In February 2008, Hina Jilani, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, visited EHRAC’s offices. Ms. Jilani was at London Metropolitan University to speak at a seminar entitled ‘Human Rights Defenders under Threat’, which was organised by London Metropolitan University’s Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute.
The seminar was chaired by Professor Bill Bowring (Chair of EHRAC International Steering Committee) and the speakers were Ms. Jilani and Mary Lawlor, Director of the NGO Front Line.
In her presentation Ms. Jilani described the erosion of human rights standards as a direct result of the violation of the rights of human rights defenders across the globe and identified those countries where the situation for human rights defenders was the gravest. In her opinion, human rights defenders are victims of a range of violations and are targeted in any capacity. Governments are unable or unwilling to address these issues and instead exert coercive pressure on human rights defenders under the guise of national security. The War on Terror has become a justification for the continuing violation of human rights despite the adoption of the 1998 Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and the 2004 EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders.
Ms Lawlor argued that the repression of human rights defenders was actually a measure of their success, as states take oppressive action against them following increased publicity of human rights violations. She gave examples from her work of the threats human rights defenders and their families face on a daily basis. She concluded by outlining the challenges that Front Line is striving to overcome, such as stress management and the global implementation of emergency humanitarian visas.
