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Following the presentation of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders’ Intersessional Report, ISHR made a statement calling on his mandate to release his long-awaited report on reprisals and remind states of their obligations to ensure a safe environment for defenders to conduct their activities.
In his report on activities he undertook during the intersessional period, Commissioner Rémy Ngoy Lumbu, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and Focal Point on Reprisals, noted worrisome degradation of the situation of human rights defenders on the continent. His mechanism received complaints related to the arrest and arbitrary detention of human rights defenders, threats and attacks against leaders and members of the LGBTQI+ community, judicial harassment, reprisals and intimidation of human rights defenders. Other complaints related to murder, abduction, enforced disappearance, torture and inhuman or degrading treatment of human rights defenders, irregularities and provisions restricting civic space in adopted laws, decrees and regulations and restrictions on freedom of association, assembly and peaceful demonstration. While recalling the African Commission’s Guidelines on Freedom of Association and Assembly in Africa, Commissioner Lumbu urged states to make use of them. He called on national human rights institutions and NGOs to disseminate them widely and monitor their implementation.
In its statement following the presentation of the report, ISHR called on the Special Rapporteur to release its long-awaited report on reprisals considering increasing threats defenders who collaborate with African regional human rights mechanisms receive. While remaining committed to providing any support to the mechanism for this report to be released, ISHR believes that publishing it will be a step forward in the protection and promotion of defenders’ rights. The statement further urged the mandate to take proactive measures to counter the human rights violations committed against environmental defenders in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Uganda. In the latter country in particular, the increase in attacks and human rights violations, including abductions and enforced disappearances, torture, ill-treatment and incommunicado detention, against environmental rights defenders is a cause for concern, with more than 192 such violations since 2021.
We call on your mandate and the Chair of the Working Group on Extractive Industries, the Environment and Human Rights Violations to make a joint visit to help Uganda better meet its obligationsAntoine Trembley, Africa Fellow at ISHR.
ISHR statement also noted how the civic space is shrinking considerably in Angola through the repression and criminalisation of defenders and journalists in particular, including Laurinda Gouveia arrested in January 2024 and the conviction of two activists for criminal association in 2022; restrictions on freedom of expression and association through the National Security Act and attacks on trade unionists. In Côte d’Ivoire, the “Zero wubi” campaign has led to attacks on defenders of the rights of LGBTIQ+, many of whom are now living in hiding. ISHR called on the Commission to remind states of their obligations to provide defenders with a legal and political environment conducive to the exercise of their activities in accordance with international law.
At the review of Burkina Faso’s periodic report to the African Commission, ISHR noted a worrying trend of arrests, conscription, and abductions of human rights defenders, some of whom are deployed to the battlefield.
At a side event on the relevance of the African human rights system to the conflict in Gaza, panellists urged States and the Commission to ensure Israel ends its unlawful occupation and respect international human rights norms.
Panellists in an African Commission debate called for a progressive interpretation of the African Charter to ensure broader participation to Commission proceedings and speed up the implementation of its decisions.
