“SHAMEFUL” | Philippines in UN list of countries attacking rights defenders

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018—- The Philippines is included in the United Nations’ (UN) list of “shameful” countries which it said had carried out reprisals or intimidation against people cooperating with it on human rights through killings, torture and arbitrary arrests.

The report cited the “defamatory and intimidating” statements directed at the Commission on Human Rights and its chairperson Chito Gascon, the imprisonment of former CHR chairperson and now Senator Leila de Lima over alleged involvement in illegal drug trade, and the inclusion of human rights defenders and representatives of indigenous people, who have been working with them, in the government’s list of terrorists.

THE UN LIST

The annual report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also included allegations of ill treatment, surveillance, criminalisation and public stigmatisation campaigns targeting victims and human rights defenders.

“The world owes it to those brave people standing up for human rights, who have responded to requests to provide information to and engage with the United Nations, to ensure their right to participate is respected,” Guterres wrote.

“Punishing individuals for cooperating with the United Nations is a shameful practice that everyone must do more to stamp out.”

The list included 38 countries—29 with new cases, and 19 with ongoing or continuing cases.

The new cases were in Bahrain, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Myanmar, Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

Governments frequently charged human rights activists with terrorism or blamed them for cooperating with foreign entities or damaging the state’s reputation or security, it said.

“(There is a) disturbing trend in the use of national security arguments and counter-terrorism strategies by states as justification for blocking access by communities and civil society organisations to the United Nations,” the report said.

Women cooperating with the U.N. had reported threats of rape and being subject to online smear campaigns, and U.N. staff often encountered people who were too afraid to speak to them, the report said, even at U.N. headquarters in New York and Geneva.

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour, who will present the report to the Human Rights Council next week, said in a statement that the cases in the report were the tip of the iceberg.

“We are also increasingly seeing legal, political and administrative hurdles used to intimidate – and silence – civil society,” he said.

Some of the countries listed are current members of the Human Rights Council, which adopted a resolution last year reaffirming that everyone – individually or in association with others – had a right to unhindered communication with the U.N — with reports for Reuters