[#2] IED/HLP UN Presentation on HR Defenders Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Fifty-fifth session Agenda item 17 HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS Oral presentation by Lydia Brazon Tuesday, April 20, 1999 International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project brings to the attention of this Commission the difficulties human rights defenders face throughout the world. We welcome the adoption of the Declaration by the General Assembly (GA resolution 53/114 of 9 December 1998: Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights). Our own organization and its members and affiliates have suffered in the course of our defense of human rights and humanitarian law. I was tear-gassed while acting as an election observer in the 1994 national elections in Mexico. Four years later, the Mexican authorities created a new FM-3 visa for international human rights NGOs, which are nearly impossible to obtain and which have severe restrictions. I was only able to obtain a new FM-3 visa when our friends in the United States Congress and former United Nations Ambassador Bill Richardson petitioned the Mexican authorities on my behalf. When the efforts of the Mexican government to keep me out legally failed, my photograph was posted as a "persona non grata" at the military checkpoint in Chenalho, to which the paramilitary group responsible for the Acteal massacre has total and continuous access. Some of our past delegates have been killed for their work. One of them is Mr. Jalil Andrabi, Chair of the Kashmir Commission of Jurists and our delegate to the 1995 Sub-Commission. After we contacted him to return to Geneva for the 1996 Commission, he was abducted by the Rastriya Rifles. His body was found on March 27, 1996, several days later. We continue to have difficulty bringing representatives from Indian-occupied Kashmir to the Commission and Sub-Commission, and we always fear for their lives when they return home. We also lost a friend and representative when Kasem Rajavi from Iran was killed in 1990 for his human rights work. During our work in the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, seven close associates were killed. In Hawaii, defenders of the Hawai'ian Royal family have been assaulted and abused by police authorities. As we reported in prior sessions of this Commission, the King and Queen themselves have both been severely abused by authorities. Now, Pastor Steven Ho'ohheno Schaeffer has been arrested several times for supporting the Royal family; most recently just 10 days ago. Other defenders of the Royal family are harassed and arrested by authorities, including a teenager whose only crime is that he considers himself a subject of the Kingdom of Hawai'i. We have an extremely difficult time finding attorneys in Hawai'i who are willing to defend these cases - many are intimidated by what they fear will be court-imposed sanctions or even disbarment. Human rights defenders in the area under Indonesian authority are under siege at this moment, and our representatives in the Moluccas are under extreme pressure. Nearly a hundred persons have recently been brutally killed in the Moluccas. Our affiliates such as the Mena Muria Foundation for Human Rights are quite simply overwhelmed and frightened by the intimidation from the authorities. In Sri Lanka a new Sinhala group - Parents for Peace - has begun to demand that the government stop the war there, enter into dialogue with the Tamil military and abide by humanitarian norms. They are fearful of reprisals. The Kurdish question in Turkey has taken a huge toll on human rights defenders. Persons whom we have interviewed during our own mission to Turkey were subsequently arrested, tortured or killed. At present Turkey is holding PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalon, who is legally entitled to Prisoner of War (POW) status. The lawyers representing Mr. Ocalon will need the support of human rights groups to protect their lives, as well as the life of Mr. Ocalon. We urge the Commission to take decisive action to defend human rights defenders. In the absence of a Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders, we urge that other rapporteurs and working groups initiate review of the situation of human rights defenders within their existing mandates. ___________________________________________________ NUEVO AMANECER PRESS-N.A.P.To know about us visit: http://www.nap.cuhm.mx/nap0.htm (spanish) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-04.25.99-12:06:45-968