Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Carnage: Quo Vadis?

Posted on April 22, 2019 by admin

Armed Conflicts, Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Featured, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Peace, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Dr. Purnaka L. (“PL”) de Silva is Director, Institute for Strategic Studies and Democracy (ISSD) Malta

“If we believe in absurdities we shall commit atrocities” – Voltaire

NEW YORK, Apr 22 2019 (IPS) – I returned from attending a three-hour Easter Sunday mass at the Fordham University Church around midnight New York time on May 20, 2019, when my phone rang and a colleague asked me what’s going on in Sri Lanka? I said what is going on?

He said there were a series of coordinated terrorist bombings with multiple fatalities and scores of injuries in my native country. For the next four and a half hours I was on the phone trying to piece together what happened, including reaching out to Sri Lanka’s Secretary of Defence Hemasiri Fernando.

The toll as of Monday, April 22 is 290 dead and 500 injured. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that 36 foreigners died, with 20 still unidentified; and those identified include: 5 British (2 with dual US nationality), 3 Danes, 1 Dutch, 1 Portuguese, 2 Turks, 3 Indians and 1 Japanese.

This is the second time in history that the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka has been bombed on an Easter Sunday morning when the faithful were at prayer. The first was a coordinated air attack on the capital Colombo, launched from aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy at 7:30 a.m. on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1942 – the same date that the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor was also attacked in a different time zone.

Timeline in infamy – April 21, 2019

Around 8:45 a.m. on Easter Sunday morning five massive explosions simultaneously rocked Colombo, western Sri Lanka:

9:05 a.m.

• Zion Protestant Christian Church in Batticaloa on the eastern seaboard of Sri Lanka, 318.1 km from Colombo.

1:45 p.m.

• Tropical Inn Guest House in Dehiwala near the zoo, 10.2 km south of Colombo.

2:15 p.m.

• Two explosions at suspected safe house in Dematagoda on the northwestern outskirts 3.1 km from Colombo, owned by a spice trader, allegedly the father of one of the suicide bombers. At least three police officers died in the blasts including Special Task Force (STF) police commandos, with seven suspects arrested.

Late Sunday night

• A 6-foot pipe bomb was located and destroyed near Bandaranaike International Airport by the Sri Lanka Air Force.

Perpetrators

An internal Sri Lanka Police circular dated April 11, 2019 issued by Deputy Inspector General Srilal Dassanayake noted: “warning of plan to launch a campaign of suicide attacks led by Mohammed Zahran of National Thawheed Jama’ath (NTJ) has been received by intelligence sources, and request extreme precautions be taken.”

A fact commented on in the aftermath of the first wave of bombings by Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, who confirmed that some of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers.

Sri Lankan authorities have arrested 24 suspects and at least 1 woman as of Monday in an ongoing investigation to root out all the terrorists, who may number 30 with 20-30 targets, according to a suspect arrested down Ramakrishna Road, Wellawatte, 8.0 km south of Colombo.

At least three of the suicide terrorist bombers have been identified, all local Sri Lankan Muslims allegedly from eastern Sri Lanka:

Active measures taken

National Thawheed Jama’ath (NTJ)

Five years ago on March 24, 2014 the Peace Loving Moderate Muslims in Sri Lanka (PLMMSL) urged the Government of Sri Lanka to ban without delay an Islamic religious movement calling itself the (National) Thawheed Jama’ath “because it was fast becoming a cancer within Sri Lanka’s Muslim community.”

It is alleged that NTJ headed by Moulavi Zahran had holed up in Kattankudi, 327 km east of Colombo, and recruited impressionable Muslim high school students to travel to Syria via Turkey. The hypothesis is that following military defeat at the hands of multinational forces, these Daesh or so-called Islamic State (IS) associated recruits had returned to Sri Lanka.

These allegations are yet to be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. Having said that I would argue that the spectacular terrorist bombings on Easter Sunday perpetrated on wholly unsuspecting Christians, tourists and citizens could be a last hurrah from Daesh to demonstrate to their supporters and the world at large that they are not defeated. Every suicide bombing though is a defeat for Daesh as they are losing cadres on each occasion.

Quo Vadis?

So where do we all go from here? Sri Lanka will recover, as it has done commendably from the decades long brutal civil wars and bloodletting that ended ten years ago. What of the human spirit and fragile inter-communal harmony between minority Christians, Muslims and majority Buddhists in Sri Lanka, and beyond?

That is the greatest challenge moving forward and Sri Lanka’s fractious political leaders have to demonstrate true statesmanship, and invest the required time, effort and resources in partnership with all faith leaders to make a difference.

Thereby, defeating the forces of darkness, ignorance and evil, and bringing enlightenment, peace and harmony to a beleaguered land. Similar actions must be taken by world leaders to overcome growing dystopia and unchecked authoritarianism that is haunting the 21st century, putting the planet and liberal democracy in dire peril.

UN’s Empty Promises to World’s Indigenous Peoples

Posted on April 19, 2019 by admin

Tupac Enrique Acosta is a member of the Nahuatl Nation and serves as firekeeper for the Nahuacalli, Embassy of Indigenous Peoples in Phoenix, Arizona.

The 18th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) will take place 22 April 3 May 2019. The theme of the session will be: “Traditional knowledge: Generation, Transmission and Protection”

PHOENIX, Arizona, Apr 19 2019 (IPS) – The United Nations, as in so many other areas, gives lip service in support of Indigenous issues while lacking the political will and enforcement power over individual member states to comply with the protection of fundamental human rights for the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the world.

It took 47 years since the 1960’s UN declaration in support of the right of “all peoples” to self-determination to be extended to Indigenous Peoples, with the adoption of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

But twelve years later, those words have not moved far off the paper on which they are written. Indigenous issues are still being subsumed under the individual domestic rubric of the member states of the UN Nations General Assembly, in defiance of the commitment to universal human rights that self-determination invokes and professes for all humanity.

It is no accident that the last four nation states to support the Declaration – Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States – were precisely those nations where the Anglo-European colonizers of the British Empire globally entrenched their colonial relationship with the Indigenous Peoples subsequent to the decline of Great Britain as a world power.

The devastation and genocide of Indigenous Nations and territories continues till today, but under a new mantle of progress called “Development”

For the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala [Americas], we know that the subjugation of Indigenous Peoples started 526 years ago with the sword and the cross are now perpetrated with trade agreements and the empty promises of dead letters from the United Nations.

It is all a reflection of the continuing pernicious influence of the Doctrine of Discovery, the series of 15th century papal bulls in which a succession of popes authorized European explorers “discovering” lands in the New World that were not occupied by Christians to consider those lands vacant – terra nullius, in the words of the Doctrine – and to seize those lands in the names of their sovereign and enslave those people who lived there.

Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas, in a 2015 speech in Bolivia went so far as to apologize for the sins of the Church – not individual conquistadores, but the Church itself – in the subjugation and colonization of Indigenous peoples during the conquest of the Americas.

But even as the Pope denounced the “new colonialism” of global capital oppressing Indigenous peoples, he ignores the pleas by a wide array of Christian denominations, including the World Council of Churches, for the Church to renounce the Doctrine. It is ancient history; the Papal Nuncio at the United Nations has said.

But it is not ancient history. It remains the basis of all Indigenous land law in the United States, and across the continent. In Mexico, the entire legal infrastructure since independence from Spain in 1836 is also based on the dictates of the Doctrine, known as the legaloid concept of Original Property of the State.

That is why Indigenous peoples take Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s recent letter to the Spanish king and the Pope asking for apologies for those genocidal colonial campaigns with little more than a grain of salt.

We know the Doctrine of Discovery’s impact is still pernicious. We see it in the Trump Administration’s racist immigration and refugee policies in the United States, which refuses to even recognize the historical reality of the descendants of those Indigenous peoples who have traveled freely across the US-Mexican border region before it even existed.

We see it in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsinairo has emboldened racist attacks on Indigenous Amazonian communities in the name of promoting even more destruction of ancient forest and waterways that sustain the entire planet.

We see it in Mexico, where President Lopez Obrador has pushed ahead with the tourism-promoting “Maya Train” across the Yucatan peninsula, tearing through the jungles and rivers in Indigenous homelands without even legitimately consulting the indigenous peoples who have lived there since time immemorial.

And we see it in the continuing devastation that a capital-centered economy, with its extractive industries that destroy the air and water we all rely on for survival, threatens the very future of global humanity. The stakes could not be higher.

We had hoped the UN’s creation of the Permanent Forum and passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples had started to turn the battleship of oppression at long last, but we have been disappointed. Instead of extending the universal human rights enshrined in those actions to include protection for Indigenous Peoples, the UN member states have subsumed them to the interests of the nation states that wield the most power with the UN’s halls.

That is why we will take to the streets on Monday, April 22, in New York across from the UN on the first day of this year’s session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to let delegates know that we will not be quiet, and we will not ignore the continuing impact of the racist and white-supremacist policies let loose on the Western Hemisphere by the Doctrine of Discovery.

And we will continue to call on the United Nations to live up to the commitments it has made to ensuring that the universal human rights it professes to champion before the world extends to the Indigenous peoples as it has, at least in word, committed. We call for world peace, and peace with Mother Earth.

We know the United Nations is far better at its words than at its deeds. We are here to say that is not enough.

Nicaraguans “Will Not Be Silenced”

Posted on April 17, 2019 by admin

Civil Society, Democracy, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Latin America & the Caribbean, TerraViva United Nations

Active Citizens

A year since Nicaragua spiralled into a socio-political crisis, human rights leaders have called on the country to refrain from violence and uphold the human rights of its citizens. Credit: Eddy López/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2019 (IPS) – A year since Nicaragua spiralled into a socio-political crisis, human rights leaders have called on the country to refrain from violence and uphold the human rights of its citizens.

In light of blatant, persistent human rights violations, United Nations agencies and human rights groups have urged the Nicaraguan government to halt its brutal crackdown on its citizens.

“Throughout the last year, the government of President Ortega has brutally and repeatedly repressed anyone who dares to stand up to his administration. The Nicaraguan authorities continue to violate the rights to justice, truth and reparation of hundreds of victims, while also preventing civil society organisations and international human rights monitors from working freely in the country,” said Amnesty International’s Americas Director Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“This has got to stop,” she added.

“Violations…coupled with the lack of accountability for unlawful excesses by members of the security forces, have stoked rather than reduced the tensions in the country,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.

After thousands took to the streets to protest controversial social security reforms in April 2018, demonstrations were quickly met with violence by state security forces and pro-pro-government armed groups.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, over 300 people have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and 2,000 arrested.

The Central American country has also since banned all protest and censored media in order to prevent any government criticism.

In December, Nicaraguan police raided TV station 100% Noticias and arrested station director Miguel Mora and news director Lucia Pineda Ubau, both of whom are being held on charges of “inciting hate and violence.”

At least 300 others, including human rights defenders, face charges of terrorism.

The High Commissioner particularly expressed concern over reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including recent reports of authorities beating and using dogs and tear gas on detained protestors in La Modelo prison.

Government police and shock troops besiege a protest by medical students trying to organise on Sept. 12 in the city of León, 90 km west of Managua. Credit: Eddy López/IPS

As major protests are expected to mark the anniversary of the start of the crisis later this week, many fear another violent reaction.

The targeting of dissidents and protestors have prompted a massive exodus as an estimated 60,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries, including Costa Rica.

Among those seeking asylum are students, opposition figures, journalists, doctors, human rights defenders and farmers.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), many families are taking extreme measures to cross the border after being persecuted or receiving threats making it “overwhelmingly a refugee flow.”

After several attempted attacks and being informed that he was wanted “dead or alive,” Manuel left his banana plantations and fled to Costa Rica with his pregnant wife Andrea and their two children.

“We lived with the anxiety of not knowing when they would break into the house to get us…I’m sure if I go home they will hurt me,” Manuel told UNHCR.

Taking great lengths to avoid police, Manuel took a small boat along the Pacific Coast while Andrea walked through a back route of muddy fields with the children.

While they are now safe in the neighbouring country, Manuel and Andrea’s children are still haunted by their last days in Nicaragua where they were hunted by gun-carrying men in uniform.

“My youngest son hugs me every time he sees the Costa Rican police because they look like the officials who attacked us. He hugs me and says that he takes care of his daddy,” Manuel said.

While the Nicaraguan government and the opposition Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy negotiated two pacts, including one on the release of detained protestors, the agreements have still yet to be implemented in its entirety and further negotiations have stalled.

“The fact that the negotiations have come to a standstill and the Government is not honouring the agreements reached so far, is undermining the possibility of establishing a genuine inclusive dialogue to solve the serious social, political and human rights crisis facing the country,” Bachelet said.

“A solution to the crisis must address the institutional flaws and strengthen the rule of law…it is of paramount importance that a thorough and transparent accountability process is established to ensure justice, truth and reparations, as well as a clear guarantee of non-repetition,” she added, highlighting the need to put victims of human rights violations at the heart of negotiations.

Guevara-Rosas urged the government to respect the public’s rights including the right to assembly, stating: “The Nicaraguan government must put an immediate end to its strategy of repression and release all the students, activists and journalists detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly….the brave people of Nicaragua will not be silenced.”

Global Governance and Information

Posted on April 16, 2019 by admin

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Opinion

Ambassador Walther Lichem* of Austria is President Inter Press Service (IPS).

VIENNA, Apr 16 2019 (IPS) – The past seventy years since the end of the second world war have been marked by profound changes in our international system. Relations between states have become more horizontally structured interactions with a rising significance of the common good articulated and pursued by newly-created international programmes and organisations.

Ambassador Walther Lichem

The international agenda increasingly consists of items addressing internationally and globally-shared challenges of dependencies and interdependencies.

The traditional security and peace focus has been broadened into areas of concern which require contributions and activities not only by states but by international organisations and programmes who jointly with non-state actors such as academic institutions and associations, civil society organisations, the private sector including those who joined the Global Compact, have contributed to a new pattern of leadership in the processes of defining our global goals and in the implementation of the related programmes of action.

Another characterizing element in our Global Agenda related-approach is the inter-sectoral interdependence reflected in the international community’s agenda marked by “AND” – “climate change and international security”, “human rights and societal cohesion” etc.

These agenda—and interrelated-ness—require, however, also institutional integration cutting across the institutional development marked by sectoral segregation. There is a rising need for each agenda sector to be fully up-to-date regarding the entire pattern of global challenges and the related plans of action, using this level of information for the development of institutional integration.

There is also a rising need for information flows between governmental/ intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The new global agenda benefits from the work and conclusions of academic institutions and programmes, a relationship which regrettably has not yet been fully recognized by the international system.

Many of our important global agenda items based their policy approach on research and academic discourse – e.g. the issue of environmental protection, the concept of sustainability, the process of climate change, the societal development needs and human rights etc.

Another dimension of the pluralisation of global governance affectedness and responsibility is the role of each and every citizen on the globe to know and understand these challenges and assume a rising responsibility in addressing them.

Certain agenda areas, such as environmental protection, the sustainable development and use of our natural resource systems, human rights and human security have given the citizen an almost central role in the achievement of the declared objectives.

Today, every citizen can contribute to the recognition of the dignity of the other and the related human rights. The impact of citizen-focused human rights programmes is visible in human rights cities in all regions of the world. The citizen creating conditions of societal cohesion also essentially contributes to peace and security.

Private sector decisions can make important contributions to both the natural resources related and societal cohesion-related challenges. Academic institutions must adjust their programmes of research and of university education to the global agenda-related challenges.

The cultural sector provides important inputs into the development of values and related behavioural patterns related to the challenges of pluri-identity societies and the integration of otherness.

All these new patterns of responsibility and contributions to achievements for our Global Agenda, however, do require qualified information. It must be recognized that complex academic or policy-process related studies and reports are not accessible to the general citizenship including those in positions of responsibility at local and national levels.

Even governmental institutions and the international diplomatic community cannot internalize all the documents which are to serve as a basis for multilateral negotiations.

The development of this new participatory system of global governance with intergovernmental institutions and processes, national governments and local authorities has led to the recognition of an urgent need for qualified patterns of information which translate challenges, achievements and failures to the political responsibilities at local, national and also international levels, to governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental institutions who have increasingly shaped our Global Agenda and articulated the rising need for societal understanding and information.

Media are the classical providers of such information combining data with assessments and the vision of our common future. Yet, as analysis of the current situation underlines, there is an urgent need to strengthen qualified information systems which would provide not only governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions and the citizens but also the media with pertinent and needed information.

There is no way into a future of shared global responsibility without a qualified and also ethically committed system of information related to our processes of global change.

There is a need to recognize that such highly pertinent information related to our common future requires recognition and support from the global society as a contribution to our shared global public space.

This implies that support is to be provided from governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions. A respective policy discourse with participation from these institutions is to be envisaged in order to prevent the decay or elimination of qualified programmes like Inter Press Service.

*Walther Lichem, retired Austrian Ambassador with studies in law and oriental archaeology (Univ. of Graz, Austria) and political science (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna) started his professional career in 1966 at the United Nations Secretariat in New York in the field of international water resources with development cooperation missions to Ethiopia (1971), Argentina (1971-74) and to the Senegal River Development Organisation (1980). He was also Rapporteur on international river basins at the International Conference on Water Law (Caracas, 1976) and at the IVth World Water Conference (Buenos Aires, 1982).
Ambassador Lichem undertook major assignments in the UN system at the Human Rights Summit in Vienna in 1992 and as Ambassador to Chile and to Canada, as a member of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and as an adviser to the 16 countries sharing the Guinea Current in West and Central Africa on the creation of a regional organisation.

Civil Society Under Attack in Name of Counterterrorism

Posted on April 15, 2019 by admin

Active Citizens, Civil Society, Conferences, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Peace, Population, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations

Civil Society

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which was the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and which took place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

More than 200 civil society leaders and human rights activists from some 100 countries took to the streets of Belgrade, Serbia in solidarity with those whose basic freedoms are at risk. They participated in the International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, which took place in Belgrade, April 8-12. Courtesy: CIVICUS

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2019 (IPS) – Counterterrorism measures are not only affecting extremist groups, but are also impacting a crucial sector for peace and security in the world: civil society.

Civil society has long played a crucial role in society, providing life-saving assistance and upholding human rights for all.

However, counterterrorism measures, which are meant to protect civilians, are directly, and often intentionally, undermining such critical work.

“Civil society is under increased assault in the name of countering terrorism,” Human Rights Watch’s senior counterterrorism researcher Letta Tayler told IPS, pointing to a number of United Nations Security Council resolutions as among the culprits.

“Nearly two decades after the September 11 attacks, we are seeing a very clear pattern of overly broad counterterrorism resolutions. We are seeing a clear pattern of violations on the ground that are being carried out in the name of complying with binding Security Council counterterrorism resolutions,” she added.

Just two weeks after September 11, 2001, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1373 which called states to adopt and implement measures to prevent and combat terrorism.

Since then, more than 140 countries have adopted counterterrorism laws.

The newly approved Resolution 2462, passed at the end of March, requires member states to criminalise financial assistance to terrorist individuals or groups “for any purpose” even if the aid is indirect and provided “in the absence of a link to a specific terrorist act.”

While the resolution does include some language on human rights protections, Tayler noted that it is not sufficient.

“It is not sufficiently spelled out to make very clear to member states what they can and cannot do that might violate human rights on the ground,” she said.

Blurred Lines

Among the major issues concerning these resolutions is that there is no universal, legal definition of terrorism, allowing states to craft their own, usually broad, definitions. This has put civil society organisations and human rights defenders (HRDs) alike at risk of detention and left vulnerable populations without essential life-saving assistance.

“I think it is irresponsible of the Security Council to pass binding resolutions that leave up to States to craft their own definitions of terrorism…that’s how you end up with counterterrorism laws that criminalise peaceful protest or criticising the state,” Tayler said.

Oxfam’s Humanitarian Policy Lead Paul Scott echoed similar sentiments to IPS, stating: “The Security Council, by being overly broad, is just giving [governments] the tools to restrict civil society.”

According to Front Line Defenders, an Irish-based human rights organisation, 58 percent of its cases in 2018 saw HRDs charged under national security legislation.

Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism Fionnuala Ní Aoláin found that 67 percent of her mandate’s communications regarding civil society were related to the use of counter-terrorism, and noted that country’s counterterrorism laws are being used as a “shortcut to targeting democratic protest and dissent.”

In April 2018, thousands of people took to the streets in Nicaragua to protest controversial reforms to the country’s social security system.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, over 300 people have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and 2,000 arrested—some of whom were reportedly subject to torture and sexual violence when detained.

Many of those arrested will also be tried as terrorists due to a new law that expanded the definition of terrorism to include a range of crimes such as damage to public and private property.

At least 300 people, including human rights defenders, face charges of terrorism.

The Central American country said that the law was passed to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body that works alongside the Security Council to combat terrorist financing.

A Civil Society Facing Uncivility

Tayler also pointed to the lack of consequences for States that pass counterterrorism laws that do not abide by their obligations under international law.

In Resolution 2462, member states are told to comply with international humanitarian law when cracking down on terrorist financing but does not require countries to consider the effect of such measures on humanitarian activities such as providing food and medical care.

“In the zeal to be as tough looking as they can possibly can, governments have overlooked very very easy ways to protect those of us who are providing life-saving aid,” Paul told IPS.

The lack of protections for civil society and its impacts was most visible during the 2011 famine in Somalia.

In an effort to restrict “material support” to terrorist groups, countries such as the United States enacted counterterrorism legislation which blocked aid into areas controlled by Al-Shabab.

This not only impeded local and international organisations from doing their job, but one report noted that the constraints contributed to the deaths of over 250,000 people in the East African nation.

The problem has only gotten worse since then, Paul noted.

“The measures imposed by governments are unnecessarily broad and they prevent us from working in areas that are controlled by designated terrorist entities. What they have essentially done is criminalise humanitarian assistance,” he said.

Tunisia has used its terrorism financing laws to shut down a number of civil society organisations.

According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, approximately 200 organisations were dissolved and almost 950 others were delivered notices, referring them to courts on charges of “financial irregularities” or “receiving foreign funds to support terrorism” despite the lack of substantive evidence.

Many of the dissolved organisations provided aid and relief for orphans and the disabled.

All Eyes on Deck

Tayler highlighted the importance of the UN and civil society to monitor how counterterrorism resolutions such as Resolution 2462 are used on the ground.

“While we would love to see amendments to this resolution, pragmatically the next best step is for all eyes—the eyes of civil society, the UN, regional organisations—to focus on just how states implement this resolution to make sure that overly broad language is not used by states to become a tool of repression,” she said.

“The UN and leaders of countries around the world should use International Civil Society Week as an opportunity to take stock of the risk that this trend has posed on both to life-saving aid organisations and human rights defenders and to reverse this dangerous trend,” Tayler added.

Paul pointed to the need to educate both the public and policymakers on counterterrorism and its spillover effects as well as the importance of civil society in the global system.

“Civil society is a key part of effective governance. We don’t get effective public services, we don’t get peace, we don’t get to move forward with the anti-poverty agenda if civil society actors aren’t strong and empowered,” he said.

“If governments aren’t careful about protecting our right to stand up for marginalised and vulnerable populations, everyone will hurt. Not just those populations. It will have an effect broadly on our societies,” Paul added.

Civil Society Leaders Meet Amid Protests, Attacks on Rights

Posted on April 7, 2019 by admin

Civil Society, Conferences, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Global, Global Geopolitics, Global Governance, Globalisation, Headlines, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations

Civil Society

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

Representatives said that civil society and concerned citizens worldwide have started to respond with “renewed determination” to the unprecedented challenges facing the world, and that this resolve will be in the spotlight during International Civil Society Week (ICSW). Pictured here is a protest by France’s Gilets Jaunes (or Yellow Vests) from earlier this year. Credit: Olivier Ortelpa/CC By 2.0

PARIS, Apr 7 2019 (IPS) – Amid rising attacks on rights campaigners, and mass protests in countries such as France and Serbia, civil society groups are urging governments to ensure the protection of “democratic values” and freedom of expression.

In Belgrade, some 850 human rights campaigners, civil society leaders and engaged citizens will meet Apr. 8 to 12 for the annual International Civil Society Week (ICSW) – a gathering co-hosted by the Johannesburg-based global civil society alliance CIVICUS and Serbian association Civic Initiatives, with the support of the Balkans Civil Society Development Network.

Under the theme, “The Power of Togetherness”, ICSW 2019 “seeks to generate deep conversations among civil society leaders, social justice advocates, development practitioners, members of the philanthropic community, diplomats and others on emerging global challenges and how civil society should be responding to these,” said Mandeep Tiwana, CIVICUS’ chief programmes officer.

“Defence of democratic values, civic space and participation, along with citizen action, will be among the topics of discussion,” he told IPS in an email interview while en route to Belgrade.

“Our message to governments is that the right to peaceful protest is a basic human right enshrined in constitutional and international law. Governments have an inherent responsibility to enable the right to peaceful protest as an integral element of the defence of democracy,” he added.

The ICSW meeting comes at a time when human-rights organisations, campaigners and media workers in many regions have experienced growing repression, including arrests, beatings and killings that have shocked and outraged international observers.

“In country after country, democracy is under attack, with populist and right-wing movements gaining ground and democratic regression being witnessed even in countries historically considered bastions of democracy,” CIVICUS says.

“Activists, journalists and people who speak out against growing restrictions are persecuted. A historic rise of populist leaders continues to erode fundamental freedoms, heightening political polarisation and sowing division,” the group adds.

“This year’s event in Serbia comes at a critical and opportune time for civil society and the world’s citizens to realise the power of unified, collective action to challenge a global trend that threatens our fundamental freedoms,” said Lysa John, CIVICUS’ Secretary General.

The discussions will take place against a backdrop of unrest in various countries: massive public demonstrations have been continuing in Serbia, for instance, while France’s Gilets Jaunes (or Yellow Vests) marched again on Apr. 6 in Paris and other cities for the 21st weekend in a row.

This latest French strife began last November in response to fuel price increases, and the demonstrators say they won’t give up until their demands are met for a restructuring of French society so that the “elite” aren’t always in charge.

During earlier marches, rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticised the French police for using “excessive force” and “heavy-handed” crowd control and anti-riot measures.

But some protestors have also participated in violence, looting and the targeting of media professionals, as reporters covering the marches have come under attack.

Media workers, in fact, often find themselves between a rock and a hard place, caught amongst the security forces and protestors as they try to report on turbulent events. CIVICUS said that the role of the media and their relationship with civil society will be a key topic of discussion at ICSW, alongside the focus on protecting rights campaigners.

“CIVICUS is working in several ways to stop attacks on members of the media and civil society activists targeted for exposing rights violations or speaking truth to power,” Tiwana said. “We engage with a broad range of civil society organisations that support press freedom using several approaches ranging from in-depth participatory research and analysis to raising awareness of attacks on the media, strategic coalition building, and directly engaging decision-makers at the national and international levels.”

He told IPS that joint efforts had contributed to the “release of journalists and the scrapping of repressive bills that restrict media freedoms” in some instance, while in others the efforts had “helped put serious violations of media freedoms on the UN’s radar through its various human rights mechanisms”.

The choice of Serbia’s capital as the 2019 ICSW venue will draw attention to current protests and also recall the bloody recent history of the Balkans, highlighting the need for international vigilance in protecting rights, according to civil society groups.

“During the 1990s, authoritarian regimes produced conflicts, severe human rights violations and genocide. Today, as we approach European Union membership, internal and international independent monitoring mechanisms show shrinking media freedoms, a lack of separation of power and rule of law, and deterioration of freedom of elections,” stated Maja Stojanovic, of Civic Initiatives.

“This region, and particularly Serbia, demonstrates that changing laws, strategies or governments offers no guarantees – democracy does not exist if it is not built constantly. By hosting this year’s event in Belgrade, we will convene and send messages rooted in local circumstances and, in the same time, fully reflecting global challenges,” she said.

Ahead of the meeting, Serbia and four other countries have been added to a global watchlist of countries that have seen an “escalation in serious threats to fundamental freedoms in recent weeks and months”, according to CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks threats to civil society across the world.

Citizens of all five countries (Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Venezuela are the others) are experiencing increasing rights violations that “include killings, attacks on protesters, media restrictions and arbitrary detentions of human rights defenders”.

“It is deeply concerning to see escalated threats to basic rights in these countries,” said Marianna Belalba Barreto, CIVICUS’ Civic Space Research Lead.

“It is critical that these five governments wake up to their failure to respect international law and take swift action to respect their citizens’ most basic freedoms in a democratic society,” Belalba said.

CIVICUS is also calling upon “neighbouring states and international bodies to put pressure on these countries to end the repression”.

Malawi Diaspora

Posts Tagged: Global Governance