WASHINGTON, CMC – A group of UN and regional human rights experts Monday urged countries to halt the repressive and punitive criminalisation of those seeking to exercise their rights and freedoms, amidst a growing existential threat to the values underpinning these rights.
In a joint statement, the experts emphasized that states must reaffirm their commitment to protecting the rights of freedom of assembly and association.
‘They are essential for enabling collective action, participation, solidarity and dialogue which are fundamental for ensuring a resilient and inclusive democracy, and for the realisation of the UN Charter’s aspiration to preserve peace and human rights for all.”
The experts including Roberta Clarke, Commissioner Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders of the IACHR, and who before her career at the United Nations, e practiced as a lawyer in Trinidad and Tobago, said that they strongly condemned the widespread stigmatization of those legitimately exercising their rights and freedoms as “enemies”, “traitors”, “spies”, “terrorists”, “criminals” or similar.
“We express alarm that, as a result of their non-violent activism and protected expressions thousands of human rights defenders and activists have been, and continue to be arbitrarily arrested and detained, given prolonged harsh criminal sentences without adequate due process or fair trial guarantees, and many are deported or threatened with deportation, forced into exile, subjected to unlawful economic sanctions, and to transnational repression, while scores of associations have been unlawfully dissolved and defunded.”
The experts said that criminalization also triggers unlawful use of force and that many young people, “today at the forefront for defending rights, demanding climate justice and end of genocide, are being killed and hundreds are criminalised for peacefully protesting.
“Criminalization is part of a growing authoritarian practice, including in democratic regimes, where governments are seeking to control and manipulate public debate and spaces, to advance political agendas and other vested interests, through the exclusion and silencing of dissent and independent voices.
“Criminalization is further reinforced and exacerbated by the growing stigmatization of civic engagement and civil society, the growing militarisation and securitisation undermining fundamental freedoms, and stigmatisation of foreign aid recipients, as well as by the arbitrary and unlawful use of surveillance technology, empowered with facial recognition and AI capabilities.”
The experts said that they were urging the state to refrain from treating peaceful protests and civil society seeking to engage in democratic debates and processes and rights protection, “including through non-violent civil disobedience, as a threat, enemies or criminals; and to ensure everyone’s rights to peaceful assembly and association are protected and facilitated in accordance with international human rights law”.
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