ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights “The Responsibility of States”: Protection of Human Rights Defenders in the OSCE Region (2014–2016) Implementation of the international standards outlined in the ODIHR Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary .......................................................................................................... 4 Recommendations ............................................................................................................. 9 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 13 International Standards: The ODIHR Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders ............................................................................................................. 15 1. Physical Integrity, Liberty and Security, and Dignity of Human Rights Defenders ......................................................................................................................... 19 1.1 Protection from threats, attacks and other abuses ................................................................... 19 1.1.1 Impunity and effective remedies ....................................................................................... 20 1.1.2 Protection policies, programmes and mechanisms .......................................................... 27 1.2 Protection from judicial harassment, criminalization, arbitrary arrest and detention .............. 28 1.2.1 Criminalization or arbitrary and abusive application of legislation ............................... 30 1.2.2 Arbitrary detention and treatment in detention ................................................................ 37 1.2.3 Fair trial ........................................................................................................................... 43 1.3 Confronting stigmatization and marginalization ..................................................................... 49 1.3.1 Smear campaigns against human rights defenders .......................................................... 52 1.3.2 Women human rights defenders ....................................................................................... 54 1.3.3 LGBTI human rights defenders ........................................................................................ 56 1.3.4 Ethnic minority human rights defenders .......................................................................... 58 2. A Safe and Enabling Environment Conducive to Human Rights Work ............ 59 2.1 Freedom of opinion and expression and of information.......................................................... 60 2.1.1 Access to information of public interest and whistleblowers ........................................... 60 2.1.2 Freedom of the media ...................................................................................................... 63 2.2 Freedom of peaceful assembly ................................................................................................ 72 2.2.1 Regulatory restrictions on freedom of peaceful assembly ............................................... 72 2.2.2 Restrictions and penalties imposed on peaceful assemblies ............................................ 76 2.2.3 Challenges in the protection of public assemblies ........................................................... 81 2.3 Freedom of association and the right to form, join and participate effectively in NGOs ........ 85 2.3.1 Laws, administrative procedures and requirements governing the operation of NGOs .. 86 2.3.2 Access to funding and resources ...................................................................................... 90 2.4 Right to participate in public affairs ........................................................................................ 95 2.5 Freedom of movement and human rights work within and across boundaries ....................... 97 2.6 Right to private life................................................................................................................ 103 2.7 Right to access and communicate with international bodies ................................................. 105 3. Framework for Implementation of the Guidelines ............................................ 107 3.1 National implementation ....................................................................................................... 107 3.2 Protection of human rights defenders in other OSCE participating States and beyond the OSCE region ......................................................................................................................... 110 3.3 International co-operation and human rights mechanisms .................................................... 114 1 4. Annexes .................................................................................................................. 117 4.1 Statistics on submissions of questionnaires ........................................................................... 117 4.2 Statistics on interviews with human rights defenders ........................................................... 118 4.3 Questionnaires sent to OSCE participating States, NHRIs, human rights defenders, OSCE field operations ...................................................................................................................... 120 4.3.1 Questionnaire sent to OSCE participating States .......................................................... 120 4.3.2 Questionnaire sent to NHRIs ......................................................................................... 124 4.3.3 Questionnaire sent to human rights defenders ............................................................... 125 4.3.4 Questionnaire sent to OSCE field operations ................................................................ 126 2 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACLU American Civil Liberties Union ADC Memorial Anti-Discrimination Centre “Memorial” BLM #BlackLivesMatter CEDAW Committee UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women CESCR UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights CoE Council of Europe ECHR European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights GKNB Kyrgyz State Committee on National Security HCLU Hungarian Civil Liberties Union HCNM OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities HDIM OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting HRAC Human Rights Advocacy Centre HRD Human rights defender ICNL International Center for Not-for-Profit Law LGBTI Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs MIA Ministry of Internal Affairs NGO Non-governmental organization NHRI National human rights institution NPM National Preventive Mechanism ODIHR OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights OGP Open Government Partnership OHCHR Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe RFoM OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media SMMU OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine UN United Nations US United States 3 Executive Summary 1. In the foundational commitments of the Organization for Security and Co- operation in Europe (OSCE), participating States recognized the vital role of human rights defenders1 in the protection of human rights, which is a core objective of the OSCE.2 2. Targeted abuses and violations against human rights defenders strike at the heart of accountability and the right to effective remedies for victims of human rights violations, who are often from vulnerable groups. For this reason, OSCE participating States in 1994 emphasized “the need for the protection of human rights defenders”, in line with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.3 More than 20 years later, however, human rights defenders continue to face serious restrictions, threats, attacks and other abuses in all corners of the OSCE region. 3. In this report, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) provides an overview and analysis of critical challenges faced by human rights defenders in the OSCE region, as well as good practices by OSCE participating States in their protection. The report also provides recommendations of how to close identified protection gaps, which should be considered in conjunction with the ODIHR Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Guidelines). 4 In and of themselves, the Guidelines are a comprehensive set of recommendations to States, reflecting international standards. This report assesses implementation of those standards by OSCE participating States in the two-year period following the June 2014 publication of the Guidelines. 1 The term “human rights defenders” is defined according to the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, in which the UN General Assembly recognized the right of all people to act, “individually or in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms”, through peaceful means and without discrimination. General Assembly Res. 53/144, “Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”