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Hard life for activists
Mail & Guardian (SA)
June 27, 2008

A recent United Nations report throws harsh light on the plight of human rights defenders across the world, showing that many of them operate in a climate of repressive laws without the right to mobilize, assemble or express themselves.

The annual Observatory for Human Rights Defenders report, released by the South African Human Rights Commission in Johannesburg this week, lays particularly heavy emphasis on the persecution of human rights activists in Zimbabwe.

It singles out 21 other African countries that have cracked down on human rights activism through repressive laws and have experienced attacks on and harassment of humanitarian workers. They include Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The reports highlights a continuing deterioration in the state of human rights worldwide: "Once again this year the little and partial progress that has been noted has again been counterbalanced at best by stagnation and at worst a deterioration in the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Hundreds of human rights defenders continued to be victimized by "arbitrary arrests, sentences handed out following unfair trials or placements under house arrest".

They were "subjected to verbal and physical violence by the authorities, private armed groups or the henchmen of . . . a regime."

Speaking at the release of the report, the vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights and member of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, Arnold Tsunga, said rights defenders were at particular risk in countries with "declining political space and levels of democracy".

Tsunga said that Zimbabwean NGOs helping displaced people with food, blankets and medical care were closed down by the state two weeks ago. "The ruling party is using mass starvation and violence to make people comply with its political agenda."

Tsunga was arrested on his return from the World Social Forum in Nairobi in January last year.

The report says that in April last year he was placed on a state blacklist of 15 names of human rights defenders accused of "working hand in hand with forces hostile to Zimbabwe" and kept under close surveillance.

Three journalists on the list - Gift Phiri, Abel Mutsakani and Bill Saidi - were attacked last year.

Listing other human rights defenders attacked by the Zimbabwean government and its agents, the report says:

• A demonstration in March last year that put pressure on the government to respect human rights resulted in the arrest of 49 people;
• On the same day National Constitutional Assembly activist Gift Tandare was killed by police, who also opened fire at his funeral, wounding two people;
• Fifty-six members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) were detained after staging peaceful protests against price increases and worsening living standards in April last year. Woza members involved in peaceful protests were arrested on more than 20 occasions between 2003 and 2007.

Africa is not alone in repressing human rights defenders - the report lists 15 offending governments in South America and the Caribbean (including Cuba), 15 in Asia (including China and India) and 10 European and Commonwealth of Independent States nations, including the Russian federation.

Defenders at particular risk are those who uphold economic, social and cultural rights and seek accountability for past human rights crimes.

In China defenders of environmental, health, social, cultural, economic and workers' rights are victims of constant harassment and detention, the report says.

Dozens of journalists and Internet users were imprisoned in the Asian country. House arrests increased, human rights activists arrested and tried on arbitrary grounds and demonstrations of all kinds banned for the duration of the Olympic Games, scheduled to take place in August.

The report quotes tireless human rights advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu saying "If modern South Africa was able to emerge without bloodshed, it is perhaps thanks to human rights defenders who incessantly called for a sense of human dignity; because of leaders like Nelson Mandela, who after years of illegal detention in inhumane conditions provided examples of authorities who were attached to human dignity and the rule of law, for which they had always fought."

At the release of the report advocate Faith Pansy Tlakula, a member of the African Commission on Human Rights and People's Rights, said the main hope of entrenching a human rights culture in the Southern African region lay in the establishment of an African court on human and people's rights.

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