Strasbourg, 26/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - Meeting with Nils Muiznieks, Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, the representatives of a number of international organisations painted an alarming picture of the situation of human rights defenders.
“We are witnessing a tsunami of repression the likes of which we haven't seen since the fall of the Berlin wall”, stated Antoine Bernard, director general of Worldwide Movement for Human Rights. He said that three “types of offensive” are currently on the increase: the passing of laws the aim of which is to prevent human rights defenders from working, by impeding the financing of their organisations or by declaring them “foreign agents”; using the media to turn human rights defenders into traitors to their country; virtually systematic impunity for those who make human rights defenders their target.
“Since taking up this post four years ago, the situation has deteriorated dramatically throughout Europe”, stated Muiznieks, citing, inter alia, the examples of Azerbaijan, the Russian Federation, Crimea, the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Turkey where “any defender of Kurdish rights risks being labelled a 'terrorist”. This list is not exhaustive and to it can be added “serious pressure” applied in European Union countries, such as France, Italy and Belgium.
Michael Forst, United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation, highlighted “a repressive tendency among states to use ever more sophisticated means to oppose human rights defenders”. Returning from a visit to Hungary, he was alarmed to see laws passed preventing NGOs from raising funding for their activities, a situation all the more worrying, he said, as this is an EU member state.
Female environmental activists are even more in the firing line of repression, several speakers said. A similar situation is faced by activists for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community and those concerned with environmental issues, particularly if international companies are being held to account.
The situation is even more alarming in Latin America and in Africa, said José de Jesus Orozco Henriquez, rapporteur for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and Naia Lawson, representative of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. It would appear that working in collaboration with international institutions no longer offers protection for human rights defenders. On the contrary, any such association can make them a particular target.
In seeking to explain the causes of this “tsunami of repression”, most highlighted the negative climate caused by the economic crisis, the fears raised by terrorism and concerns over migration. The consequences are devastating, they stressed, because “if human rights are not safeguarded, a whole generation will lose its bearings”. And this can already be seen to be happening “in every corner of the world”, including in Europe. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)