Punished for speaking up at the UN
A report sheds light on the lengths states will go to prevent criticism from reaching UN ears. Two activists from Djibouti and Andorra listed in it share their stories.
Collaborating with the United Nations can have consequences, some more serious than others. Activists who have dared to denounce human rights abuses in their countries before the UN have faced smear campaigns. They have also been prevented from travelling, jailed or even killed in an attempt to stifle criticism.
Since 2010, the Human Rights Council has been keeping track of those cases in an effort to dissuade governments from retaliating against defenders who cooperate with UN mechanisms and remind them of their duty to protect them instead.
In this year’s report, presented on Thursday before council members gathered in Geneva, 41 states are cited for acts of intimidation or reprisals. That includes six countries – France, Burundi, China, Cuba, Indonesia and Russia – seeking to be elected next month to the Human Rights Council.
According to figures from the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), a Geneva-based NGO, the UN has documented 709 cases between 2010 and 2020, a third of which have taken place in the Middle East and north Africa.
Madeleine Sinclair, co-director of ISHR in New York, pointed out that this is just “the tip of the iceberg”.
“The document itself acknowledges that its contents ‘do not reflect the actual breadth and scope of the issue’. It also points to an increase in the number of requests for anonymity by reprisals victims with whom they engaged when compiling the report, as well as the increased risk that activists might self-censor or simply give up on engaging with the UN out of fear,” she told Geneva Solutions by writing.
“This all confirms an alarming global trend of states seeking to shrink civic space and suppress critical engagement with the UN.”
Geneva Solutions spoke to two activists ISHR has been campaigning for and who have been included in the report for several years now. They tell of the toll of being at the receiving end of their government’s anger and what it means for them to be included in the document.
Fighting for abortion rights in Andorra
“I am being made an example of for anyone who dares to fight against the government, but I am not afraid,” said Mendoza, president of the first-ever local feminist group Stop Violències, or Stop Violence.
Mendoza Cortés travelled to Geneva in 2019 to present a report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which was examining the landlocked country’s women’s rights record at the time. The report addressed the impacts of the restrictive abortion laws and accused Andorra’s authorities of discriminating against women who were poor by removing custody of their children.
A year later, the public prosecutor brought several defamation charges against her, citing the content of the report and comments to the media criticising the government. The charges carried up to 30,000 euros in fines and a four-year prison sentence, the latter of which has been dropped.
Mendoza Cortés says she has been the target of a state media-led smear campaign.
“We live in a misogynist country that hates women and believes that there are two categories of women: good and bad. I am in the second group and, therefore, must be punished,” she said.
Andorra is a principality, and, according to a 13th-century treaty, it is ruled by two co-princes, the bishop of Urgell, Joan Enric Vives Sicília, and French President Emmanuel Macron. Vives Sicília has threatened to give up that title if abortion is legalised, which would cause Andorra’s governance system to crumble.
UN experts wrote to the Andorran government asking for an explanation for the “allegations of judicial harassment”, and backlash Mendoza Cortés had received, to which the government replied that her claims were unfounded and was the one leading a defamation campaign against the government.
At the time, Amnesty International ran a campaign calling on the government to drop the charges against the activist and repeal its defamation laws that protect its institutions from criticism.
Mendoza Cortés recounts the toll that the whole process has taken on her, falling to alcoholism, from which she has now recovered. “Often we don’t talk of the vulnerabilities that affect us because we think we need to put up a strong front as women, but it is the government who should be ashamed of their behaviour, not me,” she said.
Her name has appeared in the UN’s annual reprisal reports since 2020 and is listed again this year. “It was overwhelming and at first scary to see my name in the report and the fact that it was made so public, but then I understood that it wasn’t about me but about what it represents,” she said. “It legitimises your situation, and I think it’s good for governments to be pointed at when they act like this.”
She said she has received support from the UN human rights office, which has kept track of her case and motivated her to keep up the fight for abortion rights.
Mendoza Cortés is still waiting for a trial date to be set but expects it to be soon. “My trial will be public, which is ironic as Andorra had inquisition trials against witches,” she said. “But we’re not scared because we hold the truth.”
Djibouti’s ‘non-existent’ press freedom
Two days after returning to Djibouti, Abdi said eight agents from the secret services knocked on his door and took him for a 15-minute ride around town. After driving him back home, the authorities questioned him about his visit to Geneva and confiscated his phone and passport.
Abdi said he went through all the legal processes to get his passport back until a high-ranking official, also a friend, told him to stop his activities if he wanted it back. “I told him I could not stop writing about what I was seeing that the regime was doing to the people of Djibouti,” he said.
When UN experts reached out to Djibouti’s government to express their concerns, the government said his passport was taken as a precautionary measure in the context of the fight against terrorism in Djibouti but gave no explanation as to why Abdi was specifically targeted.
Since France’s last colony gained independence, power has remained in the hands of one family, from former president Hassan Gouled Aptidon (1977-1999) to his nephew and current president, Ismaïl Omar Guelleh.
“The regime has constantly denied one of the inalienable rights of Djiboutians: the right to a free press,” he said.
Abdi is the former co-director and chief editor of Djibouti’s last independent newspaper, L’aurore (Dawn). It was shut down after covering the killing of opposition members by police ahead of elections in 2016, and Abdi was detained for two days.
Reporters Without Borders ranks the country of a little less than one million people among the worst on its Press Freedom Index and considers that “freedom to inform is non-existent in Djibouti”.
After the shutdown, Abdi’s circumstances took a turn for the worse. “I was fired from my position as maths professor at the University of Djibouti by presidential decree, barred from public service and banned from working in Djibouti,” he said.
Abdi and his family survive thanks to his wife’s job and the solidarity of the African community. But the nightmare didn’t stop there. He is constantly followed, and police vans are often stationed outside his home, he said.
Over Zoom and despite the slow internet connection, Abdi was lively as he recounted his story in between laughs. “This has been my life for the past 10 years. It has become the norm,” he said, with a touch of resignation.
But that hasn’t stopped him from speaking out and continuing to write on social media. Abdi also joined politics and became secretary general and then president of the opposition movement MoDeL.
Opposition groups boycotted parliamentary elections in February, branding them a sham. Members of the International Federation of Human Rights, who visited the country in March and met with Abdi and other rights defenders, were expelled from the country. Their case was also mentioned in the UN’s report.
But countries have been shy to criticise the government of Djibouti, which hosts strategic military bases for Germany, Spain, France, the UK, the US, China and Saudi Arabia.
For Abdi, appearing in the report is bittersweet. “I wonder how the UN justifies publishing these reports every year without applying any pressure on governments or following up on the cases,” he said.
“Geopolitical considerations clearly take priority over human rights, and that is a shame.”
Geneva Solutions reached out to Djibouti’s and Andorra’s permanent missions to the UN in Geneva for comment but did not receive any response by the time of publication of this article.