Trail of violence: rights activists at risk

Opinion - Leader Page Articles
The Hindu
Mukul Sharma

Rights activists face a series of obstacles to their work. Rights violations also have wider repercussions. They create a climate of fear.

The Karnataka convener of the National Alliance for People’s Movement, A.D. Babu, was killed recently. He was on his way, along with two colleagues, to a NAPM meeting on an anti-liquor campaign at Ramnagaram, when a group stopped his vehicle at Mayanagram, a few km from the venue, and attacked him with knives and swords. He died on the spot. It is believed that a Karnataka liquor mafia is behind the gruesome murder.

In May, Lalit Kumar Mehta of Palamau district, Jharkhand, who fearlessly raised the issue of corruption in implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme , was murdered. So was Narayan Hareka — a naib sarpanch belonging to the Kandha tribal community — of Kambivalsa village in Koraput district, Orissa, who fought against liquor brewing, private money-lending, land alienation and corruption.

Social activists Leo Saldanha and his wife Lakshmi Nilakantan of Bangalore are being targeted by the Karnataka police and the Forest Department in connection with sandalwood smuggling, forest encroachment and theft, because of their role in unearthing the land scam in the controversial Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project.

Amnesty International’s monitoring highlights cases of human rights violations, including killing and attacks, and threats and intimidation, against rights activists in different parts of the country. They are facing obstacles to their work. They have to stop or radically curtail their activities. Direct attacks or threats to their lives sometimes mean the activists fleeing their homes or even areas. These violations also have wider repercussions. They create a climate of fear. Other rights activists become aware how easily they too can become targets of direct attack.

Harassment comes through a range of means, including surveillance. We receive a large number of complaints of raids and break-ins at the office of people’s organisations or at the homes of rights activists. During these incidents, crucial human rights information related to the work of the activists is seized. The legal system is misused to harass and intimidate them. This also results in stigmatising the individuals and organisations and creates a negative perception of their work. Criminal proceedings initiated against the activists on unsubstantiated evidence or judicial proceedings, which remain unresolved for extended periods, also seriously curtail their ability to carry out legitimate work. This is especially true of activists working in grass-roots organisations at the local level.
Deteriorating situation

The human rights situation in the country has been deteriorating rapidly. The killings of rights activists take place in a context characterised by a fast-growing economy that is accelerated by government policies. These policies, particularly on land, agriculture and forced evictions, are creating serious tensions. The police and the administration categorise all legitimate activities of rights activists as criminal. At a time when human rights abuse against activists is becoming widespread and is showing signs of further deterioration, with governments showing their apathy, we need to draw attention to the situation, point to the failure of governments to live up to their obligations, and plan for concrete action so that the activists can carry on with their important work free from attacks and fear of reprisals.

At the heart of people’s rights work is the individual — as one at the receiving end of rights abuses, as survivor, as partner in the defence of rights, and as activist speaking out and working with, and for, other individuals. Individuals, as part of the political, social and cultural collective and spread through the length and breadth of the country, lie behind much of the activism of social-political groups, working at local, grass-roots and community levels. They try to change lives by acting on their own or with other people and political groups making the same demand — an end to injustice in all its forms. These individuals are always at risk. Despite this, no mechanism exists at the district, State, regional or national levels, to protect those working to protect and promote our constitutional rights.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and its State editions, and the commissions established for women, the minorities and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are often approached by victim activists for redress. However, in the absence of a focussed system for monitoring, documenting and reporting rights violations against rights activists, and for lack of a mechanism for timely and pro-active intervention to provide justice to them, the commissions more often than not fail to arrest the continuing violations. Why do the commissions themselves not develop a system for taking action?

Where are our governments, which are parties to numerous international and regional human rights treaties and have voluntarily undertaken a legal commitment to protect the rights activists?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains important standards relevant to the work of rights activists. In addition to the UDHR, the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognised Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Declaration on Human Rights Defenders), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1998, is a set of safeguards designed to guarantee and ensure the protection of human rights defenders. These include the right to know, seek, obtain and receive information about human rights and fundamental freedoms; the right to participate in peaceful activities against violations of human rights; the right to criticise and complain when governments fail to comply with human rights standards; and the right to make proposals for improvement.

In line with the U.N. Declaration, why can’t the work of rights activists, including those working on economic, social and cultural rights, be recognised and legitimatised? Rather than harassing them, governments should take steps to develop a national plan of action that includes multidisciplinary proposals at the political, legal and practical levels, which aim at improving the environment in which rights activists operate; the measures to ensure their immediate protection and the allocation of appropriate human and financial resources.

Along with mechanisms and laws, there is need to call on a wider human rights community for intervention and support. It must include political activists and leaders, non-governmental organisations, human rights bodies, international organisations and professionals. The lukewarm response to Dr. Binayak Sen’s arrest from the established bodies of the medical fraternity and inter-governmental organisations, and the near non-response to the killings of Narayan Hareka and Lalit Mehta from the people and groups working on NREGA show the lack of solidarity, networking and common action in the human rights community.

Rights are not just concepts and laws. They are not just about project-making, training, advocacy and building capacity. They also mean showing courage and mobilising thousands of activists as fast as possible when someone is arrested, killed, or faces immediate and often life-threatening human rights violations. If a fragile “people’s rights concern” is to withstand the vagaries of political ebb and flow, future attacks on activists and practical applicability of rights will need to be anticipated and forestalled. The continuous hardships of activists, working in different contexts and cultures, reinforce the point that they must not only remain our reactive agenda but should also be a progressive proposition for a better future.

The existence of ‘failed states’ such as Chhattisgarh and Orissa — those without any functioning human rights governance — is a formidable challenge to human rights activists. Where the institutions necessary for the delivery of justice — from law-enforcement to healthcare and education — are either entirely lacking or dependent on a weak authority, and the rights are regularly abused by companies, armed groups, security forces and religious leaders, the challenge is to work creatively with and through political and social structures. Only then can immediate abuse be prevented and redressed, and a framework of protective safeguards at the local and community levels built.

(Mukul Sharma is the Director of Amnesty International in India. mukul@amnesty.org.in)

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