JBI Human Rights

JBI on Iran’s Must-See Sites of Oppression and Abuse for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Despite warnings that attending the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran would legitimize the regime’s abusive behavior at home and abroad, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has decided to go. He seeks to meet with Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Responding to criticisms of Ban’s plans, his spokesman argued that to skip the summit “would be a missed opportunity.”

It will be Ban’s first visit to Iran. On Friday, Iran’s top tourism official, H.M. Ajabi, told local press (IRNA) that the NAM summit offers a great opportunity for “boosting Iran’s tourism industry” and the Tehran Times reports that Ban has been invited to attend a meeting of the Human Rights Committee of the Iranian parliament.  Below are key sightseeing opportunities in Iran that the secretary-general should not miss if he is to be ready for this encounter:

Evin Prison:  This is Iran’s best-known site of cruel and prolonged torture, particularly of political prisoners, and secret executions. Among  the prisoners there were Fariba Kamalabadi and Mahvash Sabet, two of the seven imprisoned leaders of the Baha’i faith, Iran’s largest religious minority. American journalist Roxana Saberi met them while also detained in the notorious jail; she can help Ban identify them, should he seek their long-overdue release.

University of Tehran: On June 14, 2009, after widespread protests against the announced results of Iran’s presidential election, security forces broke open the gates of Tehran University and stormed campus dorms, indiscriminately arresting, beating and shooting students with pellet guns. Five students were reportedly killed and others seriously injured.  Authorities reportedly buried the dead within hours, without notifying their family members.  Student leaders currently imprisoned include Bahareh Hedayat, who called for holding security forces accountable.  Ban might ask for her to be released to offer a guided tour.

JBI Human Rights Papers: Human Rights in Iran

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) published a new advocacy briefing note on Human Rights in Iran, part of a new series of JBI Human Rights Papers.

Since it seized power in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been engaged in committing a range of human rights violations against the Iranian people.  During and since the violent crackdown surrounding the June 2009 flawed presidential elections, Iran’s widespread and systematic pattern of human rights violations has intensified and increased.  Iranian authorities admit to arresting more than 4,500 protesters during the crackdown and a death toll of 37.  Many protestors were subjected to violations of due process, arbitrary arrest, detention and torture.  These and other tactics have been used to silence human rights defenders, political opponents, journalists and lawyers, and to discriminate against women, and religious, ethnic and other minorities.

“Defamation of Religions” resolution adopted at UN General Assembly by smallest margin to date

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) expressed regret that on December 21, the 65^th United Nations General Assembly once again adopted a resolution on “combating defamation of religions.”  JBI has expressed serious concern about efforts to enshrine “defamation of religions” in human rights law as a form of incitement.  The draft resolution on “combating defamation of religions” endorsed by the General Assembly on December 21, in which the phrase “vilification of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general,” appears six times, reflects these concerns. 

JBI has noted that  the resolution’s effort to expand the definition of “incitement to religious hatred” to include “defamation of religions” threatens to render laws prohibiting blasphemy and other forms of religious insult defensible, or even commendable, under human rights law.  These laws are highly susceptible to abuse by governments, particularly against members of religious minority communities. 

However, JBI is encouraged that the “combating defamation of religions” resolution adopted on December 21 was adopted by the smallest margin – 79 states in favor and 67 opposed – of any of the series of “defamation of religions” resolutions that the UN has considered since states began introducing resolutions on the issue in 1999.  JBI encouraged states that oppose the “defamation of religions” initiative at the UN to increase their diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis the 40 states that abstained from the vote so that the next such resolution proposed before a UN body – which likely will be considered by the Human Rights Council in March – will be rejected.

JBI: Draft “Vilification of Religions” Proposal at UN Threatens Freedom of Expression, Religion

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) expressed concern today that the most recent draft of a proposed resolution on “Combating Religious Hatred and Vilification of Religions” under consideration at the UN General Assembly, if adopted, would serve as a justification for and even endorse harmful “anti-blasphemy” laws already in force in many States.  JBI called on UN Member States to oppose any draft resolution that similarly threatens the rights to freedom of expression and religion.

The unofficial draft resolution, submitted on November 12 by Morocco on behalf of the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC), an inter-governmental organization consisting of 57 Member States, contains a number of textual changes that differentiate it from the resolutions on “Combating Defamation of Religions,” adopted in past years by the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council.  The most significant of these changes is the substitution of the concept of “vilification of religions” in place of the concept of “defamation of religions.”

As JBI has noted in the past, including at an expert discussion convened on October 6, 2010, past resolutions that have been adopted by UN bodies on “defamation of religions” threaten to give rise to very serious negative consequences for human rights.  The proposed draft resolution on “vilification of religions” suffers from nearly all of the same shortcomings, and proposes similarly unacceptable restrictions on the fundamental human rights, particularly the right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief.

To see the proposed draft resolution, see here: Download OIC proposal

To see JBI’s analysis of the proposed draft resolution, see here: Download Memo_on_Vilification_of_Religions_Proposal

JBI Condemns 'Defamations of Religion' Initiative Contrary to Human Rights

The Jacob Blaustein Institute convened an expert discussion on “Challenges to the UN Human Rights Agenda: Defamation of Religions” on October 6, 2010 featuring Professor Nazila Ghanea of Oxford University and  Jo-Anne Prud’homme, JBI’s former International Human Rights Officer. 

At the event, participants, including two dozen UN representatives to the Third Committee, JBI’s Chair E. Robert Goodkind, and Director Felice Gaer discussed with Ghanea and Prud’homme some of the worrisome initiatives underway in the UN to expand limitations on human rights, particularly universal human rights of freedom of expression and religion.

Professor Ghanea began the program with a presentation on the misuse of human rights law that has wrongly justified excessive limitations to free expression. She criticized the use of a ‘pick and mix’ approach that takes limitations on one right and applies it to another right. An analytic paper presenting norms prepared by her was distributed and can be found here: Download JBI Paper N Ghanea

Ms. Prud’homme discussed the tendency to conflate “defamation of religions” with incitement as set forth in article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and her presentation is available here: Download JBI Paper HR Note Prudhomme

As the JBI seminar made clear, and the talking points demonstrate, “defamation of religions” is not a human rights issue, it is incompatible with the legal concepts of incitement and defamation, and it is susceptible to use in defense of oppressive conduct. JBI also cautions states as to how they approach this issue, pointing out that states that fail to object to the “defamation of religions” initiatives at the UN General Assembly or Human Rights Council would be complicit in active efforts to undermine the effectiveness of the human rights system.

Many questions were raised about the four regional conferences on articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights being organized in 2010 by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The first of these is scheduled to take place in Vienna in January 2011.

Participants asked JBI to prepare talking points on the issue of “defamation of religions, which we have listed below and which can be found here: Download JBI Talking Points Defamation of Religion

JBI on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities

The Jacob Blaustein Institute’s Genocide Prevention Project is working to clarify the extent of state obligations in terms of genocide prevention. At the request of the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, JBI has under taken an extensive legal review, including consultations with a team of legal specialists and human rights experts, of the many indicators of genocide in order to identify the corresponding legal norms that can be invoked to remind governments of their obligations. 

The "risk factors" consist of a compilation of human rights abuses which have been recorded in the lead up to past genocides and their corresponding legal norms. The precursors can include a history of mass atrocities in a particular country; targeted violence against members of a particular group; the state-condoned use of dehumanizing, discriminatory hate speech against members of a particular group; employment and education practices that discriminate against specific groups; denial of citizenship to members of targeted groups; among other such practices. This list is not exhaustive, and pre-genocidal situations will have significant contextual differences that will require case-by-case analysis. The international community acknowledged the importance of establishing early warning mechanisms to effectively prevent the onset of genocide, most recently in the World Summit Outcome Document of 2005. 

States must be reminded that they have obligations to prevent genocide based on internationally accepted norms with which they are expected to comply. They must be provided with the information necessary to make them aware of the precursors to genocide and of the preventive steps they must take to halt potential genocidal acts. The importance and relevance of a normative framework for the prevention of genocide will better equip the Special Advisor to respond to situations that may appear pre-genocidal.

The "risk factors" listed in the Compilation are derived from international legal norms found in the major international and regional human rights treaties and jurisprudence. The risk factors do not refer to random acts but to severe and systematic abuses of human rights. Many of the rights associated with the risk factors are non-derogable as set forth in Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Though all of the risk factors in the compilation constitute violations of human rights and humanitarian law, each one in and of itself is a “necessary but not sufficient causal factor” of genocide. However, when one and/or more risk factors appears in combination with others and in certain circumstances including deteriorating political, economic and legal conditions in a society, they may well contribute to the onset of genocide. The presence of one or more risk factors therefore does not necessarily mean that genocide will take place, but it should serve as an early warning to a state that it should take measures to mitigate the risk.

The Compilation of Norms is in its near-final stages of review. It will serve to clearly set out the legal basis for genocide prevention within already existing norms of international law, and facilitate with identifying specific situations of possible concern. 

JBI on Religious Freedom for Uighurs and in Kazakhstan

Testimony of Felice Gaer, Chair, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Before the Subcommittee on Human Rights, International Organizations, and International Terrorism of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, June 10, 2009: The Uighurs:  A History of Persecution.

Kazakhstan:  Tougher Religion Law Under Constitutional Review.

At a meeting on religious freedom and violence at the Jacob Blaustein Institute in New York on December 8, 2009, Cole Durham, director of the Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University Law School and member of the OSCE Advisory Panel on Freedom of Religion, explained that Kazakhstan tightened its law on religion in response to two factors: an influx of various people from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan with a background in extremism and the spread of groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir seeking rule by a caliphate; and increased proselytizing of "new religions" which could be construed as "any denomination formed since [the days of Martin] Luther and [John] Calvin," Durham said.