Oct 29, 2019
The ICJ, together with 22 other civil society organizations and individuals, called on speakers at the United Arab Emirates’ World Tolerance Summit to be held on 13 and 14 November 2019 to withdraw from the event.
“The Summit, which purportedly aims to “strengthen the UAE’s position as a model of co-existence and cultural tolerance around the world,” effectively serves to conceal the UAE’s dismal human rights record,” the ICJ says.
The Emirati government has systematically repressed the exercise of fundamental human rights, including the exercise of freedom of expression by human rights defenders and other critical voices, and has committed other violations of international human rights law, including arbitrary arrests and detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment and denial of the right to a fair trial.
As determined by the UN Group of Eminent Experts on the situation of Human Rights in Yemen, the UAE bears significant responsibility for many of the violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the conflict in Yemen, including unlawful killings arising from direct and indiscriminate attacks against civilians and those resulting from restrictions on humanitarian aid, as well as enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings.
UAE-Tolerance Summit-Advocacy-open letters-2019-ENG (full text of open letter in English, PDF)
UAE-Tolerance Summit-Advocacy-open letters-2019-ARA (full text of open letter in Arabic, PDF)
Oct 24, 2019
The ICJ and other NGOs today sent an open letter to all State delegations in New York, urging them to uphold the protection of human rights while countering terrorism, in forthcoming negotiations on resolutions at the UN General Assembly.
The open letter urges all States to restore the focus of relevant General Assembly resolutions on human rights while countering terrorism, including the human rights of victims of terrorism.
In particular, it calls for States to reject efforts by Egypt and others to dilute, distract or distort this focus by introducing the overbroad concept of “effects of terrorism on all human rights” which seems primarily concerned with the impacts of terrorism more generally on macro-economic conditions, government budgets, and foreign industry and investment, as well as duplicating text from elsewhere in the UN system prescribing particular counter-terrorism measures.
While these may be valid topics for the UN to address in other discussions or fora, the ICJ and other NGOs feel strongly that the limited resources and attention within the UN allocated to the specific focus on human rights while countering terrorism, including human rights of victims of terrorism, should not be lessened or weakened by bringing in such other issues which are only remotely, if at all, linked to human rights. Indeed, the ICJ and other NGOs believe the longer term aim of such efforts is in fact to undermine the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.
The open letter can be download in full in PDF format here: UN-Advocacy-OpenLetter-TerrorismHumanRights-2019
For more background, see here and here.
The ICJ has published a compilation on human rights of victims of terrorism available to download in PDF format here.
Oct 16, 2019
In an open letter, the ICJ and 139 other groups are calling the authorities of the United Arab Emirates to immediately and unconditionally release human right defender and 2015 Martin Ennals Award Laureate Ahmed Mansoor.
The full letter can be downloaded below in English and Arabic.
UAE-Free Ahmed Mansoor-Advocacy-Open letters-2019-ENG (English version, PDF)
UAE-Free Ahmed Mansoor-Advocacy-Open letters-2019-ARA (Arabic version, PDF)
Sep 9, 2019
At the opening of the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the ICJ and other NGOs call on States and intergovernmental organisations to address systemic failures of the rule of law in China.
Key concerns include lack of due process, lack of an independent and impartial judiciary, unjustified restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly, and on the freedom of lawyers to practice their profession, and other restrictions on civic space.
The letter reads as follows:
Open letter on the rule of law in China
9 September 2019
Across the People’s Republic of China, human rights violations are a systemic reality. Over the past year, the UN has once again documented legal and policy frameworks that fail to protect against discrimination; stigmatise Islam and stifle freedom of religious belief; undermine a wide range of socioeconomic rights and those who defend them; and permit gross violations of due process, including secret trials and arbitrary and incommunicado detention.
Over the past year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and other international human rights experts, as well as governments have pressed for access to China, in particular to Uyghur, Tibetan and other ethnic areas. The High Commissioner has urged dialogue and a de-escalation of violence in Hong Kong, following allegations of excessive use of force by police to disperse massive public protests and the criminalisation of demonstrators.
Independent experts of the UN Human Rights Council have requested information and prompt action from the government regarding a broad range of alleged violations and especially the criminalisation of human rights defenders and civil society, such as citizen journalists, lawyers, democracy movement leaders, religious leaders, workers’ rights activists, social workers, public health advocates and students.
In June of this year, more than two dozen governments informed the High Commissioner and the Human Rights Council president of their concerns about the use of re-education camps to target Uyghur and other Muslim minority groups in western China. They reiterated the need for prompt, independent and unfettered access.
Despite these efforts at engagement, the Chinese government has refused to allow independent visits of relevant human rights experts, including the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council; refused constructive dialogue, sowed disinformation and stoked violence in Hong Kong; used a push for sinicisation to eliminate cultural and religious diversity; and continued a fierce campaign against critics within China and many abroad, including other States. Chinese officials have stated, clearly and forcefully in public and in private, that ‘China is a country of rule of law’ and ‘will not accept interference in its internal affairs’.
This is patently misleading.
The Communist Party of China uses China’s laws to maintain state power, not to ensure justice. Overly broad charges that do not comply with the principle of legality are used to wrongfully detain, prosecute, and convict individuals for the peaceful exercise of internationally protected rights and participation in public affairs. In effect, any person who expresses views that differ from the Party narrative, or who seeks to highlight negative impacts of Party and government policies, can be caught in the crosshairs of criminalisation.
The Chinese government has refined and replicated a practice of characterizing all difference or dissent as terrorism, subversion, or a threat to national security. The tactics deployed in Hong Kong are regularly used against Uyghur and Tibetan peoples to justify a hard-line crackdown on the legitimate exercise of human rights. This is a dangerous departure from international human rights standards.
Furthermore, the Chinese government’s human rights record is no longer an issue limited by its borders. The government has actively used laws and practices to disappear and detain foreign nationals, restrict access to information overseas, conduct surveillance of Chinese nationals and other exile communities, embolden its law enforcement outside Chinese borders, and impede public participation, sustainable development and transparency in third countries where China has political and economic interests.
Human rights defenders of all kinds have been specifically targeted. The silence of the international community has not only allowed this to decimate civil society within China, but also to endanger civil society, defenders and other individuals critical of the Chinese government wherever they may be, including in the halls of the UN.
The same laws that allow the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of lawyers, public interest advocates, housing rights activists, and Christians in China’s wealthy eastern areas are further refined and weaponised against ethnic and religious minorities in the west of the country, including Tibet, where international access is a significant concern. The large-scale detention program in Xinjiang, which has detained Uyghurs and other minorities, may amount to crimes against humanity.
Read and download the full letter here, in PDF format: UN-Advocacy-OpenLetter-China-2019
Sep 7, 2019
An open letter to the UN Secretary General signed by 16 international NGOs regarding the recent report by Gert Rosenthal, “A Brief and Independent Inquiry into the Involvement of the United Nations in Myanmar from 2010 to 2018.”
The Rosenthal report describes the UN’s failure to stop, mitigate, or even draw attention to violence that the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission found amounted to crimes under international law including crimes against humanity, and warrants an investigation of the crime of genocide against Rohingya.
Download the letter here: Myanmar-Letter UNSG Rosenthal-Advocacy-open letters-2019-ENG.pdf
