Jul 31, 2020 | Advocacy, Open letters
The ICJ and the South African Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDN) have written to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, and the Chairperson of African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
They have detailed the continued intimidation and harassment of the residents of Happiness village by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
“We have written to the Special Rapporteurs because the SANDF is unrelenting in its abuse of the resident’s despite the best efforts of their legal representatives and repeated court orders,” said ICJ Legal Adviser in South Africa Tim Fish Hodgson.
“A community leader was placed under house arrest guarded by four soldiers for seven days. Another resident was subjected to a punishment by which was told to lie flat on the ground and ‘pray to his God’ for simply leaving his home. Others have been assaulted. The SANDF deliberately conducts military exercises near the residents’ homes late at night to scare and intimidate them. All this with utter disregard for the law and in direct violation of a number of court judgments and orders”, he added.
The residents, who were forcibly and violently evicted from Marievale military base beginning in 2017, have repeatedly been granted court orders by the High Court declaring such evictions unlawful and directing the SANDF to refrain from harassing, threatening and intimidating the residents and not to restrict their movement.
Despite this, and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, further evictions and constant harassment and intimidation continues unabated and has intensified to a point that the residents describe the SANDF as having “laid siege” to their homes in Happiness Village which is adjacent to Marievale military base.
Soldiers now police checkpoints, preventing visitors from entering the area and even journalists have been prevented from entering Happiness Village. The residents’ legal representatives were only allowed to visit a single community representative under armed military guard.
As the letter reveals, the SANDF’s actions amount to violations of the residents’ right to adequate housing protection in terms of the South African Constitution, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The intimidation, harassment, humiliation and assault of the residents’ amount to violations of the residents’ rights to liberty and security of person and may also amount to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment in violation of the South African Constitution and international human rights law.
They seem to be geared at making the resident’s lives intolerable in order to secure evictions “through the backdoor”, which is explicitly prohibited in South African law.
The residents, represented by Lawyers for Human Rights, will once again be in urgent court on July 31 seeking an interdict to prevent further harassment, intimidation and restrictions on their movement by the SANDF. The legal representatives of the SANDF have indicated that they intend to oppose their application.
The ICJ has therefore implored the Special Rapporteurs to:
1. Call on the SANDF, the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans and on the Ekurhuleni Municipality to desist from any further evictions, relocation, intimidation, harassment, humiliation, and assault of the Marievale community residents;
2. Call on the SANDF, the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans and the Ekurhuleni Municipality to immediately lift and ensure the non-recurrence of restrictions on the movement on Happiness Village residents;
3. Call on the President of South Africa, as the Commander in Chief of the SANDF, to take appropriate action to ensure that the human rights violations that the residents of Marievale have suffered at the hands of the SANDF on a continuous basis since 2017 be investigated, and that appropriate action be taken to ensure access to justice and effective remedies for the residents; and
4. Call on the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans to ensure the accountability of the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans for the human rights violations to which the SANDF has subjected the residents on a continuous basis since 2017.
Read the full letter here.
SouthAfrica-SAHRDN-ICJ Letter to SRs on HRDs-Advocacy-open letters-2020-ENG
Contact:
Tim Fish Hodgson (ICJ Legal Adviser) t: +27828719905; e: timothy.hodgson(a)icj.org
Jul 30, 2020 | Advocacy
The ICJ is concerned that in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan the COVID-19 pandemic, and measures taken purportedly to contain it, have significantly curtailed access to justice. Restrictions have affected the operation of the courts and impeded lawyers’ ability to provide effective legal assistance to their clients.
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic — whether under a state of emergency or not — States’ obligations under international human rights law to uphold the fundamental guarantees of a fair trial, and to ensure access to effective remedies for violations of human rights endure.
The right to a fair trial entails the right to adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense, which, in turn, requires the opportunity to communicate with one’s lawyer effectively and in confidence.
In light of this, the ICJ calls on Central Asian States to ensure that, while COVID-19 restrictions are in place, access to a lawyer continues to be ensured, and that measures be put in place so that lawyers are able to communicate with their clients safely, effectively and confidentially, including in places of detention or during online hearings.
In addition, wherever and whenever the authorities put in place restrictions on physical meetings or travel with the stated purpose of containing the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICJ calls on Central Asian States to ensure that access to court is guaranteed through specific legal, administrative and practical measures.
ICJ research and discussions with lawyers have shown that across Central Asia, regulations adopted during COVID-19 relating to the administration of justice have suffered from vague language, inconsistencies and unclear guidance.
In practice, this had serious implications for the right to fair trial of defendants: in some cases defence lawyers were not allowed to meet their clients who were charged with serious crimes; in other instances lawyer-client meetings were very short, undermining the ability of lawyers to take proper instructions from their clients and to advise them accordingly; in other cases defence lawyers met their clients in circumstances where the confidentiality of their communication was compromised as a result of the virtual communication platforms they were forced to use.
The restriction measures relating to the administration of justice that the authorities have imposed have also had negative consequences for access to justice and effective remedies for victims of human rights violations; notably, access to legal assistance in domestic violence cases was impeded across the region.
In many court buildings social distancing requirements were not adjusted in such a way as to uphold the right to a public hearing. There has been a lack of sufficient guidance on how the right to a public hearing may be ensured online, including as to how the right to equality of arms and the right to legal representation would be protected.
Download
Central Asia-Statement COVID-19-Advocacy 2020-ENG (full article with additional information, in PDF)
Jul 29, 2020 | Advocacy
The Sri Lankan government should end the targeted arrests, intimidation and threats against the lives and physical security of lawyers, activists, human rights defenders and journalists, the ICJ and 9 other international human rights organizations said today.
A campaign of fear has intensified since the 2019 presidential election, and has cast a shadow over the 2020 parliamentary election campaign.
The United Nations, as well Sri Lanka’s partners and foreign donors, should immediately call for full respect, protection and fulfillment of the human rights of all Sri Lankans, and particularly to halt the reversal of fragile gains in the protection of human rights in recent years.
Numerous civilian institutions, including the NGO Secretariat, have been placed under the control of the Defence Ministry. Serving and retired military officers have been appointed to a slew of senior government roles previously held by civilians.
The authorities have recently established military-led bodies such as the Presidential Task Force to build “a secure country, disciplined, virtuous and lawful society,” which has the power to issue directives to any government official. This represents an alarming trend towards the militarization of the state.
Many of those in government, including the president, defense secretary, and army chief, are accused of war crimes during the internal armed conflict that ended in 2009.
Since the presidential election in November 2019, anti-human rights rhetoric intended to restrict the space for civil society has been amplified by senior members of government.
On 6 July 2020, at an election rally, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa stated that “NGOs will be taken into a special attention under the new government formed after the General Election, specifically, how foreign monies and grants are received to the NGOs from foreign countries and further, activities of the international organizations will be observed.”
The government has also announced a probe into NGOs registered under the previous government.
In the months following the November 2019 presidential election, a number of organizations reported visits from intelligence officers who sought details of staff, programs and funding, in particular, organizations in the war-affected Northern and Eastern provinces of the country. Such visits are blatant attempts to harass and intimidate Sri Lankan civil society.
In February, the acting District Secretary in the Mullaitivu District (Northern Province) issued a directive that only non-governmental organizations with at least 70 percent of their activities focused on development would be allowed to work, effectively enabling arbitrary interference with and prevention of a broad range of human rights work.
A Jaffna-based think-tank was visited several times, including soon after the Covid-19 lockdown, and questioned about its work, funding and staff details.
Lawyers taking on human rights cases have been targeted through legal and administrative processes and have faced smear campaigns in the media.
Journalists and those voicing critical opinions on social media, have been arbitrarily arrested. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed alarm at the clampdown on freedom of expression, including the 1 April announcement by the police that any person criticizing officials engaged in the response to Covid-19 would be arrested.
It is unclear whether there is any legal basis for such arrests. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has cautioned against “an increasing number of such arrests since the issuing of a letter dated 1 April 2020”.
The targeting and repression of journalists and human rights defenders is not only an assault on the rights of these individuals, but an attack on the principles of human rights and the rule of law which should protect all Sri Lankans.
These policies have a chilling effect on the rights to freedom of expression and association, which are crucial for the operation of civil society and fundamental to the advancement of human rights.
Those working on ending impunity and ensuring accountability for past crimes, and especially victims, victim’s families, members of minority communities, and networks in the Northern and Eastern provinces, are particularly at risk of intimidation and harassment.
The Sri Lankan authorities must end all forms of harassment, threats, and abuse of legal processes and police powers against lawyers, human rights defenders and journalists. Human rights defenders living and working in Sri Lanka should be able to carry out their peaceful human rights work without fear of reprisals, which requires a safe and enabling environment in which they can organize, assemble, receive and share information.
Download:
Sri Lanka-Harassment civil society-Advocacy-2020-ENG (the full statement with additional information, in PDF)
Jul 28, 2020 | Advocacy, Cases, Legal submissions, News
The ICJ intervened today in the case of the potential surveillance by Polish secret services of Mikołaj Pietrzak, lawyer and chair of the Warsaw Bar Association, Dominika Bychawska-Siniarska et Barbara Grabowska-Moroz of the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights, and Wojciech Klicki and Katarzyna Szymielewicz of the foundation Panoptykon.
The five applicants applied to the European Court of Human Rights claiming a violation of their rights to privacy and to an effective remedy because the system of secret surveillance and collection of metadata created by the Law amending the Law of the Police of 15 January 2016 and the Anti-Terrorism Law of 16 June 2016 does not provide sufficient guarantees for this rights’ protection.
In its third party intervention, the ICJ addressed (1) the application of the principles of prescription by law, necessity and proportionality, in circumstances when mass and targeted surveillance interferes with the right to respect for private life under Article 8 ECHR, in particular when it affects lawyers and human rights defenders; (2) the obligations of States under Article 8 and 6 ECHR to ensure respect for the confidentiality of lawyer-client relations and the principle of legal professional privilege.
The ICJ argued that secret surveillance, in particular where it interferes with the confidentiality of communications of lawyers and human rights defenders, and endangers lawyer-client privilege protected under Articles 8 and 6 ECHR, should be subject to specific safeguards and to particularly strict scrutiny of its necessity and proportionality.
The third party intervention can be found here: PIetrzak&HF_v_Poland-AmicusCuriae-ECtHR-Cases-2020-ENG
Jul 22, 2020 | Advocacy, Cases, Legal submissions, News
The ICJ and Amnesty International have submitted a joint third party intervention before the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Judges Mariusz Broda and Alina Bojara.
The case concerns the premature termination of their mandates as vice-presidents of the regional tribunal of Kielce in Poland. The two judges, that had been appointed to six-year terms in 2014, had their position revoked by the Minister of Justice in 2018.
The revocation was based on article 17.1 of the Law of 12 July 2017 modifying the Law on the Judicial System. This provision, presented and approved by the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), gave the Minister of Justice the power to revoke courts’ presidents and vice-presidents without justified grounds and with no possibility of appeal.
The two judges applied to the European Court of Human Rights alleging that they had been denied access to a tribunal to challenge the termination of their mandate .
In their third party intervention, the ICJ and Amnesty International analyze international standards on judicial independence, including as regards the role court presidents and vice-presidents, and the consequences of these standards for the right of access to court under Article 6.1 ECHR. The intervention also analyses the recent legislative and policy developments that have seriously undermined the independence of the Polish judiciary.
Read the full intervention here: Broda_v_Poland-AmicusCuriae-ICJ&AI-Cases-2020-ENG.
Jul 17, 2020 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ today joined other NGOs in highlighting the achievements and omissions of the 44th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, 30 June – 17 July 2020.
The following statement was delivered, at the closing of the session, by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), on behalf of the group of leading human rights NGOs:
“Madame President,
The 44th session of the UN Human Rights Council began with China’s imposition of legislation severely undermining rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. Within days, there were reports of hundreds of arrests, some for crimes that didn’t even exist previously. We welcome efforts this session by a growing number of States to collectively address China’s sweeping rights abuses, but more is needed. An unprecedented 50 Special Procedures recently expressed concerns at China’s mass violations in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet, suppression of information in the context of Covid-19, and targeting of human rights defenders across the country. The Council should heed the call of these UN experts to hold a Special Session and create a mechanism to monitor and document rights violations in the country. No state is beyond international scrutiny. China’s turn has come.
The 44th session also marked an important opportunity to enable those affected directly by human rights violations to speak to the Council through NGO video statements.
Amnesty’s Laith Abu Zeyad addressed the Council remotely from the occupied West Bank where he has been trapped by a punitive travel ban imposed by Israel since October 2019. We call on the Israeli authorities to end all punitive or arbitrary travel bans.
During the interactive dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, victims’ associations and families of victims highlighted the human rights violations occurring in detention centers in Syria. We welcome the efforts by some States to underline their demands and welcome the adoption of the Syria resolution on detainees and urge the Syrian government to take all feasible measures to release detainees and provide truth to the families, noting the important pressure needed by Member States to further call for accountability measures for crimes committed in Syria.
Collette Flanagan, Founder of Mothers against Police Brutality, also delivered a powerful video statement at the Council explaining the reality of racist policing in the United States of America. We fully support victims’ families’ appeals to the Council for accountability.
We hope that the High Commissioner’s report on systemic racism, police violence and government responses to antiracism peaceful protests will be the first step in a series of meaningful international accountability measures to fully and independently investigate police killings, to protect and facilitate Black Lives Matter and other protests, and to provide effective remedy and compensation to victims and their families in the United States of America and around the world.
We appreciate the efforts made by the Council Presidency and OHCHR to overcome the challenges of resuming the Council’s work while taking seriously health risks associated with COVID-19, including by increasing remote and online participation. We recommend that remote civil society participation continue and be strengthened for all future sessions of the Council.
Despite these efforts, delays in finalising the session dates and modalities, and subsequent changes in the programme of work, reduced the time CSOs had to prepare and engage meaningfully. This has a disproportionate impact on CSOs not based in Geneva, those based in different time zones and those with less capacity to monitor the live proceedings. Other barriers to civil society participation this session included difficulties to meet the strict technical requirements for uploading video statements, to access resolution drafts and follow informal negotiations remotely, especially from other time zones, as well as a decrease in the overall number of speaking slots available for NGO statements due to the cancellation of general debates this session as an ‘efficiency measure.’
We welcome the joint statement led by the core group on civil society space and endorsed by cross regional States and civil society, which calls on the High Commissioner to ensure that the essential role of civil society, and States’ efforts to protect and promote civil society space, are reflected in the report on impact of the COVID-19 pandemic presented to the 46th Session of the HRC. We urge all States at this Council to recognise and protect the key role that those who defend human rights play.
These last two years have seen unlawful use of force perpetrated by law enforcement against peaceful protesters, protest monitors, journalists worldwide, from the United States of America to Hong Kong, to Chile to France , Kenya to Iraq to Algeria, to India to Lebanon with impunity.
We therefore welcome that the resolution “the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of peaceful protests” was adopted by consensus, and that the Council stood strongly against some proposed amendments which would have weakened it. We also welcome the inclusion in the resolution of a panel during the 48th session to discuss such events and how States can strengthen protections. We urge States to ensure full accountability for such human rights violations as an essential element of the protection of human rights in the context of protests. The current context has accelerated the urgency of protecting online assembly, and we welcome that the resolution reaffirms that peaceful assembly rights guaranteed offline are also guaranteed online. In particular, we also commend the resolution for calling on States to refrain from internet shutdowns and website blocking during protests, while incorporating language on the effects of new and emerging technologies, particularly tools such as facial recognition, international mobile subscriber identity-catchers (“stingrays”) and closed-circuit television.
We welcome that the resolution on “freedom of opinion and expression” contains positive language including on obligations surrounding the right to information, emphasising the importance of measures for encryption and anonymity, and strongly condemning the use of internet shutdowns.. Following the High Commissioner’s statement raising alarm at the abuse of ‘false news’ laws to crackdown on free expression during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also welcome that the resolution stresses that responses to the spread of disinformation and misinformation must be grounded in international human rights law, including the principles of lawfulness, legitimacy, necessity and proportionality. At the same time, we are concerned by the last minute addition of language which focuses on restrictions to freedom of expression, detracting from the purpose of the resolution to promote and protect the right. As we look to the future, it is important that the core group builds on commitments contained in the resolution and elaborate on pressing freedom of expression concerns of the day, particularly for the digital age, such as the issue of surveillance or internet intermediary liability, while refocusing elements of the text.
The current context has not only accelerated the urgency of protecting assembly and access to information, but also the global recognition of the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. We welcome the timely discussions on ”realizing children’s right to a healthy environment” and the concrete suggestions for action from panelists, States, and civil society. The COVID-19 crisis, brought about by animal-to-human viral transmission, has clarified the interlinkages between the health of the planet and the health of all people. We therefore support the UN Secretary General’s call to action on human rights, as well as the High Commissioner’s statement advocating for the global recognition of the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment – already widely reflected at national and regional levels – and ask that the Council adopts a resolution in that sense. We also support the calls made by the Marshall Islands, Climate Vulnerable Forum, and other States of the Pacific particularly affected and threatened by climate change. We now urge the Council to strengthen its role in tackling the climate crisis and its adverse impacts on the realization of human rights by establishing a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change, which will help address the urgency of the situation and amplify the voices of affected communities.
The COVID crisis has also exacerbated discrimination against women and girls. We welcome the adoption by the Council of a strong resolution on multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination against women and girls, which are exacerbated in times of a global pandemic. The text, inter alia, reaffirms the rights to sexual and reproductive health and to bodily autonomy, and emphasizes legal obligations of States to review their legislative frameworks through an intersectional approach. We regret that such a timely topic has been questioned by certain States and that several amendments were put forward on previously agreed language.
The Council discussed several country-specific situations, and renewed the mandates in some situations.
We welcome the renewal of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate and ongoing scrutiny on Belarus. The unprecedented crackdown on human rights defenders, journalists, bloggers and members of the political opposition in recent weeks ahead of the Presidential election in August provide a clear justification for the continued focus, and the need to ensure accountability for Belarus’ actions. With concerns that the violations may increase further over the next few weeks, it is essential that the Council members and observers maintain scrutiny and pressure even after the session has finished.
We welcome the extension of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Eritrea. We urge the government to engage, in line with its Council membership obligations, as the Special Rapporteur’s ‘benchmarks for progress’ form a road map for human rights reform in the country.
We welcome the High Commissioner report on the human rights situation in the Philippines which concluded, among other things, that the ongoing killings appear to be widespread and systematic and that “the practical obstacles to accessing justice in the country are almost insurmountable.” We regret that even during this Council session, President Duterte signed an Anti Terrorism Law with broad and vague definition of terrorism and terrorists and other problematic provisions for human rights and rule of law, which we fear will be used to stifle and curtail the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. Also during this session, in a further attack on press freedom, Philippine Congress rejected the franchise renewal of independent media network ABS-CBN, while prominent journalist Maria Ressa and her news website Rappler continue to face court proceedings and attacks from President Duterte after Ressa’s cyber libel conviction in mid-June. We support the call from a group of Special Procedures to the Council to establish an independent, impartial investigation into human rights violations in the Philippines and urge the Council to establish it at the next session.
The two reports presented to the Council on Venezuela this session further document how lack of judicial independence and other factors perpetuate impunity and prevent access to justice for a wide range of violations of civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights in the country. We also urge the Council to stand ready to extend, enhance and expand the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission when it reports in September.
We also welcome the report of the Special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 and reiterate his call for States to ensure Israel puts an end to all forms of collective punishment. We also reiterate his call to ensure that the UN database of businesses involved with Israeli settlements becomes a living tool, through sufficient resourcing and annual updating.
We regret, however, that several States have escaped collective scrutiny this session.
We reiterate the UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard’s call to pressure Saudi Arabia to release prisoners of conscience and women human rights defenders and call on all States to sustain the Council’s scrutiny over the situation at the September session.
Despite calls by the High Commissioner for prisoners’ release, Egypt has arrested defenders, journalists, doctors and medical workers for criticizing the government’s COVID-19 response. We recall that all of the defenders that the Special Procedures and the High Commissioner called for their release since September 2019 are still in pre-trial detention. The Supreme State Security Prosecution and ‘Terrorism Circuit courts’ in Egypt, are enabling pre-trial detention as a form of punishment including against human rights defenders and journalists and political opponents, such as Ibrahim Metwally, Mohamed El-Baqer and Esraa Abdel Fattah, Ramy Kamel, Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Patrick Zaky, Ramy Shaat, Eman Al-Helw, Solafa Magdy and Hossam El-Sayed. Once the terrorism circuit courts resumed after they were suspended due to COVID-19, they renewed their detention retroactively without their presence in court. It’s high time the Council holds Egypt accountable.
As highlighted in a joint statement of Special Procedures, we call on the Indian authorities to immediately release HRDs, who include students, activists and protest leaders, arrested for protesting against changes to India’s citizenship laws. Also eleven prominent HRDs continue to be imprisoned under false charges in the Bhima Koregaon case. These activists face unfounded terror charges under draconian laws such as sedition and under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. While we welcome that Safoora Zargar was granted bail on humanitarian grounds, the others remain at high risk during a COVID-19 pandemic in prisons with not only inadequate sanitary conditions but also limited to no access to legal counsel and family members. A number of activists have tested positive in prison, including Akhil Gogoi and 80-year-old activist Varavara Rao amid a larger wave of infections that have affected many more prisoners across the country. Such charges against protestors, who were exercising their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly must be dropped. We call on this Council to strengthen their demands to the government of India for accountability over the excessive use of force by the police and other State authorities against the demonstrators.
In Algeria, between 30 March and 16 April 2020, the Special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, human rights defenders, issued three urgent appeals in relation to cases involving arbitrary and violent arrests, unfair trials and reprisals against human rights defenders and peaceful activists Olaya Saadi, Karim Tabbou and Slimane Hamitouche. Yet, the Council has been silent with no mention of the crackdown on Algerian civil society, including journalists.
To conclude on a positive note, we welcome the progress in the establishment of the OHCHR country office in Sudan, and call on the international community to continue to provide support where needed to the transitional authorities. While also welcoming their latest reform announcements, we urge the transitional authorities to speed up the transitional process, including reforms within the judiciary and security sectors, in order to answer the renewed calls from protesters for the enjoyment of “freedom, peace and justice” of all in Sudan. We call on the Council to ensure continued monitoring and reporting on Sudan.”
Endorsements:
- International Service for Human Rights
- DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project)
- Center for Reproductive Rights
- Franciscans International
- The Syrian Legal Development Programme
- Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR)
- CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
- International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR)
- International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA World)
- Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS)
- Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
- Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)
- ARTICLE 19
- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
- IFEX
- Association for Progressive Communications
- International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
- Amnesty International
(an abbreviated version of the statement was read aloud at the Council session, due to the limited time available)
