"Change will come in the end. Because of your work the tortures will be made redundant, the killers will be brought to justice, the forensic scientists will no longer be required".
Denis O’Brien,Chairman, Board of Trustees, Front Line

The Platform was opened by Denis O’Brien, Chairman of Front Line’s Board of Trustees, who welcomed all the participants and introduced Judge Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The High Commissioner emphasised the central importance of the work of human rights defenders, listing the many threats and dangers they face because of their work. She pointed out that women human rights defenders are exposed to specific risks, among which are sexual violence and threats from a range of actors including members of their own families. Also exposed are HRDs who challenge traditional structures and religious practices, and HRDs working on lesbian, gay, bisexua, transsexual and inter-sex (LGBTI) rights, who suffer from the same violence and harassment as people who belong to those groups. She noted as well that the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on the situation of human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, had taken up no less then 140 cases of human rights defenders killed for their work on economic, social and cultural rights.

The High Commissioner highlighted the need to counter restraints on freedom of expression, which have become frequent, and defend the principle of free association. She criticised the fact that human rights defenders are often prevented from registering legally and are harassed financially. She drew attention to the importance of the mandate of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on the situation of human rights defenders and to the work of Hina Jilani, the first holder of this mandate, who will complete her extended term in 2008. Noting that the Representative’s work “has served as a protection for thousands”, she said that “We must spare no efforts to protect the current mandate”.

The High Commissioner underlined the importance of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, which lays out key principles affirmed in human rights treaties and other legal documents, and protects the right to undertake human rights activities. Noting that the tenth anniversary of the Declaration falls in 2008 – a year in which the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights also falls – she asked HRDs to give attention to the Declaration in all their reporting.

The High Commissioner went on to speak about the “responsibility to protect”, the work of her Office, and the progress made in constructing the Human Rights Council. She suggested that the “responsibility to protect”, an emerging principle affirmed by governments in 2005 which asserts that the international community should step in when gross suffering occurs in other countries, offers a large space for human rights action during different phases of humanitarian and human rights crises. Action is needed to prevent crises from occurring, to respond to suffering and oppression, to rebuild after crises end, and to bring perpetrators to justice. She encouraged HRDs to extend their work into this new and emerging area of international human rights activity.

With respect to the work of her Office, the High Commissioner said that the Office is becoming better equipped to work, in countries, to support and protect HRDs and learn from them. There is an opportunity here for the Office to become more useful, as well as to strengthen its relationships with HRDs . More generally, the High Commissioner noted the crucial role played by the Special Procedures mandate holders, the need to persuade states to ratify the core human rights treaties if they have not done so, and the progress that has been made in establishing the basic structures of the Human Rights Council. She noted, nevertheless, that this work is not complete and she encouraged HRDs to seize opportunities to influence the Council’s development. In particular, the new Universal Periodic Review mechanism has potential to shape the Council’s work in important ways. The Office will prepare a report on each country before it is reviewed, and will take account of information it receives from civil society organisations and HRDs. She urged HRDs to participate in this potentially very important procedure.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ireland, Mr Dermot Ahern TD, emphasised that the protection of human rights is a central element of Ireland’s foreign policy. Noting that this year Ireland had again co-sponsored the resolution on human rights defenders, tabled by Norway, in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, he paid tribute to the work of Front Line and the work of the UN Special Representative, Hina Jilani, herself a human rights defender from Pakistan who was at risk of being detained. In this context he called for the release of all human rights defenders detained following the declaration of a State of Emergency in Pakistan on 3 November 2007. Mr Ahern reaffirmed that Ireland supports the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders. The Foreign Minister went on to welcome the recent initiative of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Mr Thomas Hammarberg, to highlight protection of HRDs in Europe, and commented on several specific human rights issues, notably the situations in Darfur and in the Middle East. In closing he reaffirmed the Irish Government’s commitment to support the work of human rights defenders, who “call the powerful to account and offer protection to the vulnerable, and remind us of the high standards against which we should measure ourselves”.

In questions that followed the keynote speeches, the High Commissioner was asked about the capacity of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to respond to human rights violations in Uzbekistan, the DRC and the Middle East, to slave-like conditions suffered by people of Haitian origin in the Dominican Republic, the problems of Cabinda in Angola, and the situations in Fiji and Iraq.The High Commissioner was able to answer that OHCHR regional offices are being opened in Uzbekistan and DRC, and that she hopes to make a visit soon to Angola (where the OHCHR already has an office). With respect to the treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, Judge Arbour acknowledged the issue and said that more effective work should be possible from the OHCHR’s new office in Panama. On Fiji, she observed that she has expressed concern publicly and privately about the positions taken by Fiji’s national human rights commission after the coup in 2006. On Iraq she said that the security situation made it difficult to maintain a presence in the country, especially after the assassination of her predecessor and many UN colleagues when the UN compound in Baghdad was bombed in 2003.

Mr Ahern was asked by a human rights defender from Morocco about the European Union’s failure to speak out on some human rights issues, which has disappointed many HRDs. The Foreign Minister acknowledged that the EU’s record is imperfect and that EU Member States as well as Associate States need to engage more actively and at senior level in policy forums like the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.

Mary Lawlor, Director of Front Line, then spoke about the key elements of Front Line’s work since the last Platform in 2005. She named several HRDs who had been honoured for their work, as well as others who had been arrested and detained, or prevented by their governments from attending this meeting. She remembered also some of the HRDs who had been murdered in the last year because of their human rights work, and named particularly Roger Ivan Cartagena, Environmental Movement of Olancho, Honduras; Hy Vuthy, President of the Free Trade Union of Workers, Cambodia; Isse Abdi Isse, Kisima Peace and Development Organisation, Somalia; Sahar Al-Haidari, journalist and women’s human rights defender, Iraq; Ricardo Murillo Monge, Sinaloa Civic Front, Mexico; and Valmir Mota de Oliveira of the Landless Workers Movement, Brazil.

She went on to highlight several emerging areas of Front Line’s work around which the agenda of the 2007 Platform had been constructed. These included armed conflict, security laws, nonstate actors; attacks on HRDs working on economic, social and cultural rights; the needs of women HRDs and their children; the prevalence of sexual violence against HRDs; the need to address specific and additional threats faced by HRDs who work on LGBTI rights; the personal security of HRDs; and stress and isolation and ways that HRDs can manage them. Quoting Sahar Al-Haidari just months before her murder – “Our psychological state is unbalanced because we live and think in fear and anxiety” – she paid tribute to the courage, endurance and indomitable determination of human rights defenders.