
Human rights defenders (HRDs) put their lives at stake to defend our rights in court, on paper, on the street, before the powerful or behind closed doors. Today, on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, OMCT celebrates, thanks them and makes noise around their plight and achievements to ensure their greater protection.
"We have decided to put up around our offices the portraits of all the fallen defenders," said Hina Jilani, OMCT's President, who is based in Pakistan."Now all the walls are covered."
An estimated 3,500 human rights defenders have been killed around the world because of their peaceful work defending the rights of others since the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders by consensus two decades agao. In many cases these killings have been carried out by state agents or with the collusion of state officials. Most cases have not led to any charges or convictions. In recent years, the number of killings and the number of countries in which they take place have done nothing but rise. Many killings are not even legally documented. Yet pervasive impunity is precisely what normalizes the killing of human rights defenders and perpetuates them.
The seven HRDs from Honduras, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Belarus, the Russian Federation, Guatemala that OMCT has interviewed in the framework of its #MakeNoise4HRDs social media campaign did not hesitate: they have taken considerable risks and made huge sacrifices for the sake of protecting the rights of others. It is our turn to defend HRDs by letting the world know how much they sacrifice for defending our rights and how much we owe them. The one thing that effectively protects HRDs is raising awareness about the risks they run for us. And if not, at least their message will still carry on being heard.
Join our campaign: watch these stories and post them using #MakeNoise4HRDs.
Ruki Fernando (Sri Lanka):
Yuri_MakeNoise4HRDs_4 from OMCT / SOS-Torture Network on Vimeo.
Alberto Xicoténcatl Carrasco (Mexico):
Dina Meetabel Meza Elvir (Honduras):
Shahinda Ismail (Maldives):
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