitment to Florida public schools by approving an amendment to the state’s constitution that established a uniquely high standard for public education in Florida. The amendment to Article IX Section 1 holds that the state has a “paramount duty” to adequately provide a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools."

While this amendment may stand in stark contrast to the realities of public education in Florida, it has created a potential avenue for citizens to hold their state accountable in honoring the human right to education.

Forced Begging in Senegal

By Nicole Vander Meulen

WikiMediaCommons, Barry Pousman

As soon as the taxi stopped, I noticed a few young boys dart out into the street.  They were each holding a rusty tin can, which they shoved into open car windows, waiting for a generous individual to drop a few coins in.  At that time I assumed (along with most visitors to Dakar, Senegal) that these children were simply begging on the street so that they could feed themselves.  The reality was, in fact, worse.

Instead, many of these children were actually being forced to beg for the economic benefit of corrupt religious teachers.  Traditionally, young children in Senegal were sent to learn the Koran at religious schools (daaras) where the religious leader (marabout) was either an extended family member or a man from their village.  In exchange for religious instruction, the children would help the marabout cultivate his land and would go to the homes of community members to collect food donations.  Any begging that did occur was used to teach the children humility, not as a means of economic gain.  Currently, some corrupt urban marabouts force a number of their 40-100 students to beg on the streets.  With the children separated from their communities and often unable to contact their parents, they are now left very vulnerable to this sort of exploitation.  Some of these corrupt teachers don’t even know the Koran.

Looking to Poland for Accountability for CIA Torture

By Joanna Wasik, Georgetown Law '12, Guest Blogger 

This past summer, the Obama administration foreclosed the possibility that any charges would be brought against U.S. government officials for torture of terrorist suspects committed by the CIA during the Bush administration. This decision signaled an end to the prospect that a four-year-long probe into the deaths of two detainees in 2002 and 2003 would result in accountability through criminal prosecution. Earlier this year, however, an investigation in Poland and a case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding a former CIA “black site” prison emerged into public view and began to gain steam.  

As reported by the New York Times, Attorney General Holder explained that the decision not to bring criminal charges was guided by the conclusion that there was not enough available admissible evidence of torture to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that this assessment does not mean that the actions taken by CIA officials were lawful. Holder stated that the investigation “was not intended to, and does not resolve, broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct.” The decision was disappointing for many in the human rights community, such as Human Rights First, who have advocated that bringing to justice those responsible for torture is necessary to ensure that torture does not recur.

However, at the same time as the U.S. is closing the door on the possibility of trial for torture, prosecutors in another country, Poland, may be opening it. A staunch ally of the U.S. in the War on Terror under the Bush Administration, Poland hosted a CIA black site used to interrogate and allegedly torture Al-Qaeda suspects in Stare Kiejkuty, a town 100 miles north of Warsaw. According to the Council of Europe, the site opened in 2002 and housed “high-value” detainees, possibly including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Documents reveal that Mohammad was waterboarded 183 times in 2003, which may have occurred while he was at Stare Kiejkuty.

The Polish investigation first garnered public attention in March 2012, when it became known that the Prosecutor General’s office had charged Poland’s former Intelligence Chief with unlawful detention and corporal punishment. There have also been rumors that Leszek Miller, Poland’s Prime Minister at the time of the alleged black site’s operation, may be charged.

While President Obama’s statements in 2009 that he wanted to “look forward as opposed to backwards” foreshadowed his reluctance to prosecute Bush-era human rights violations, current Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s attitude is starkly different. In 2012, he stated: “Poland is a democracy where national and international law must be observed […] [t]his issue must be explained. Let there be no doubt about it either in Poland or on the other side of the ocean.”

In addition to the Polish investigation, accountability for CIA torture may emerge from a closely related case in the ECHR. The Open Society Institute is representing Al-Nashiri, the terrorist suspect allegedly responsible for the USS Cole bombing currently facing trial by military commission at Guantanamo Bay, in his claim against Poland before the ECHR. In an important development in the case in July 2012, the ECHR ordered the Polish government to turn over all documents relevant to a possible CIA secret prison in Poland. In particular, it asked Poland to confirm whether or not al-Nashiri had been held at Stare Kiejkuty from 2002-2003. In September 2012, the government of Poland responded by requesting that public access to the documents be limited. To date, it remains to be seen how the Court will rule regarding disclosure of the documents to the public.

The Polish investigation, if it does result in prosecution, may bring a glimmer of the accountability hoped for by the human rights community. Although the investigation is proceeding very slowly and the U.S. government is refusing all requests of assistance, it could eventually bring to light many of the details of the treatment of detainees such as Al-Nashiri. Although the Polish investigation targets Polish government officials who illegally allowed Stare Kiejkuty to be used as a site for extraordinary rendition and torture, and the actual perpetrators-- U.S. government officials working for the CIA -- will not face trial, the investigation may still be an important step, and Poland should be applauded for being the only country currently pursuing such an investigation. Other countries which hosted black sites should be encouraged to follow Poland’s lead. In addition, Al-Nashiri’s case at the ECHR may finally bring about official acknowledgment of facts that, for the time being, have not been confirmed by the U.S. government. Because accountability for Bush-era torture will not happen at home, the U.S. human rights community should turn abroad to these cases to carefully monitor, publicize, and support them. 

Victory in the ICC, But Without More Signatories, How Much Can the Rome Statute Do?

Louis Michel, via WikiMediaCommo

By Andrew G. Mosher

Ten years after it was established, the International Criminal Court has announced its first verdict.

A three-judge panel unanimously convicted Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, 51, a Congolese militia leader, of conscripting soldiers under the age of 15 and using them in an armed conflict in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2002 and 2003.

What #Kony2012 Should Have Asked For

Pierre Holtz, via Wikimedia Commons

by Kayleen Hartman

By now the story of #Kony2012 is growing old. The viral video on Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has received almost 80 million hits, and is famous in some circles more for the backlash against it than for its advocacy ask: to stop the LRA’s deplorable use of child soldiers, tell the Obama administration to continue to provide the support it’s already providing to the Ugandan military’s mission against the LRA.

There’s been loads of commentary about the concerns with a video like this, whether or not or it’s useful, and its questionable accuracy. There is also the fact that there are other organizations in Uganda, founded by former child soldiers and for child soldiers, that might be a great place to put your money if you’re feeling moved. But we've missed the fact that not only is simple maintenance of the status quo a wasted use of the advocacy power of millions, there is another, much more necessary, powerful, and on-point demand that those affected by the video could ask of their president.

Fight for Human Rights in Alabama Recalls Civil Rights Movement 50 Years Ago

WikiMediaCommons, Abernathy Family Photos

by S. Amanda Shelton

     On New Year's Eve, 2011, I walked around downtown Montgomery, Alabama. The tranquil streets in this city of over 200,000 were so quiet that I saw more police officers than residents, a somewhat disquieting fact given the subject of my visit—the state’s often troubled history of public oppression of minorities.

     This history of struggle with racism and acceptance has come back into sharp focus in the last year; in June, Governor Robert Bentley signed into law HB 56, the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, which the ACLU called the “harshest immigration law in the country.”