OMCT showcases 10 torture activists ahead of Dec. 10 UN Human Rights Day, launching its 30th anniversary celebration
OMCT celebrates 10 fightsagainst torture for Human Rights Day and year round
10 December 2015, Geneva – Their safety isconstantly threatened. Repressive Governments can, unpunished and at any time,kill, silence or make them the next torture victims. But they do not move fromtheir countries.
They work inhighly politicized environments, often amid open conflict and in countrieswhere decades of violence, repression, corruption or persecution leave littlehope for short-term change. But they still believe their work has meaning andwill bear fruit.
They are drivenand educated lawyers, teachers, or human resource specialists who could earn agood living for themselves. Instead they work for little money and bigheadaches to defend the marginalized and oppressed.
Their job is painstakingand slow, yielding infinitesimal results over decades. But they keep their eyesset on the horizon.
When they are notjailed, for lack of other means of stopping their dissident work, fundingrestrictions strangle their organizations.
They get little moneyare hardly any attention from the general public, when they are not altogetherdiscredited by authorities.
These are the dedicatedwomen and men of all ages from many countries fighting to eradicate tortureoften at a high personal cost and who do not usually make the headlines thoughthey should.
These 10 defendersthe OMCT has celebrated daily in its #10HRD10Dec online campaignduring the last 10 days up today – the United Nations International Day ofHuman Rights – are but a sample of the global movement against torture united throughthe SOS Torture network of over 200 likeminded organizations.
Around the world,there are many other people like Yavuz Binbay from Turkey, Olga Sadovskaya from the RussianFederation, Justin Bahirwe from Benin, Nigina Bakhrieva from Tajikistan, Emma Bolshia Bravo from Bolivia, Salah Abu Khazam from Libya, Vilma Núñez de Escorcia form Nicaragua, Norbert Fanou-Ako form Benin, Hassan Ali Faiz from Afghanistan,Paul Mambrasar from Indonesia.
Today, and everyother day of the year, the OMCT encourages citizens, donors and States to supportand spread the word about their achievements and the many challenges of theirwork so that rule of law with its logical lot of freedom of expression, equality, andredress can come true everywhere.
This profiling of theseoften silent yet worthy and impactful struggles around the world could notculminate in a better fashion than with the release yesterday on probation of Azerbaijanihuman rights defender and OMCT Assembly member Leyla Yunus after more than ayear of arbitrary detention. This eloquently demonstrates the effectiveness of theinvaluable work of human rights defenders and torture activists and serves as areminder of how we should keep protecting them.
Below are all the "10 December, 10 Defenders" Campaignprofiles:
Meet Paul: Restoring the human rights of indigenous Papuans amid on-going conflict
Meet Hassan Ali: Promoting human rights in Afghanistan for the sake of humanity
Meet Norbert: Better protecting children to break Benin’s cycle of violence
Meet Vilma: Still not ready to stop fighting against torture in Nicaragua
Libya: Meet Salah: Keeping hope for redress in the absence of a State, amid a civil war
Meet Emma who helps Bolivian victims recover from torture and its second trauma, silence
Meet Nigina: Towards a functioning system that leaves no room for torture
Meet Justin Bahirwe: A lawyer trying to reduce Congolese’s exposure to the pervasive risk of torture
Olga and the paradox of fighting torture in Russia: Revealing legal dysfunctionality, building trust
MeetYavuz from Turkey: A life after torture spent helping other survivors
OMCT wishes to thank the OAK Foundation, the European Union and the Republic and Canton ofGeneva for their support. Its content is the sole responsibility of OMCT andshould in no way be interpreted as reflecting the view(s) of the supportinginstitutions.
