Issue No. 9 of the Assembly and Association Briefing, the newsletter of Maina Kiai, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. In this issue: • Special Rapporteur: Surmounting civil society restrictions “the great challenge of our time" • A step forward for LGBT rights in Botswana, with a step backward looming in Kyrgyzstan • Your rights on one page: UNSR releases fact sheets on assembly and association rights • Experts: "Legitimate concerns" over outcome of Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases • Sound off for the UNSR’s next report: Tell us your views on FOAA rights in the context of natural resource exploitation • Video: Strategic litigation for assembly & association rights • Freedom of association and assembly: By the numbers • Special rapporteur news in brief: November-December 2014 • World briefing: Freedom of assembly and association in the news For a link to the newsletter, click on the image at right or click here (1.3MB file) or here (6.8MB full resolution file). To subscribe to our newsletter, please drop us a line at info@freeassembly.net with the subject line “subscribe to newsletter.” For other recent newsletters, see the links below: The Assembly and Association Briefing, Vol. 1, Issue 6 (July-August... Continue reading →
GENEVA / BANJUL – United Nations and African independent human rights experts, including UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai, today hailed a key judgment by the High Court of Botswana asserting that the organisation ‘Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana’ (LEGABIBO) should be legally registered as a society by the authorities. The Court rejected last Friday the arguments put forward by the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs of Botswana to refuse legal registration to LEGABIBO, by decreeing that ‘it is not a crime for one to be attracted to people of one’s own sex’ and that ‘advocacy for legislative reforms to decriminalize homosexuality is lawful.’ “This seminal judgment by the High Court of Botswana reaffirms that everyone is entitled to the fundamental right to peacefully assemble and associate,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai, said. “Other countries should follow and allow the registration of organisations advocating for the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people,” the human rights expert stressed. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst, reiterated that “both the United Nations and the African Commission on Human and... Continue reading →
UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai convened an expert consultation in Geneva on December 9 to help shape the parameters of his next thematic report, which will be presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2014. The thematic report will focus on how laws and practices may discriminate against and exclude certain groups when exercising or seeking to exercise their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. The Geneva consultation was organized to focus on problems faced by specific groups that the Special Rapporteur and his team had identified as frequently at risk, including youth, women, LGBT individuals, indigenous peoples, minorities, refugees, migrants and other non-nationals/stateless persons, and persons with disabilities. This is, of course, a non-exhaustive list. As one of the participants in our consultation pointed out, all of us can face heightened risks in certain circumstances (as Kiai’s latest thematic report on elections makes clear). As the consultation participants shared their stories and expertise, however, it became clear that most groups face similar types of threats – at least broadly speaking – despite coming from different countries and advocating for different issues. These threats can be categorized, and given the large and diverse number of groups... Continue reading →
Six women working on women’s issues in Pakistan are killed in an ambush. A workshop for LGBT human rights defenders is disrupted by authorities in Uganda. Indigenous leaders in the Philippines are subject to a wave of harassment, threats and killings. Thirteen women in Cambodia are imprisoned for defending their community against corporate land-grabbing. And four migrant bus drivers in Singapore are charged with inciting an illegal strike. Exercising the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association can be dangerous for anyone, anywhere in the world. But sometimes – and in some places – the danger is elevated for certain groups. Maina Kiai’s next report as Special Rapporteur is expected to focus on exactly this subject: groups most at risk of attacks and reprisals when exercising their assembly and association rights. Kiai and his team are currently in the process of researching the report. As we begin work on the report, we would like to hear your views. Thus far, we have identified several groups as high-risk: women, youth, LGBT individuals, indigenous peoples, members of minority groups, persons with disabilities, migrants, and activists working for economic and social rights. Among these groups, which ones are most at risk in your country and for what reasons? What are... Continue reading →
