Human Rights monitor
Steadfast in protest
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders publishes its Annual Report 2009
THE Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which supports, monitors and protects human rights defenders throughout the year, has published its 2009 Annual Report on June 19, 2009. The report, of which foreword was written by Roberto Saviano, focuses on the year-round fight for human rights throughout the world.
Repression of demonstrations, trade union members arrested, NGOs under surveillance: for years these facts have been related to situations of economic and social imbalance and inequity. The rise in social discontent linked to the world economic crisis has increased the repression recorded in recent years. The Annual Report 2009 of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders shows that in inverse proportion to the fall of the stock exchanges, the inflation of freedom-killing practices and laws relating to the control of the social body was one of the significant characteristics of the problems encountered by human rights defenders in 2008.
In Cambodia, Cameroon, South Korea, Tunisia, Colombia, Zimbabwe and elsewhere, women and men have poured onto the streets to demand respect for their social and economic rights, and the peaceful leaders of these demonstrations are too often the targets of repression. The social tension that has spread to all continents has had, all over the world, consequences in terms of freedoms of assembly, association and expression, which largely go beyond the mere framework of the defence of labour or social rights
This report celebrates the steadfast protest of all human rights defenders. The numerous international human rights instruments and their monitoring mechanisms are not a sufficient guarantee against violations. If the public opinion does not remain vigilant, their implementation will remain a dead letter. More than ever, in these times of crises, human rights defenders, through their rigorous investigations, their uncompromised actions and their unselfish commitment constitute the last rampart against arbitrariness. Repressive States have understood it well, and increasingly target those defenders of freedom.
This report is published in French, English and Spanish in its entirety. A translation in Russian will be available for the section on Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States and a translation in Arabic will be available for the section on the North African and Middle East region.
Since its creation in 1986, OMCT has been engaged in fighting against torture, summary executions and all other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, through actions geared to prevention, information, denunciation and rehabilitation. To give a voice to victims, OMCT works with the SOS-Torture network, the largest international coalition of non-governmental organizations active in the protection of human rights, with 282 affiliated members in 92 countries. Thanks to this unique network, OMCT maintains permanent contact with the field and is immediately informed of any human rights violations. It then makes public the facts and denounces the perpetrators via its urgent interventions, disseminated to a large audience worldwide.
Source: World Organization against Torture (OMCT).
