THE DEFENDERS TAKE THE FLOOR

2008-11-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

Wissam K. Tarif (FDPOC Director), reports from Brussels on a Conference at the European Parliament on 7-8 October

Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb walks across the auditorium with difficulty. Two months ago he had a stroke, and now he drags not only a damaged body but a whole lifetime of pain: he has been operated five times following torture in Saudi prisons, and his wife, who fought against cancer for thirteen years while faithfully continuing to support her jailed husband, passed away recently. Yet the only comment this gentleman of meritorious dignity will make, smiling, is that what worries him “are the regional tumours we fight against. The ones I have in my brain are Ibrahim-damaging not millions-of-people-damaging.” He has faith, he says, in his country’s young generation.

Representing my Foundation, here in the Conference Hall of the European Parliament in Brussels itself, and faced with such humility, in a mere fraction of an instant, I am suddenly struck and perplexed by a conscious realisation. The European Parliament and the United Nations have convened us all to press home a truth: that the values of the Universal Declaration have no meaning without the flesh and bones of its defenders.

Across the years, al-Mugaiteeb has campaigned: whether against the death penalty, for freedom of speech, or defending prisoners of conscience in his country and women’s rights. But Ibrahim, the defender and the person, has paid and continues to pay a very high price. I envisage him remembering his wife, who throughout his long years of Saudi imprisonment (a consequence of standing up for others’ rights) refused to abandon him, never letting the side down. He must remember that great lady with gratitude for standing by him, and for that same reason, perhaps, when looking into his eyes from a distance, he breaks into a smile full of optimism for the future, joking about his clumsy walk and the tumours which now accompany him.

Just moments before coming across Ibrahim, I had glanced at what, until that moment, had been a mere cold inventory of worrying information. The kind that so often characterises and professionalises international human rights conferences. And, suddenly, the text hits me, accusing and bloodied with clear reality.

Fatin Bin Falaj al-Qtaibi was executed on the morning of 16th October 2008 in Saudi Arabia, a country that in 2007 sent 153 individuals to their deaths, a considerable number of whom were minors. But note the following: the Western media have hardly bothered to report his death. Only days before, on 13th October Syrian Military police shot to death a young man, one Ahmad Ramadan, and threw his body in the street. Again, his death received no mention in our pages or on our screens. Similarly, on Tuesday 14th October at eight O’clock in the evening, the Syrian secret police killed Sami Matouk, a Syrian human rights activist and a friend of his. While, through one of those terrible random coincidences, they injured two Syrian citizens in the shooting that took place in the town of Mushairfi on the outskirts of the city of Homs.

This resurgence of killings of human rights activists in Syria has taken place following President al-Assad’s signing on 30th September 2008 of an outrageous and morally reprehensible new law known by its official number: 64. The central aim of this statute is to give the security and intelligence personnel of Syria’s repressive state machinery, an invincible immunity from crimes committed while performing their duties. Only the Commander General of the Syrian Armed Forces has the authority to question their actions. In contrast, on 29th October this year the regime’s courts sentenced twelve human rights activists to two and a half years imprisonment on the weakest of pretexts: “injuring national sentiment”.

At the same time, on the other side of the Mediterranean, in a major inter-institutional initiative, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the United Nations convened a high-level conference in Brussels celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the UN´s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The conference aimed to reaffirm and illustrate the scope of the Universal Declaration through the work of human rights defenders across the globe. It acknowledged that it is particularly indebted to human rights defenders (an extraordinary and very diverse group of courageous and non-violent people) who mobilize scarce resources and advocate fundamental freedoms for their fellow citizens, whilst often putting their lives at risk.

Human rights defenders and leading representatives of international human rights organizations were invited to the Conference as witnesses to the current situation and in order to discuss new ways of advancing human rights. Many of them came from countries which, despite having ratified the Declaration, treat those who fight for the respect of these core rights as enemies of the State. The event provided an opportunity to explore and understand more of the reality on the ground for defenders of human rights everywhere. Meanwhile, a crowd of diplomats sat in the auditorium: among them representatives from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The Brussels October 7-8 Conference provided an opportunity to assess the state of human rights around the world. It highlighted the essential role played by civil society in that struggle and the commitment of the EU, the UN and the Council of Europe.
It was also an exceptional space for five leading human rights organisations from the Middle East to meet each other. Among them, Suad al-Qedsi, Director of The Women’s Forum for Research and Training (Yemen), Nabeel Rajab, the Vice President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, the already-mentioned Ibrahim
al- Mugaiteeb, President of the Human Rights First Society in Saudi Arabia, an Iranian colleague from Tehran who shall remain nameless for security reasons, a Western colleague, Dr Aaron Rhodes from the Iranian Human Rights Organization, and your humble servant representing the Foundation for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience.

Suad Ata al-Qedsi, a young woman struggling in Yemen against honour crimes, unfair legislation against women and in favour of the full participation of women in the political life of her country, has been repeatedly interrogated by the Yemeni secret police. Additionally, the State-controlled media often run damaging campaigns of negative images against her.

Nabil Rajab, on the other hand, is fighting for minority rights and freedom of expression in Bahrain. In particular the rights of the Shia community, as well as for those of prisoners of conscience and women´s rights. On 16 September 2005, Nabil had to be hospitalized following a beating by security forces as a result of his participation in a peaceful demonstration in support of the unemployed. Shortly after that, he had to undergo major surgery to his back.
However, it was the Iranian activist who moved everyone. He had brought with him an infamous list detailing all known child offenders currently awaiting execution in the Islamic republic of Iran. There are 114 names in all on that list. Since the coming to power of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran in 2005, the number of executions has increased by 362%. In that same year, Iran executed at least 86 people, and this number rose to 312 in 2007. Whilst the majority of child offenders on the list stand accused of murder, many sentences are based on confessions obtained from child defendants following a process of torture and interrogation throughout which they have had no access to a lawyer. Courts in Iran routinely ignore evidence presented by defendants wishing to demonstrate that they acted in self-defence. It is a fact that, according to Iran’s criminal law, boys can be indicted and even executed from age fifteen. Girls may already taste the death penalty by the age of nine. Soghara Najafpour is a woman who has been in Rasht prison since 1990, when she was only 13 years old. She has been found guilty of murder. And Mosleh Zamani, male, and also a child offender, is sentenced to death for an “illicit relationship with his girlfriend.”

Our Iranian colleague knows the risk he is taking through merely meeting with us. It will not be the first time Iran applies the death penalty to a human rights defender. Take the case in point of 32 year old Farzad Kamagar, who was sentenced to death on 25th February this year by Branch Thirty of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. A sentence later upheld on appeal by Iran’s Supreme Court. Farzad was sent to his death because of his human rights and social work.
Ten years ago, on December 9th 1998, the UN General Assembly recognized the importance and legitimacy of the role of human rights defenders by adopting a “Declaration on Human Rights Defenders”. In 2004, concerned by the increasing wave of attacks against these key “agents of change”, the EU adopted guidelines on the protection of defenders in third countries. It did this within the framework of its Common Foreign and Security policy. In similar vein, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) approved a Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in February 2008, putting their protection at the core of the mandate of the CoE’s Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Brussels Conference has afforded a chance to review these support mechanisms, and attempted to send a message to countries that still flagrantly violate the articles of the Declaration. Silent but not deaf, diplomats from rogue States such as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen attended the Conference listening whilst the violations and inhuman practices of their regimes were spotlighted. I did my best to ensure that Iranian Embassy diplomat, Mohammad Safaei, was put in a tight and embarrassing spot by handing him the list of juveniles awaiting execution in Iran, requesting him thus to publish the names of minors on that list whom Iran had already executed. He was also politely required to provide the names of young offenders lingering under the inhuman conditions of Iranian jails awaiting death.

The Conference enjoyed the presence of important officials representing the EU, the UN and CoE. Notable personalities such as Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU’s Commissioner for External Relations, Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament, Navanethem Pillay, the newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Margaret Sekaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders and Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe, all attended.

After the official opening, the first panel focused on the mechanisms for protection, looking particularly into the implementation of the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and with regard to the EU´s guidelines on human rights defenders. A second panel subsequently underlined the importance of freedom of expression as a central pillar of the human rights system, highlighting the crucial contribution of journalists to the defence of human rights. It was clear that the Conference had become a necessity in order to both highlight and assess both the general human rights situation, and the very real challenges facing defenders today.

Nonetheless and despite the aforesaid, we must face the crude realities of both the Middle East and of countries with Muslim majorities. On 15th September 1997, the Arab League announced its “Arab Declaration on Human Rights”. On 5th August 1990, forty-five ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference adopted the “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam” as a general guidance for member states. Both Declarations present an official attempt from Muslim and Arab states to undermine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and thus continue ruling their people through undemocratic and discriminatory regimes. Let us not forget that an Iranian representative to the United Nations, a certain Said Rajaie Khorassani, officially commented that the Universal Declaration is merely “a secular understanding of Judeo–Christian traditions which cannot be implemented by Muslims without trespassing against Islamic law.”

The European Union and the United States must reconsider their respective foreign policies, and take on board as a top priority, both human rights and democratisation in the Middle East and within countries of Muslim majority. Such a priority is not only a necessity and a need for the people of these countries, but it is also a priority to the West. The stable totalitarian regimes of the region can no longer provide
reasonably- priced oil, and financial benefits for Western companies without exporting the incipient risks of violence and terrorism, and which came home to roost on 9/11 in New York and on 11-M in Madrid. The fight against terrorism and radical political Islam is also the struggle for development and progress within these nations. They are countries which have tremendous wealth, a wealth consumed by corrupt regimes. The Declaration of Human Rights is equally routinely violated by not only Bashar al-Assad (Syria), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), and the Saudi Royal family, but by every anti-democratic regime in the region. They are temporary, fair-weather friends of the West. And the West should seek permanent, real friendship with the people of the Middle East by seriously and consistently defending human rights activists, democratic values, and freedom.

It is a long, painful and uneasy path. But it is the only real one.

SIXTY YEARS ON

THE DEFENDERS TAKE THE FLOOR