EU: prioritize rights at India Summit, provide essential medical supplies, urge India to free rights defenders, address abuses

EU: prioritize rights at India Summit, provide essential medical supplies, urge India to free rights defenders, address abuses

European leaders at the  May 8, 2021 summit with their Indian counterparts should prioritize the deteriorating human rights situation in India, including the right to health, the ICJ and seven other organizations said today.

With a devastating Covid-19 crisis affecting the country, Europe should focus on providing support to help India deal with the acute shortage of medical supplies and access to vaccines. At the same time, European leaders should press the Indian government to reverse its abusive and discriminatory policies and immediately release all human rights defenders and other critics who have been jailed for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

The organizations are Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), Front Line Defenders (FLD), Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT).

India  has the fastest-growing number of Covid-19 cases in the world and is facing severe healthcare shortages – of testing capacity, medicines, ambulance services, hospital beds, oxygen support, and vaccines. The European Union and its member states should reconsider and reverse their opposition to India and South Africa’s proposal before the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive certain intellectual property rules under the TRIPS Agreement  to facilitate increased manufacturing and production of vaccines and related products globally, until widespread vaccination is in place the world over.

The Covid-19 crisis has also highlighted growing human rights concerns in India.. Faced with widespread criticism of its handling of the pandemic, the Indian government has tried to censor free speech, including by ordering social media content taken down and criminalizing calls for help. The government has also ignored calls from the United Nations Office of the  High Commissioner for Human Rights for countries to release “every person detained without sufficient legal basis, including political prisoners, and those detained for critical, dissenting views” to prevent the growing rates of infection everywhere, including in closed facilities such as prisons and detention centers.

Instead, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has increasingly harassed, intimidated and arbitrarily arrested human rights defenders, journalists, peaceful protesters, and other critics, including under draconian sedition and counterterrorism laws.

The authorities have jailed a number of human rights defenders, student activists, academics, opposition leaders, and critics, blaming them for the communal violence in February 2020 in Delhi as well as caste-based violence in Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra state in January 2018. In both cases, BJP supporters were implicated in the violence. Police investigations in these cases were biased and aimed at silencing dissent and deterring future protests against government policies, the groups said.

The government uses foreign funding laws and other regulations to crack down on civil society. Recent amendments to the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act (FCRA) added onerous governmental oversight, additional regulations and certification processes, and operational requirements, which adversely affect civil society groups, and effectively restrict access to foreign funding for small nongovernmental organizations. In September 2020, Amnesty International India was forced to halt its work in the country after the Indian government froze its bank accounts in reprisal for the organization’s human rights work, and many other local rights groups struggle to continue doing their work.

The Indian authorities have also enacted discriminatory laws and policies against minorities. Muslim and Dalit communities face growing attacks, while authorities fail to take action against BJP leaders who vilify minority communities, and against BJP supporters who engage in violence. The Indian government has imposed  harsh and discriminatory restrictions on Muslim-majority areas in Jammu and Kashmir since revoking the state’s constitutional status in August 2019 and splitting it into two federally governed territories.

The authorities carried out counterterrorism raids in October  on multiple nongovernmental organizations in Kashmir and Delhi, and a newspaper office in Srinagar to silence them, causing a chilling effect on human rights defenders who fear for their safety.

Yet, despite the considerable deterioration in the country’s human rights record under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian government has  effectively shielded itself from the international scrutiny and reactions that the seriousness of the situation should have warranted. Focusing on strengthening trade and economic ties with India, the European Union and its member states have been reluctant to formulate public expressions of concern on human rights in India, with the exception of occasional statements focused solely on the death penalty.

To read the full statement, click here.

Contact:

Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s Secretary General, t: +66 627026369, e: sam.zarifi(a)icj.org

ICJ joints NGOs to stand in solidarity with Venezuelan human rights defenders

ICJ joints NGOs to stand in solidarity with Venezuelan human rights defenders

Today, the ICJ joined several human rights NGOs to stand in solidarity with Venezuelan NGOs subject to threats, harassment, attacks, restrictions, reprisals and criminal proceedings by State authorities.

The joint statement reads as follows:

The recent, ongoing and unwarranted detention of five members of the Venezuelan NGO ‘Azul Positivo’ is one more event in a series of threats, harassment, attacks, restrictions, reprisals and criminal proceedings against Venezuelan civil society organizations and human rights defenders, which has been intensifying since November 2020.

In recent months and weeks, state agents have forcibly entered the offices of civil society organizations; public threats have been made against defenders who have been engaging with human rights mechanisms, NGO bank accounts have been frozen and arrest warrants issued for aid workers.

Venezuelan civil society operate in a context of serious legal and administrative obstacles with domestic laws used to target human rights defenders, such as the ‘Law Against Hate’, or having the effect of limiting the operations of NGOs and restricting their access to funding, essentially blocking the work of many organizations vital for Venezuelans in need.

In a public statement, a number of UN independent human rights experts and regional experts have described threats and measures taken against Venezuelan civil society since November 2020 as amounting to ‘systematic persecution and stigmatization.’

It is essential that humanitarian and human rights organizations responding to the grave humanitarian and human rights crises in the country, pushing for accountability for violations and abuses and the return of guarantees provided by democratic institutions and processes are able to do their work without fear or hindrance.

Human rights defenders are critical, constructive and essential to democracies and the functioning of the rule of law. Attempts to silence and cow them are counterproductive and shameful.

We urge the Venezuelan authorities to ensure that harassment and threats against Venezuelan defenders stop and for all international legal guarantees to be respected.

We call on all states and UN bodies and agencies to actively support civil society organizations, defenders and activists and to speak up loudly and consistently for the right to defend human rights in Venezuela and globally.

We are inspired by the daily commitment and courage of Venezuelan human rights defenders and humanitarian workers and stand in solidary with our Venezuelan partners and friends.

Signatories:

  • Amnesty International
  • Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)
  • CIVICUS
  • Civil Rights Defenders
  • Conectas Diretos Humanos
  • Freedom House
  • Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
  • Human Rights Watch
  • International Commission of Jurists
  • International Service for Human Rights
  • People in Need
  • Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
Turkey: Joint submission to Council of Europe’s Ministers calls for release of Osman Kavala

Turkey: Joint submission to Council of Europe’s Ministers calls for release of Osman Kavala

Today, the ICJ, jointly with Human Rights Watch and the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project presented a submission to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers on the Execution of the judgment Kavala v. Turkey by the European Court of Human Rights.

The ICJ, Human Rights Watch and the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project have reported to the Committee of Ministers that new charges against Osman Kavala lack concrete evidence and have been brought in disregard of the ECtHR’s judgment whose execution the Committee is supervising.

The three NGOs have invited the Committee of Ministers to:

  1. consider adopting the relevant recommendations formulated in their submission of 29 May 2020;
  2. take further steps to end immediately Mr. Kavala’s ongoing detention, which has now exceeded three years;
  3. recognise at its 1390th 1-3 December 2020 meeting that the continuing detention of Osman Kavala violates Article 46 of the Convention concerning the binding nature of final judgments of the ECtHR and may trigger Article 46(4) infringement proceedings against Turkey; and
  4. take the necessary general measures identified in the NGOs submission of 29 May 2020 to implement the ECtHR’s ruling concerning Article 5 and 18 of the Convention in Kavala v. Turkey and its findings in relation to human rights defenders.

In their initial submission dated 29 May 2020, the NGOs underlined that decisions taken to prolong Mr. Kavala’s detention had been guided by political expediency and there had been a concerted political effort by the Turkish authorities to prevent Mr. Kavala’s release. These bases for their action are evident in the sequence of court orders prolonging Mr. Kavala’s detention, the actions of the executive and prosecutors in relation to the judicial procedures against him, and the lack of due consideration of the ECtHR’s findings and objective deliberation as to the legality of any deprivation of liberty. The NGOs made several recommendations to the Committee of Ministers, on the issues of the general and individual measures, to ensure full implementation of the ECtHR’s judgment and Mr. Kavala’s immediate release on the ground that the Court’s judgment clearly applies to his ongoing detention.

In its judgment on Kavala v. Turkey, the EUropean Court of Human Rights, on 10 December 2019, found violations of Article 5(1) (right to liberty and security), Article 5(4) (right to a speedy decision on the lawfulness of detention) and Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights taken together with Article 5(1). The Court required the Government of Turkey to take measures to end the detention of human rights defender Osman Kavala and to secure his immediate release. The Court stated that any continuation of Mr. Kavala’s detention would prolong the violations and breach the obligation to abide by the Court’s judgment in accordance with Article 46(1) of the Convention. The judgment became final on 11 May 2020.

Despite the Court’s clear findings and mandatory order, Mr. Kavala remains in detention as of the date of this submission.

Turkey-Kavala_v_TurkeyExecution-JointSubmission2-HRWICJTHRLP-2020-ENG

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