The Global Compact on Refugees: A breakthrough opportunity in addressing the protracted refugee crises in East Africa
Posted: 4 October, 2019 Filed under: Juliet Nyamao | Tags: Agenda for Sustainable Development, climate change, climate changes, East Africa, Ethiopia, flee, fleeing war, forced displacement, Global Compact on Refugees, human rights violations, humanitarian funding, Kenya, migration, New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, refugee camps, refugee self-reliance, refugees, SDG, sub-Saharan Africa, sustainable development, Uganda, UN, United Nations, war 1 Comment
Author: Juliet Nyamao
Human Rights Attorney, Kenyan Bar
In recent years, the world has witnessed an explosive increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced persons. The upsurge in forced displacement has increased the demand for humanitarian assistance and strained the limited resources of host nations, majority of which are developing economies. The resulting economic strain compelled the international community to develop sustainable mechanisms for protecting refugees and displaced persons in alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Read the rest of this entry »
Citizen media and the freedom of expression
Posted: 25 March, 2019 Filed under: Adebayo Okeowo | Tags: article 19(2), citizen media, civilian journalists, Human Rights Committee, human rights violations, ICCPR, police malfeasance, right to freedom of expression, right to record, serve to inform, social media 1 Comment
Author: Adebayo Okeowo
Advocacy Coordinator, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
If you have ever found yourself whipping out your phone to film or photograph police officers brutally beating up peaceful protesters, and you subsequently share that video or picture on social media, you have just contributed to citizen media. You are also someone who can be referred to as a citizen journalist. This is just one of the several scenarios in which civilian witnesses are – knowingly or unknowingly – helping to document evidence of human rights violations.
Citizen media encapsulates videos, pictures or audio produced by non-professional journalists, especially using their mobile phone as a tool. Citizen media started gaining prominence when an increasing number of civilians became equipped with smartphones and had access to social media.
Building alliances between IDAHOT and MaputoProtocol@15 for womxn
Posted: 18 May, 2018 Filed under: David Ikpo | Tags: African Societies, Bruce Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, homophobic inhumanity, human rights, human rights violations, IDAHOT, international Day Against Homophobia Transphobia and Biphobia, LGBTI, Maputo Protocol, MaputoProtocol@15, May 17, sexual orientations, Womxn Leave a comment
Author: David Ikpo
Nigerian lawyer and storyteller with a Master of Laws in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa
IDAHOT: The international Day Against Homophobia Transphobia and Biphobia
Maputo Protocol: Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa
Womxn: No set definition. This term, as used in this piece, refers to a broad still unraveling category of persons of female gender who voluntary identify, live, express their gender crossing stereotypical roles and standards, embracing her several cross-cutting circumstances and layers of identity, recognizing the humanity and diversity in her community, operating, demanding, believing in and working towards the substantive equality(equity) of all sexes and genders and against the repressive confines of the poisonous glorification of masculinity at the expense of the human rights of persons of female gender in all spaces. A feminist.
A review of the work of the African Commission’s Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa
Posted: 26 April, 2016 Filed under: Miriam Azu | Tags: African Charter, African Commission, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African human rights system', Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), DRC, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa, extractive industry, human rights violations, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Liberia, Marikana, Marikana Commission of Inquiry, National Association of Professional Environments, natural resources, Nigeria, non-state actors, Ogoni, special mechanism, toolkit, Working Group, Working Group on Extractive Industries Leave a comment
Author: Miriam Azu
Lawyer, Human Rights Advocate and Environmental Activist
The Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa (Working Group) is an oversight mechanism of the African human rights system. Its general mandate is to monitor and report on how extractive activities affect the human rights and environment of the African peoples.[1] This article briefly evaluates what the Working Group has done so far vis-à-vis its mandate, notes some of its challenges and concludes with recommendations on the way forward.
Suppressing dissent: The Gambian reality
Posted: 19 April, 2016 Filed under: Satang Nabaneh | Tags: 1997 Constitution, Abubacarr Saidykhan, Amnesty International, Babucarr Ceesay, Ban Ki-moon, deprivation of life, detention, Ebrima Barry, Gambia Students Union (GAMSU), human rights violations, Human Rights Watch, immunity, insurrection, Lasana Jobarteh, law enforcement, mutiny, Ousainou Darboe, peaceful protests, President Jammeh, Public Order Act, right to protest, riot, rule of law, Solo Sandeng, The Gambia, United Democratic Party (UDP), United Nations, unlawful arrests, use of force 3 Comments
Author: Satang Nabaneh
Gambian Reporter to the Oxford Constitutions Online Project
The right to freedom of assembly as guaranteed by the 1997 Constitution includes the right to take part in peaceful demonstrations. However, people are deterred from organising and participating in such demonstrations. Section 18(4)(C) allows for the use of force and the deprivation of life in the ‘suppression of a riot, insurrection or mutiny’. This gives law enforcement officials with immunity when a person dies under circumstances in which reasonable force was used.
On Thursday, 14 April 2016, Mr. Solo Sandeng, National Organising Secretary and other members of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) were arrested for leading a peaceful protest for electoral reforms and demanding for the resignation of President Jammeh. Two days after the arrest, senior members of the UDP, including the leader Ousainou Darboe, confirmed in a press conference the death of Solo Sandeng while in detention. Lawyer Darboe also stated that two detained female protesters were also in a coma following their arrest and alleged brutal torture by the security agents. Angered by the harsh treatment meted on the detainees, Darboe and a group of UPD stalwarts led began a protest march but were swiftly rounded up by Gambia’s security force and arrested. Eyewitnesses said the security agents fired tear gas at the crowd to disperse it.
Eritrean Independence: Form over substance
Posted: 10 November, 2015 Filed under: Lebogang Maxelegu | Tags: arbitrary arrests, Armed Struggle, detention, Eritrea, Ethiopian rule, human rights violations, independence, national conscription, oppression, PFDJ, refuge, revolution 1 Comment
Author: Lebogang Maxelegu
Assistant Researcher, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Eritreans observed the 54th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Armed Struggle for Independence on 1 September 2015. While the success of the armed struggle in attaining independence from Ethiopian rule should have been a cause for celebration for the whole nation, it was instead characterised with mixed emotions.
On the one hand, the ruling party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) and some Eritreans, embraced and glorified the country’s protracted 30 year war with Ethiopia-describing it as one of Africa’s formidable revolutions. On the other hand, many Eritreans, in particular those who fled, have by implication of their seeking refuge in other countries, expressed their discontentment with the current socio-political landscape in which widespread, systematic and gross human rights violations are perpetrated with impunity.
Rising against the silencing of the SADC Tribunal: Tanzania
Posted: 5 June, 2015 Filed under: Gertrude Mafoa Quan | Tags: democracy, dispute settlement, good governance, human rights, human rights violations, inter-State disputes, President Jakaya Kikwet, Protocol on the SADC Tribunal, rule of law, Rulings of the Tribunal, SADC, SADC Treaty, SADC Tribunal, South African community, Tanzania, watchdog Leave a comment
Author: Gertrude Mafoa Quan
Candidate Attorney; LLM (Multidisciplinary Human Rights) student at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
‘We have created a monster that will devour us all’.
These were the words of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete regarding the SADC Tribunal. This is at best an expression that is the epitome of the fear of SADC leaders of an existing and functioning Tribunal.
Like in many other regions, the SADC tribunal served as the mechanism through which the region’s dispute could be settled. One of the goals of the treaty was to establish a tribunal (which it did) and that the “[t]ribunal shall be constituted to ensure the adherence to and the proper interpretation of the provisions of this Treaty and subsidiary instruments and to adjudicate upon such disputes as may be referred to it” ( SADC Treaty, 1992, Article 16.1). Perhaps one of its most striking promises was in Article 4(c) which bluntly states that ‘ SADC and its Member States shall act in accordance with the principles of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law’. The implication is that all member States could indeed be held accountable should any of the said principles in Article 4(c) be violated. According to the Protocol on the SADC Tribunal, subject to the exhaustion of local remedies, all companies and individuals may approach the Tribunal to seek remedy if and when a member State has infringed on their rights (Article 15).
