#EndReprisals

Armel Niyongere, Dieudonné Bashirahishize, Vital Nshimirimana and Lambert Nigarura are four lawyers, human rights defenders and activists from Burundi. They are prominent and well-respected figures within Burundian civil society and their local communities.

They publicly denounced and condemned the use of violence by the Government of Burundi, including following citizens’ protests in 2015, when the former Burundian President, Pierre Nkurunziza, sought a third term in violation of the country’s Constitution.

Fearing for their safety given the violent targeting of protestors by the Government, the lawyers fled Burundi in May and June 2015. To date, they have not been able to return to Burundi out of fear of suffering additional retaliatory actions.

A trade unionist, human rights defender, opposition activist and environmental activist, Ahmed Amasha is the co-founder of the League for Families of the Disappeared. The League provides legal support for families of victims of enforced disappearance.

In Egypt, the work of NGOs and human rights defenders is tightly restricted by a law passed in 2019, which comes as a continuation of an already widely criticised law passed in 2017.

Though the 2019 law has swapped planned prison sentences for breaches with hefty fines, it maintains draconian restrictions on NGOs. This law requires that organisations abide by vaguely worded and sweeping concerns of "national security" and "public morality" in order to gain legal recognition in a state registry.

It also limits the activities of registered organisations to serving what authorities call "the State's development plans and the needs of the society", requiring all registered entities to seek yearly approval for their work and strictly limiting their access to foreign funding.

Both iterations of the law on NGOs have severely curtailed the ability of Egyptian NGOs to engage with the UN, which is considered a reprisal for some organisations' previous engagement in the country's Universal Public Review in 2014.

Several human rights defenders are understood to have been targeted by authorities in reprisal for their engagement with UN bodies.

A former mathematics and physics professor, Alfredo Okenve is a human rights defender and anti-corruption activist from Equatorial Guinea. He is the president of the NGO Centro de Estudios e Iniciativas para el Desarrollo de Guinea Ecuatorial (CEIDGE).

His advocacy and activism, including his engagement with UN bodies, and in particular his efforts to highlight issues of transparency related to the work of extractive industry actors present in the country, have been met with stark responses from Equatoguinean authorities. The latter have engaged in repeated acts of reprisals against him in recent years.

"Our impact may be large, may be small, and may be nothing. But we must try. It is our duty to the dispossessed and it is the right of civil society." Cao Shunli

Cao Shunli was a courageous Chinese human rights defender and lawyer who was recognised posthumously as a finalist for the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2014. Her story is a powerful example of dedication to human rights advocacy under challenging circumstances.

Cao was born in 1961. After studying law she initially worked as a civil servant at China's Ministry of Human Resources. Her trajectory shifted significantly when she was denied government-provided housing. This incident propelled her into activism, particularly against corruption in housing distribution. Her whistleblowing efforts, however, resulted in administrative detentions in 1999 and 2001 and eventually led to the loss of her job and social security benefits in 2001.

Transitioning to a role as a ‘petitioner’ (individuals in China who approach the government to lodge personal grievances and seek remedies) she soon started to help other marginalised citizens. Her activism gained a new dimension in 2008 upon discovering the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. Under this process, each UN Member State undergoes a peer review of its human rights records every 4.5 years. To prepare for this review the State is expected to produce a national report in consultation with civil society. China was coming under review for the first time in February 2009.

Working with fellow activists, Cao documented abuses, especially in extrajudicial Re-education through Labor (RTL) camps. However, their efforts to present this documentation to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs were met with the government’s refusal and multiple detentions. She was detained in April 2009 during a rally and subsequently sentenced to RTL, where she experienced denial of food and torture. Despite these hardships, she continued to document RTL abuses.

Cao and other activists made another attempt to engage in the second UPR report being prepared by Chinese authorities for their country's October 2013 review in Geneva. However, the government declined to disclose information on ‘State secrets’ grounds. In response, Cao and a group of activists organised a peaceful sit-in outside of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Their sole request was to meet with officials, and they patiently awaited the Ministry’s response. The sit-in attracted, at times, as many as 200 participants and persisted for nearly five months. It was eventually disbanded four times, with the final clearance occurring in October, just before the UPR Review.

Cao also submitted to the UPR Working Group information about rights abuses of the group of petitioners and reprisals against those seeking participation in the UPR.

In Egypt, the work of NGOs and human rights defenders is tightly restricted by a law passed in 2019, which comes as a continuation of an already widely criticised law passed in 2017.

Though the 2019 law has swapped planned prison sentences for breaches with hefty fines, it maintains draconian restrictions on NGOs. This law requires that organisations abide by vaguely worded and sweeping concerns of "national security" and "public morality" in order to gain legal recognition in a state registry.

It also limits the activities of registered organisations to serving what authorities call "the State’s development plans and the needs of the society", requiring all registered entities to seek yearly approval for their work and strictly limiting their access to foreign funding.

Both iterations of the law on NGOs have severely curtailed the ability of Egyptian NGOs to engage with the UN, which is considered a reprisal for some organisations’ previous engagement in the country’s Universal Public Review in 2014.

Several members of the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) were arrested in 2018 under charges including ‘providing international entities with false news’. The ECRF is a Cairo-based organisation that provides legal advice to families of victims of enforced disappearance and documents human rights violations. It has engaged with UN mechanisms.

Mohamed El-Baqer is director of the Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms. The Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms is a non-governmental organisation established in 2014 to uphold and promote the rights of students, refugees, and migrants.

In Egypt, the work of NGOs and human rights defenders is tightly restricted by a law passed in 2019, which comes as a continuation of an already widely criticised law passed in 2017.

Though the 2019 law has swapped planned prison sentences for breaches with hefty fines, it maintains draconian restrictions on NGOs. This law requires that organisations abide by vaguely worded and sweeping concerns of "national security" and "public morality" in order to gain legal recognition in a state registry.

It also limits the activities of registered organisations to serving what authorities call "the State’s development plans and the needs of the society", requiring all registered entities to seek yearly approval for their work and strictly limiting their access to foreign funding.

Both iterations of the law on NGOs have severely curtailed the ability of Egyptian NGOs to engage with the UN, which is considered a reprisal for some organisations’ previous engagement in the country’s Universal Public Review in 2014.

Naâma Asfari is a Sahrawi human rights defender who has campaigned for the self-determination of Western Sahara. The territory is a former Spanish colony that remains under Moroccan occupation despite a 1992 UN ruling for a referendum on independence, which has yet to be complied with.

In a heavily criticised trial held in 2013, Asfari was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his alleged involvement in the murder of 11 Moroccan soldiers during a 2010 operation that saw the brutal dismantling of a large camp set up in Gdim Izik by Sahrawi civil society organisations to protest against Morocco's occupation of the region.

Nfor Hanson Nchanji is an award-winning Human Rights Journalist from Cameroon. He has worked for Douala-based Equinoxe Television and is the founder of the online news outlet Cameroon News Agency.

He has reported on the tensions in Cameroon's English-speaking regions, becoming a staunch advocate for the rights of the country's English-speaking communities since the outset of the Anglophone crisis, in 2016, during which he documented and denounced abuses committed both by government and separatists forces.

As a result of his reporting and activism, Hanson Nchanji has faced threats and harassment campaigns seemingly orchestrated by supporters of the Francophone government. He is currently in exile.

Organic Farming for Gorillas (OFFGO), is an organisation founded in September 2015 that aims to support the practices and rights of traditional farming and nomadic livestock communities in the North West Region of Cameroon.

In May 2019, Special Procedures mandate holders expressed concern about a defamation campaign and acts of reprisals against OFFGO, who had published information about abuses and disputes linked to land and business operations in Cameroon.

The defamation campaign began in 2015, following OFFGO's publication of a report describing how communities were facing 'systematic intimidation and harassment by local administrative and judicial authorities' and denouncing a 'serious case of alleged land grabbing by a tea and cattle corporation.'

Ramy Kamel Saied Salib is a member of Egypt's Coptic religious minority, and one of the founders and a prominent member of the Maspero Youth Union, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the rights of Egypt's Copts and documents abuses against them.

In Egypt, the work of NGOs and human rights defenders is tightly restricted by a law passed in 2019, which comes as a continuation of an already widely criticised law passed in 2017.

Though the 2019 law has swapped planned prison sentences for breaches with hefty fines, it maintains draconian restrictions on NGOs. This law requires that organisations abide by vaguely worded and sweeping concerns of "national security" and "public morality" in order to gain legal recognition in a state registry.

It also limits the activities of registered organisations to serving what authorities call "the State’s development plans and the needs of the society", requiring all registered entities to seek yearly approval for their work and strictly limiting their access to foreign funding.

Both iterations of the law on NGOs have severely curtailed the ability of Egyptian NGOs to engage with the UN, which is considered a reprisal for some organisations’ previous engagement in the country’s Universal Public Review in 2014.