Debate: The EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders
Date: WEDNESDAY, 15 MARCH 2023
Speaker: Hannah Neumann
Country: Sweden
Language: EN

They do not fight with weapons. They use the power of words, of compassion, of persistence. They are not the enemy of the state but a force of good. This is why 25 years ago, the United Nations adopted a groundbreaking declaration on human rights defenders recognising their important contribution to peace, to sustainable development and human rights, and requesting states to protect them and support them. The EU guidelines on the protection of human rights defenders are based on this declaration, and today we assess how EU institutions and Member States implement these guidelines. Why is it important? Well, all around the world, human rights defenders are more and more under attack. They are threatened. They are persecuted. They are sometimes even murdered for doing things that we in here have the privilege to take for granted: to fight corruption, to protect local forests, or sometimes even to just dance in the streets. In 2020 alone, 358 human rights defenders were killed. Each and every one of them is a voice that has been silenced, a person that dared to stand up, that dared to believe that change is possible so much that they were willing to give their life for it. ‘You are the only ones who still care.’ That is what a woman’s rights defender told me about a year ago in Kabul, and by ‘you’, she meant the EU, and yes, she’s right. We still make human rights a priority. And at the same time, I was ashamed to hear this from her after we had failed so miserably in Afghanistan. So how can we, the EU, better live up to our ambitions? And that here, my report, our report, has many concrete suggestions. Maybe the main one: if we, EU and Member States, act together, we can save lives and change structures. Yet often enough we just don’t do that. So more consistency from country strategy to regular coordination of actions would be a big step forward. There is more, just a few short examples. We have to work on prevention and become more flexible in our funding. We need to extend our focus to the networks and family of defenders because often suppressive regimes often deliberately target the families to silence defenders. Visas could be a key tool of support, yet rarely we make use of it, so defenders need easier access to visas. We have to speak more about the many different kinds in which you can defend human rights, about those who support women’s rights, about LGBTI activists, about environmental defenders, as well as those who protect the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. They all deserve our protection. Finally, we should be more proud about the support we offer, about the great work our delegations do in the field, because often those who need our support are not aware of the guidelines or of tools such as ProtectDefenders, and this needs to change. Dear colleagues, too often we shrug our shoulders when we hear about the challenges human rights defenders face, as if the risks they take simply come with the job. But that’s not true. People being harassed, imprisoned, even killed only for defending human rights is something we should never accept. This is the line we need to hold. I’m confident that this report can guide us, the European Union and Member States, to become better allies to our allies on the ground.