Perspectivas / Perspectives

For decades, civil society and UN human rights mechanisms have communicated the persistent challenge of the misuse of policies and regulations meant for countering terrorism and preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE). Written by the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the Global Study focuses on the experiences of civil society across the world operating amidst closing civic space and the widespread misuse of counterterrorism and P/CVE measures to restrict their exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The Global Study documents restrictions on civic space across every region and finds they are directly linked to the regulatory and institutional practices of counterterrorism and P/CVE. The Global Study provides recommendations to UN Member States, the UN, and other stakeholders on how counterterrorism and P/CVE programming and practice can integrate stronger human rights due diligence safeguards to foster participatory, inclusive, and vibrant civic space in compliance with international law and direct response to the concrete challenges faced by civil society today.

Download the Global Study HERE.

The International Democrat Union notes with great concern the increasing number of political prisoners around the world. We are especially concerned and wish to highlight a number of political prisoners belonging to our political family and to our network in Europe. They are close friends of the International Democrat Union and their imprisonments are unjust and unlawful. Their imprisonment also threatens their health and life.

We are concerned with the unlawful and long prison sentences of the Russian opposition politicians and activists Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny, and Ilya Yashin.

In Belarus, we are concerned with the sentence of the leader of the United Civic Party, Mikalai Kazlou. We are similarly concerned with the unlawful imprisonment of Artsem Liabedzka, who is awaiting a court decision in the Volodarskogo prison in Minsk.

The applicant, Nikolay Sergeyevich Glukhin, is a Russian national who was born in 1985 and lives in Moscow.

The case concerns the authorities’ use of facial recognition technology against Mr. Glukhin following his holding a solo demonstration in the Moscow underground on 23 August 2019. He had in particular been identified, located, and arrested after traveling with a life-size cardboard figure of Konstantin Kotov, a protestor whose case had caused a public outcry and attracted widespread attention in the media, holding a banner that said, “I’m facing up to five years … for peaceful protests”.

The applicant complains that his ensuing administrative conviction for failing to notify the authorities of his protest breached his rights under Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the Convention. In addition, relying on Articles 6 (right to a fair trial) and 8 (right to respect for private life), he complains that the proceedings were unfair because there was no prosecuting party and that facial recognition technology had been used in the processing of his personal data

 Santo Domingo, June 30.– The Duartian Institute (Instituto Duartiano) of the Dominican Republic today referred to the request made by Mr. William O'Neill, an independent expert of the United Nations (UN), on the human rights situation in Haiti.

According to the Caribbean institution, the statement does not apply to the Dominican Republic. "Because for us, the deportations of undocumented and illegal Haitians are part of an action in extremis in legitimate defense of its existence as a sovereign nation," the organization said in a statement.