Silencing the Defenders - Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

Once there, however, the authorities continually failed to present him in court and it was not until 14
months later, 5 months of which were spent in the Maximum Security Unit of Maafushi Jail, that the
High Court finally overturned the verdict of the criminal court. 35
These domestic failings are compounded by the inability of the international human rights system to
enforce compliance with its rulings. The Cameroonian government was urged by the UN Human
Rights Committee, treaty body of the ICCPR, to pay compensation to a human rights defender who
had been severely beaten and harassed by the Cameroonian police after he wrote articles critical of
their conduct. The Committee also called on the state to immediately investigate and prosecute
those persons responsible for his arrest and ill-treatment and to take measures to protect him from
further threats and intimidation. 36 The government has failed to comply with this ruling. 37
The Declaration adds that states must “take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the
competent authorities of everyone…against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure
adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action” 38 that might follow from the individual’s
exercise of the rights iterated in the Declaration. This requires of states not only that they do not
harm, but also that they ensure protection to human rights defenders.
After flawed elections in 2008 in Kenya at a moment of high tension and large-scale violence when
many were speaking out to condemn all sides, the Kenya government withdrew the bodyguard of
Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai. She was labelled a traitor by many fellow Kikuyu, who
supported the ruling party, and received death threats purportedly from the Mungiki gang, a mainly
Kikuyu group, whose members had already claimed responsibility for a series of beheadings and
other killings. 39
Apparently more out of concern for the international condemnation it would face if something were
to happen than out of concern for her safety, police protection was reinstated some weeks later. 40
However, the removal of the bodyguard in the first place, at a time of particular threat to human
rights defenders in general is indicative of the lack of concern to ensure their protection as a matter
of policy unless there is extraneous pressure or high visibility political fallout involved.
One especially significant duty accorded to states is that they should create independent National
Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). 41 This acknowledges the particular significance of NHRIs for human
rights defenders. The basic act of creating an NHRI is an endorsement by the government of the
acceptability of promoting human rights, which makes it less easy for the government to at the same
time justify repressing human rights defenders. However, twenty-four Commonwealth countries have
yet to create an NHRI.
Beyond allowing human rights defenders to be active, states are required by the Declaration to set in
motion the process of enabling anyone to become a human rights defender by promoting and
facilitating “the teaching of human rights at all levels of education and to ensure that those responsible
for training lawyers, law enforcement officers, the personnel of the armed forces and public officials
include appropriate elements of human rights teaching in their training programme”. 42 Only through
such education can citizens gain the awareness that they need to take the defence of human rights
into their own hands. The emphasis on lawyers, police, military and public officials highlights the
importance of these figures for the promotion of human rights within a country, the obstacle that they
can become to that process if they are not aware of their own obligations to promote human rights,
and the steps that they need to take to meet those obligations.
The combination of rights and duties for human rights defenders together with the obligations of
states and other key actors, makes the Declaration a comprehensive account of what is required in
order to ensure that the right to promote human rights is fully protected. Over ten years after the
Declaration was adopted, however, human rights defenders continue to be targeted across the
Commonwealth as they carry out their peaceful and law-abiding activities.
14 CHRI 2009 REPORT: SILENCING THE DEFENDERS •