The "new criminals" - human rights defenders on the front line

Forming an association or a union, investigating forced disappearances or
arbitrary detentions, writing a report on torture, denouncing the
consequences on the indigenous population of building a dam or
documenting other human rights violations are actions that carry risks in
more than 80 countries. Death threats, smear campaigns, physical abuses
and acts of torture, reprisals against family members, bans on travel,
confiscation of equipment, arbitrary arrest and detention are methods used
to deter human rights defenders in many countries.


The “new criminals” - human rights defenders on the front line


As a civil society’s capacity for action and mobilisation grows both
nationally and internationally, so some governments react by mounting
strategies to silence those independent voices.
In 2002 this trend was confirmed and amplified. Since the September
11 terrorist attacks, the paradigm has changed, making the context in which
civil society operates more hostile. Security has become the absolute priority
and the - legitimate and necessary - fight against terrorism is increasingly
diverted from its primary objective and used by governments to establish or
strengthen their hold on power at the expense of their commitments on
human rights. Some governments, such as those of Uzbekistan, Russia,
Egypt and Malaysia, have used these events to legitimise or reinforce their
repressive practices, often with the encouragement or blessing of Western
governments, which they themselves are setting a bad example and revising
their alliances in the name of the international fight against terrorism.
Consequently, those who dare to criticise regimes for their human rights
abuses are more than ever on the front line, as governments and governmentsponsored
private groups clamp down. Defenders’ appeals for the Rule of
Law and their denunciations of violations are perceived as threats by an
increasing number of governments, whose reaction is to repress such
“unpatriotic troublemakers” who are tarnishing their country’s image both
nationally and internationally.
While this repression is not new, it is now part of a strategy to criminalise
the human rights movement, which is all the more elaborate as that
movement grows in importance.

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