Frontline

The Ireland Funds asked Mary Lawlor, Director of Front Line to share some of their headlines from the past year.

Mary Lawlor
In all the years I have spent working for human rights, the people who have always inspired me have been human rights defenders—extraordinarily brave people who on a daily basis choose to put their lives on the line—by defending human rights for everyone.

When you work for human rights, it is very easy to get caught up in the minutiae of delivering campaigns and keeping pace with the needs and demands of a growing organisation. Then you meet someone like Radhia Nasraoui from Tunisia, who has campaigned for human rights in her country for the last twenty years. She has been intimidated, arrested and beaten up by the security forces. Her office has been ransacked on numerous occasions and she is subjected to such unrelenting surveillance that even when her last daughter was being born, the police were outside the door. And yet she never gives up. After I speak to Radhia on the phone I always feel that there must be something more that we can do.

Over the years there have been many other people like Radhia. Mutabar Tadjibaeva from Uzbekistan, Yan Christian Warinussi from West Papua or Biljana Kovacevic from Serbia. Mutabar remains in solitary confinement in Uzbekistan, while both Biljana and Yan Christian receive regular threats. When you sit across a table from one of these people and you hear how they have to drive around in a car with tinted windows for fear of assassination, how they jump with nerves every time a motor bike drives past their house because they think it might be a gunman, or how they have to get guards to take their children to school in case they are kidnapped—it makes you feel very humble. And every time you meet one of these people the question keeps coming back—surely there must be something more—better—more effective—that we can do?

It became very clear to me that if we were going to see any meaningful social change (i.e. change that would actually improve the quality of peoples lives) it would be the human rights defenders in the community who would deliver it. Change comes from the ground up, from the people working for clean water in their villages, for education for their daughters, for the right to earn a living that will enable them to put food on the table. It is these people campaigning for the human rights of others who are seen as a threat because they are key agents of social change who touch on powerful interests.

Setting up Front Line
Front Line, the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, was set up with the backing of Irish businessman Denis O’Brien in 2001. It really was a leap of faith. It is very nerve wracking to start something from scratch. You have a lot of doubts. Will it work?—will it help?—is there enough interest or support?—will we be effective in protecting human rights defenders? In establishing Front Line, there was only one criterion—anything we did had to be directly linked to the active protection of human rights defenders at risk.

We spent the first years getting to know the defenders, listening to them and finding out what they felt would make a difference. Then we had to prove that Front Line could help. One of the first things that became very clear was the need to act quickly. When a defender has been arrested and you know that they risk torture, or worse, you have to find a way to get in touch immediately, to apply pressure—to keep the person alive.

We constantly see the same pattern of harassment of human rights defenders. They are slandered in the media, described as terrorists—or traitors—or the enemy within. Whether coming from within government or the security services, this campaign of vilification has the effect of isolating defenders within the community, makes them vulnerable and easy to attack. They may lose their jobs, be dropped by friends and have to leave their homes. They may just have to get up and run.

Dramatic Moments
This has led to some very dramatic moments. At the height of the war in Liberia human rights defender Aloysius Toe was on a blacklist and at imminent risk of being arrested or killed. He had to get out of the city but it was too dangerous to go through the airport. Not only that, but it was a Saturday and all the banks were shut—so how could we get money to Aloysius? One of our team here in Dublin got on the phone to Monrovia, persuaded the manager of a bank to open up and accept some money, which was then delivered to Aloysius through an intermediary to buy a small boat. Aloysius hid under the boat on the beach during the day and finally, under cover of darkness, he set off on a perilous four day journey down the coast to Côte d’Ivoire—finally making his way to Ghana by truck. Since that dramatic exit, Aloysius has been able to return home to continue his work for human rights.

This year we were able to celebrate the release of Gulbahor Turayeva and Umida Niyazova in Uzbekistan, both of whom had been imprisoned simply because of their work for human rights.

Congo
Also this year I traveled to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to meet Gégé Katana, who works with survivors of sexual violence. Her organisation Solidarity Movement of Women Rights Activists (SOFAD), deals both with rape used as a weapon of war and the broader issue of sexual violence within the community. Gégé travels from village to village documenting cases, working with survivors and campaigning for an end to the violence. Because she is a woman who is challenging power and because she is speaking publicly about something that is still largely a taboo subject—her life is in danger. Gégé has been detained and threatened and her house has been stripped of all its contents while she was away visiting another village. Yet she goes on.

During the visit to eastern DRC, I visited the Front Line communications centre in Uviru, which enables human rights defenders to use email and internet facilities safely, without having to make the dangerous crossing over the border into neighbouring Burundi to use internet cafes.

Previously the only way across the border was via a dangerous road, heavily patrolled by paramilitary groups. Many defenders were picked up in this way. Now they can communicate safely both nationally and internationally and the centre is also used for training in personal security.

Frank Jennings Internship
Through The Ireland Funds network, Front Line established the Frank Jennings Internship to give an opportunity for dedicated and talented individuals to gain experience working for the protection of human rights defenders in an international NGO. The Frank Jennings Intern works for six months of the year in the office of the UN Special Representative for Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, and for an additional six months at Front Line’s headquarters in Dublin.

Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk
This year, with the help and support of The Ireland Funds, Bono from U2 presented the annual Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk to Gégé Katana recognising the work and the courage of Gégé and the other members of SOFAD. We have also just held a repeat of the Front Line Award in Kinshasa and we hope that the recognition and the support she received there will help to protect her in the future.

King Baudouin International Prize for Development
It is always nice to be told that you are doing a good job, and this year it gave the whole Front Line team of staff and volunteers enormous pride when Front Line itself was awarded the King Baudouin International Prize for Development because of “the impact and effectiveness of their work”. We were particularly pleased that Gégé Katana and Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam from Sudan (a previous winner of the Front Line Award) were able to be with us to share the occasion. In the gilded halls of the Royal Palace in Brussels, it was very easy to get carried away by the excitement of the moment and forget where all this came from. But I have seen where Gégé comes from: an exceptionally beautiful country, but one ravaged by war and poverty and the constant threat of violence. I also know that when she went back she had to step carefully between the needs of the women she works for and the constant risk of incurring the anger of the powerful.

The Irish Government has been very supportive of our work from the beginning and it was a source of great satisfaction when during the Irish presidency of the European Union they agreed to prioritise human rights defenders. They appointed Front Line to draft a consultation paper and, on the basis of this paper and with the support of the Irish Government, the EU Guidelines for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders were adopted.

But of all the highs and lows over the past five years perhaps what gives me most satisfaction is to see the growing respect for the role of human rights defenders and the recognition of the importance of protecting these real heroes of our time who through their work are the guarantors of our collective future.

On November 22, 2007 we were very privileged to welcome Ms. Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as the key note speaker at the Fourth Dublin Platform for human rights defenders. We were also joined in the opening session by Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Dermot Ahern TD.

The Fourth Dublin Platform brought together more than one hundred human rights defenders from 78 countries, many of whom had to go to huge lengths to bypass the restrictions on their movements to come to Dublin. These are people who, in their every day work, risk life and liberty in defence of the rights of others. For some, the mere fact that they were attending this conference would be enough to put them in danger.

 The Dublin Platform
The Dublin Platform, which takes place every two years, is an opportunity for human rights defenders to come together, share experiences and learn from each other. It is also an opportunity for us in Front Line to listen to the defenders and learn how we can help to protect them more effectively. The Front Line Dublin platform also provides defenders with a much needed psychological break from the pressure and risks that they normally have to face.

This Platform looked in depth at the patterns of attacks against HRDs, including the specific challenges facing women HRDs. It examined the trends we should be most concerned about and examined potential counter-strategies.

A dramatic moment in the Platform came when the UN Special Representative for Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jalani, spoke to the conference by telephone from Pakistan. She had just returned home despite the fact that, as a result of the current political crisis her sister, Asma Jahangir, was already under house arrest and the police had surrounded her own house. She called on the community of human rights defenders to speak out against the ongoing detention and torture of many prominent lawyers and human rights defenders in Pakistan.

Unfortunately our work is defined as much by our failures as by our successes. There are some people I remember because we were not able to protect them—Digna Ochoa in Mexico, Pascal Kabungulu in DRC and Ana Politkovskaya in Russia.

The words of Ana Politkovskaya describing her work on Chechnya sums up for me the incredible spirit that motivates human rights defenders and defines why we must support them:

“So each time I go there, people tell me things. They do so in the sincere hope that, if I record what is actually happening, it will lead to change, to peace. Obviously, I am not to blame for what is going on, but the more I think about it, the more I would be betraying these people if I walked away. The only thing to do is to take this to the bitter end, so that no one can say that when things became difficult, I ran away."

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