Mar 5, 2015 | News
The ICJ calls for the prompt and thorough investigation into the killing of Gilles Cistac, a prominent academic and human rights defender.
Gilles Cistac served as a Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique.
His death, at the hands as of yet un-indentified gunmen in Maputo, Mozambique, on Tuesday 3 March 2015, follows his involvement in the debates on the sensitive issues of decentralization of power and establishment of autonomous provinces in Mozambique.
It is also reported that he was the subject of recent attacks on social media by a person who used a pseudonym and called Gilles Cistac a spy and a traitor, and accused him, along with others, of subverting the country.
“Demonstrating its commitment to the rule of law and respect for human rights, which were central to Gilles Cistac’s work, the government must fulfill its obligation to investigate the killing of Professor Cistac, promptly and effectively, and to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice in fair proceedings,” said Arnold Tsunga the Africa Director of the ICJ.
These obligations arise as part of the government’s duty to protect the right to life including under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, international human rights treaties to which Mozambique is a party.
The government must also take steps to ensure protection of those, including human rights defenders, who exercise their right to freedom of expression.
Arnold Tsunga also called on the authorities in Mozambique to heed the message of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Human rights defenders are not violent seditionists, criminals, nor bloody revolutionaries, as so many governments like to portray them. They are the best of us, all of us. And they have a message. (…) Understand the message, talk to them about it, be persuaded or persuade, without violence, instead of silencing them, punishing them, their families, and their communities.”
The ICJ will continue to monitor is the investigation of this deadly attack as part work to promote enhanced respect for human rights and in defence of human rights defenders.
Contact:
Arnold Tsunga, t +27 716 405 926 ; e arnold.tsunga(a)icj.org
Mar 3, 2015 | Advocacy
Thirteen human rights organizations, including the ICJ, call on the United Arabe Emirates government to release the activists jailed following the UAE 94 trial.
On the second anniversary of the start of the mass “UAE 94” trial that imprisoned dozens of government critics and reform activists in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including prominent human rights defenders, judges, academics, and student leaders, a coalition of 13 organizations calls on the UAE government to release immediately and unconditionally all those imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association following this grossly unfair trial, as well as those who remain detained or imprisoned for publicizing concerns about it.
The organizations also call on the authorities to ensure that the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment that the individuals were subjected to prior to and following their trial are promptly, independently, impartially and thoroughly investigated, that those responsible are held to account, and that the victims have access to effective remedies and to reparation.
The organizations share the serious concerns raised since 2011 by several UN human rights bodies and human rights organizations regarding the UAE government’s continuing pattern of harassment, secret, arbitrary and prolonged incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, and unfair trials targeting activists and those critical of the authorities, as well as its increasing use of national security as a pretext to clamp down on peaceful activism and to stifle calls for reform.
The space for dissent in the UAE is increasingly shrinking. The repression has been entrenched with the enactment in 2012 of the cybercrimes law, which the government has used to silence social media activists and others who support and defend freedom of expression online, and the enactment of the 2014 counter-terror law.
The vague and overly broad definition of terrorism in the 2014 law, which treats a wide range of activities, including those protected by human rights standards, as amounting to terrorism, may be used to sentence human rights defenders or critics of the government to lengthy prison terms or even death.
The organizations call on the UAE government, which currently is a member of the UN Human Rights Council, to adhere to its obligations to uphold human rights at home, including respecting the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, and to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.
The full statement can be found here in English and Arabic:
United Arab Emirates-Release activists convicted at the UAE94 trial-Advocacy-2015-ENG (full text in PDF)
United Arab Emirates -Release activists convicted at the UAE94 trial-Advocacy-2015-ARA (full text in PDF)
Read also:
UAE: Fear that Anti-Terrorism Law will be used to curtail human rights and target human rights defenders, Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Front Line Defenders, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, 13 December 2014,
Mass convictions following an unfair trial: The UAE 94 case, an ICJ report, October 2013,
United Arab Emirates: ICJ condemns blatant disregard of the right to a fair and public trial, ICJ, 12 March 2013
