Infringement upon human rights activism and human rights defenders in non-democratic societies
15:44, March 24, 2016 | News, Own news
The Norwegian Government submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council member states a draft resolution on human rights defenders addressing economic, social and cultural rights, already supported by a number of countries, including Australia, Brazil, France, Ghana, Japan and Tunisia.
China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan and Russia proposed to amend the draft. In particular, they put forward 30 amendments posing serious dangers to human rights activism. Specifically, they propose to eliminate the term “human rights defender” and legitimacy of human rights activities, and not to support protection of human rights defenders from persecution and attacks.
The draft resolution will be put on vote on March 23 and 24, 2016.
In the countries that propose the amendments above, the human rights situation is very poor; particularly, in China about 300 journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders have been detained since July 2015. And as for Egypt, it seeks to stop the activities of independent human rights organizations.
On this occasion, over 100 organizations from around the world addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council with an open letter on rejecting the proposed negative changes.
The Republic of Armenia ranges among the countries, which have adopted a number of resolutions on human rights defenders.
We hereby urge the RA Government to reject the proposed negative changes as well and approve the current draft.
See also: ishr.ch