No one will use human rights tanks

Dublin 4 November under the auspices of an international organization Front Line Defenders human rights conference opens from more than one hundred countries around the world. On the eve of a conference in RFI studio representative of the human rights organization Mariya Shischenkova told about what the Front Line Defenders, which have common problems of human rights activists around the world, as well as some of the post-Soviet countries the worst of all refers to its own human rights defenders.

RFI: Mary, it turns out that you are a human rights activist for human rights defenders?

Maria Shischenkova: Yes, we are – an organization that works to protect human rights, as it may sound funny.

– You’ve been invited on a special occasion – a conference in Dublin opens human rights defenders from around the world. Front line involved in the organization of this event. Tell us about it?

– This is one of the largest international conferences on human rights activists who come – we will have 120 people from more than 100 countries worldwide. We do not carry it the first time. This is a great conference, we biannual gathering of people from all over the world and try to discuss the new trends: what is happening in different countries, how repression they face, what we can do for them, they can make them international, intergovernmental organizations. We are trying to somehow support them, because for them, too, it is important to gather from time to time to look into each other’s eyes and see that they have accomplices in all countries of the world.

– What is it funded?

– We – the international organization, which is financed by private funds and public money. Since the main office of the organization is located in Dublin, we – Irish child, we often help from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ireland. There is another – European and non – public funding and funding from private foundations, which help to human rights organizations.

– What topics will be discussed? Are there any major, major themes around which you are going?

– We do not have such themes, which would vary from conference to conference. We are discussing is always more or less the same thing, namely that the new occurred during this time, what happened to the bad new trends and how together we can respond to these new challenges.

– How to arrive defenders from the countries of the former Soviet Union?

– From Armenia, Azerbaijan – not, from Moldova, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. From the Baltic countries, we will not be anyone.

– is not from Azerbaijan, because there is nobody?

– Yes, but it is likely to be associated with some logistical things. Now inviting human rights defenders from Azerbaijan has become very difficult, because so many people are not even under house arrest, and in fact forbidden to travel, which does not legally documented. Man arrives at the airport, and he is told that it simply will not be released. The legal basis for this is not just there – and all.

– Tell us how you work. You have every country has its offices? Or you interact with local human rights defenders?

– representation we have. We have what is called regional coordinators. That is, people who work for some regions, endlessly travel to various missions and meet with people in the field. It is very important to maintain this live personal contact when you know the person, when he trusts you and when subsequently with it something happens, he writes, is not some inexplicable person, namely you.

Any activist who met with some difficulty in his work and thinks that we can be it something useful, can contact us. We have a site for this is the safest form, which can be filled, for example, if a person is in any country in which the authorities control the Internet. Or may be contacted directly by calling, sending an e-mail message.

What we do – we are an organization that was established in 2001, is called the Front Line Defenders. The meaning of the name is that we protect people who are, in fact, at the forefront of human rights protection – those people who are engaged in democratic change in their countries. That is, human rights activists – the people who are engaged in the protection of any of the rights written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which are engaged in the protection of these rights at the moment of their life. Human rights activist – is not a status, not a person who works in NGOs.

Мы считаем, что правозащитник — любой человек, который в какой-то момент своей жизни решил, что, например, эту неделю он посвящает свою жизнь продвижению какого-нибудь права. Например, чтобы дети, которые в какой-нибудь отдаленной горной деревне ходили бы в школу, и чтобы эта школа не закрылась, чтобы дети получили право на образование в этой школе, а не ездили за 23 километра на перекладных в другую деревню. Мы созданы специально для того, чтобы иметь конкретные способы этим людям помочь.

Relatively speaking, we do three things: we help information. That is, something happened, a person believes that in this case to draw attention to his trouble he can help – we send what we call “urgent message” to all intergovernmental institutions that are engaged in the protection of human rights defenders. This UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, the OSCE has a contact point for the protection of human rights defenders in Council of Europe – that is, in all the intergovernmental organizations with which this country has a relationship, which has signed any convention entered into them, and must respond to the attention of from their side. Despite the fact that more and more in our countries believe that it is impossible to act on our governments that no one is listening, and say that all this is not binding, we still meet.

We have a lot of cases when the publicity helps. But it is not enough in many cases, so we have a fund. And from this fund, we can give money to a person or organization to ensure that it has improved its safety. That is, any person who is engaged in human rights activities, can to us to turn and say, for example, “my organization attack some far-right thugs and present us with a swastika on the doors, and three times broke the window, and we want to put a normal door and camera surveillance, will help us to it. ” Or, for example, a person says “I was illegally opened a criminal case, I’m not guilty, and all because I crossed the road some business interests,” and he can ask for funds to counsel. Or human, for example, beat, because he is openly gay, or is some LGBT organization, and the person needs medical attention – it can also apply to us, and we can also do something to help. Or, for example, a man in a combat zone has been monitoring the situation, saying “it would be good to me from point A to point B to go is not quite on the chaise,” because many human rights activists – people are not rich and can not afford any special transport. They also can contact us.

That there is no there is no list. We have an understanding of what can be helped in many situations, if a person is thinking about their own safety, and you can use small tools to improve this situation completely. Therefore, thirdly, what we are doing, we are engaged in education. We conduct various seminars and workshops, in which we not just as some kind of security experts, security agency or spyware, explains how to behave in certain situations, how to evade surveillance, but we sit down with people and say: “Do you all have any achievements and notions about how to improve your security. Many of your colleagues, and faced with the surveillance and the illegal harassment, and physical attacks. And all of you have already some of you lived through things that you can share with other people. ” We have people, who, being themselves human rights activists, they are a kind of security experts. They provide training to others. We also do the same to all, with regard to data security, communication and all that is connected with the electronic media, because it is also very important.

– You said that human rights defenders is important to meet, share their problems. You know, like Tolstoy was: “All happy families are happy alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. On human rights defenders is not covered? That is dictators around the world pursue them in their own way, or at all all the same?

– I would say that the problems of human rights, unfortunately, are not connected with the problems of dictators. Of course, in the countries in which established a dictatorship, human rights work very hard or even impossible. But, unfortunately, even in countries that consider themselves democratic, quite a lot of people who defend the rights of others, because the defenders upon doing it, harassed, including more or less well-off countries. So you can not say here that this is a characteristic feature of dictatorships. We have a lot of authoritarian regimes that promote limitations on the legislative level, promote physical harassment of human rights defenders. So I would say that some general trends in some countries there. As for our post-Soviet space, because I do so,

– Yes, let’s move on to the post-Soviet space, which is more interested in, probably, our audience and where you are, in fact, specialize, what there is specificity?

– It is hard to find some common trends, but they are. For example, we can say that at the moment the legal restrictions in the field of NGO activity affected all countries in our region, that is almost impossible to find a country in which, for example, foreign funding of non-governmental organizations at the moment it would be possible or would not have been subjected to intense and biased to control by the authorities. The same applies to demonstrations. For example, to organize a demonstration, or any procession or picket in some post-Soviet countries, virtually everywhere in the former Soviet Union there is a permissive order of holding mass actions. We refer to a piece of paper in some municipality, that we will say we can or can not, and where we can do it. Can we do it in this day. And also whether the stated purpose of demonstrating that it seems acceptable that, of course, a violation of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

– What accounts for these trends in the post-Soviet countries? This is a legacy of the Soviet Union and those orders, that existed in the Soviet era? Or is it some kind of new trends, the trends are from each other, these countries borrow?

– It is very difficult here to say something, because that’s part and certainly there for some post-Soviet influence. Simply because if we look at the heads of post-Soviet countries, we can see that most of them – or natives of the Soviet nomenklatura, or those people who still remain in office and irremovable, or to replace them, for example, came, their children, both in Azerbaijan. It is also a kind of new trend, because it is curtailing freedom and space for civic activity decreased in almost all countries of the region.

– If you make a ranking of countries for the quiet work of human rights defenders, besides, I think you have it already – in the region of post-Soviet countries, which of the states is, say, a model for human rights defenders, and which, on the contrary, at the end of this list?

– We’ll never make ratings because we – an organization that works with individual cases. That is, we – the people, which will address local human rights defenders in case something happens. And anything can happen, as you know, and in a fairly safe country in which the overall situation with the observance of other freedoms is not so bad. So we do not make the ratings even on the basis of the urgent messages, which we publish, because people come to us, and if they believe that the publicity in this matter will help, then we post some message, which states that in such and such the country on such and such a person, for example, attacked. Even if we look at the number of messages issued by our company, it will not give us a complete picture, simply because in many cases, people will just, for example,

If we look at the region as a whole, then, of course, Turkmenistan stands out from this for the worse. Just because there’s human rights activities in general is impossible. Despite this, it can also be a cause for optimism. When we’re talking about, that all things are very bad, everything collapses, civil society activists can no longer work in peace, it is necessary to look at countries like Turkmenistan, which, in spite of everything, there are people who maybe do a little bit, but it “a little” do in such circumstances, which need a lot of courage to do anything.

In Uzbekistan, the situation is very bad, a lot of human rights defenders in jail, they sit there for a long time. New, very bad trend – is that some of them just before they were on the previous charges to be released, was given a new deadline. And given new terms for some strange things. The trial was held in prison, even we, and their colleagues, their families learned about it already after the fact.

– About Turkmenistan – International organizations often talk about Tajikistan, about Uzbekistan, about Kazakhstan, if we talk about the post-Soviet space. But I have a feeling that very rarely do we hear any information about Turkmenistan. What is the reason that we have so little information we get there? With that, it is a very closed country, and a very authoritarian regime?

– So little information we get from there precisely because the field there is cleansed. Nor international human rights organizations nor local human rights organizations can not work there. The information that we get there, we get the crumbs. This is an illustration of how harmful at all to protect the civil society, simply because then we find ourselves in a situation where we have no information – not just the alternative information, we generally have no information on how to live the Turkmen society.

– However, there are some human rights activists there, and you work with them?

– What are some people who have a keen sense of injustice are everywhere, even in North Korea.

– More about one country, I would like to talk to you – about Belarus. Recently lifted sanctions against Belarusian officials. This means that the situation in Belarus has changed, the attitude to human rights has improved?

– It’s a question that we can ask each to himself: whether the situation has improved human rights situation in Belarus? It just has not improved, I think our point of view on it during this time shifted. If you look, for example, even in 2011, before the adoption of the law on foreign agents in Russia, the feeling that Belarus – is the worst country in the European part of the former Soviet Union, it was. During this time, something happened, what happened in Russia, namely the adoption of the law “On foreign agents”, all the checks, fines, making all the major human rights organizations in the list. And now go to court cases against those organizations and their leaders, who are not marked on the publication on the site, do not put the label “foreign agent” voluntarily. Ukraine has happened, it has happened deterioration of the situation in Azerbaijan. That is, now,

– That is, compared to other countries, nothing special …

– Just seems to me that the situation in other countries deteriorated at such a rate that the threshold of Belarus made in many places, so it no longer stands out on this general background, and some feelings of fear, misunderstanding, as it might be very close to Poland and very close to Lithuania, he is no more. And this, unfortunately, very sad, because it means that we have become accustomed to the idea that somehow, and so can you.

– It seems that before the Western countries much more attention was paid to the human rights situation in Belarus, in Russia. And now this theme, apparently, due to the political situation, somehow faded into the background. Putin has no one requires attentive to the human rights situation. Now if Putin had simply gone from the Ukraine, in principle, everything would already be happy with it. Do you notice a trend?

– No, I would not say that there is some trend. I do not know how the western countries, but at least I can say about the intergovernmental organization – special rapporteurs and systematically in considering the universal periodic Russian report constantly refers to the violation of human rights in Russia. In general, the very adoption of the law on “foreign agents” and all the events that followed thereafter, cause a lot of, I think, of interest and indignation. So I would not say that there is attenuation of interest in the situation in Russia. Quite possibly, this is due to the fact that there is some displacement of the spotlight from time to time to other parts of the world that seem to be at this point in a worse situation and requires more attention. But I do not think that there is a shift of focus from Russia. Russia remains an important player in this region, a major player. On the situation in Russia depends largely on the situation in Eastern Europe, so the interest in it will be on, it seems to me, always.

– I think that in Russia in recent years the trend among politicians, bureaucrats became such a position that the “stop bothering us with your European values, we have our own sovereign values, our European problems with human rights in general are not interested and alien”, and the Council Europe, Russia suspended its participation. That is, there are fewer opportunities to influence Russian politics.

– It seems to me that the world of human rights protection system in general is very fragile. If some countries have established some kind of treatment or a man, a system that does not want to comply with them and considers that it is not needed, and all the exhortations of the interstate organizations says that “you have an opinion, and I his opinion, and I will promote their point of view. ” It is clear that the power of their human rights … nobody enters tanks. Indeed, it is very difficult, and therefore, our organization and chose this angle work, which I think is very important – working with people on the ground. That is, we are working with human rights defenders, who are also working in their own countries, they work with the promotion of human rights in their own countries for their own citizens. It seems to me that these people happen some change, it can not happen from the outside. It can not parachute on the Red Square Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, and to say: “immediately cease immediately” and stamped his feet. It is Russian human rights defenders who continue to work selflessly in harsh conditions, achieve changes in their country.

Interviewed by Sergey Dmitriev

Sourse, 04/11/2015