Issue: CRIMINALIZATION & REPRESSION

Beyond numbers: rethinking food security monitoring in conflicts and crisis

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As climate disruptions, war, and systemic inequality intensify, the world is confronted with a deepening food emergency. Yet the international systems in place to address it are failing to deliver effective, coordinated solutions.

Areas that are often quoted in the media as “teetering on the brink of famine” or being at “the edge of starvation” already have several thousands of people dead or rapidly dying of starvation and of illnesses related to or exacerbated by a lack of adequate food. Gaza and Sudan are two prominent examples.

In Beyond Numbers: Rethinking Food Security Monitoring in Conflict and Crisis (also available in Arabic here) FIAN analyzes the international community’s approach to starvation, posing several key questions including: What is a “famine”? Who decides whether a famine is occurring? How is it monitored? And what are the implications for the food sovereignty and human rights community?

“We must rethink how we measure famine — too often, we focus on body counts and crisis thresholds, while ignoring the deeper, structural causes that set the stage for disaster,” said FIAN policy officer for corporate accountability Ayushi Kalyan.

“The real challenge is not just counting the dead, but identifying the real, structural risks earlier and addressing the root causes of famine and starvation before they spiral into catastrophe.”

Situations of right to food and nutrition violations in crisis situations, including famines, do not emerge in a vacuum. They are the result of long-term, systemic marginalization of communities, of their exclusion in monitoring efforts and decision-making, and of long-term violations of economic, social, and cultural rights.

In such cases, what can early action and real prevention look like? In a recent report, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, offers a human rights lens to starvation, indicating that starvation reflects “a State’s fundamental abandonment of its human rights obligations… and when a State or any other actor systemically violates the right to food, this is an early warning that indicates some degree of intention to starve a population.”

“Mainstream monitoring tools are not designed to assess the root causes of food crises in conflict or occupation settings,” said FIAN policy officer for monitoring and advocacy Emily Mattheisen.

“These methods obscure the power dynamics at play and miss the voices of those most affected. To truly address hunger, we must integrate grassroots insights and human rights indicators into our monitoring systems.”

This briefing aims to open a dialogue between the right to food and humanitarian communities, in order to learn from each other while also imagining new ways of supporting affected communities and populations, creating effective human rights-based monitoring mechanisms and greater accountability around actions and structural conditions that result in right to food violations, including starvation and famine.

Download briefing here.

Download Arabic version here

Read Arabic press release here.

For more information please contact Ayushi Kalyan Kalyan@fian.org or Emily Mattheisen Mattheisen@fian.org

Fisherfolk in Uganda welcome decreased army brutality

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Since the President of the Republic of Uganda directed the People’s Defense Force to combat illegal fishing, a special Fisheries Protection Unit has been systematically violating the human rights of small-scale fishermen and women through unlawful arrest, physical assault and destruction of property, including burning boats and fishing gear. Several fishermen were reportedly killed in 2020.

This army brutality has denied many small scale fishers access to Uganda’s extensive lakes, jeopardizing their human right to adequate food and nutrition. Despite the Minister for Fisheries affirming that the army will continue its operations in late 2023, a year later the Ugandan parliament ordered the fisheries ministry to implement the Fisheries and Aquaculture Act of 2022, which replaces armed forces with a non-military Monitoring, Surveillance, and Control Unit.

Advocating for rights

Recognizing the issues faced by fisheries communities, FIAN Uganda has embarked on a mission to advocate for their rights and dignity over the last five years. It implemented a multi-faceted strategy that included organizing community dialogues, conducting human rights trainings and sensitisation, engaging the media to highlight the plight of affected individuals, and supporting communities in writing petitions and letters to authorities and directly engaging and working with policy makers to influence fisheries and food policies in the country. The challenges facing fishing communities have also been highlighted in CEDAW and UPR parallel reporting to UN treaty bodies and the UN Human Rights Council.

“The concluding observations from CEDAW and the UPR have requested the State of Uganda to investigate and hold accountable state security agents and members of the police and army who have committed human rights abuses as well as ensuring adequate compensation for victims,” says Valentin Hategekimana, Africa Coordinator at FIAN International

FIAN Uganda’s work, together with other partners, has benefited more than 5,000 men and women in fisheries communities through human rights trainings and dialogues over the last five years. While the trainings were aimed at creating awareness about human rights and what constitutes violations – particularly of the right to food and nutrition – the dialogues were principally aimed at bringing all actors to the same table to discuss the challenges faced by fishing communities and how to solve them.

Progress

These dialogues fed into legal framework discussions, including the amendment of the fisheries bill and its subsequent passing into law in 2023 and the tabling of a long-awaited food and nutrition bill. Today, although the army remains present on the lake, incidents of brutality and human rights violations have decreased. Efforts are underway to fully establish the Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance Unit, as mandated by law. This unit will be composed of personnel appointed by the Public Service Commission to facilitate the complete withdrawal of the army.

“These achievements are the result of a strong mobilisation of communities to directly engage with policy makers and bring their lived experiences to the policy tables,” says Dr. Rehema Namaganda Bavuma, Coordinator of FIAN Uganda.

 For more information, please contact Valentin Hategekimana hategekimana@fian.org

Statement in solidarity with the people of Gaza

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FIAN International, as member of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRtFN), stands in solidarity with the people of Gaza against the total siege imposed by Israel on Gaza.

Since 1948, Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation, enduring systemic discrimination, violence, and countless deaths. An illegal blockade and closure imposed on Gaza in 2007 restricted Palestinians’ access to food, water, and other essential needs to lead a dignified life, imposing an apartheid state on Palestinians. Food and water have consistently been weaponized by Israel, forcing 77% of the people in Gaza to become dependent on aid in the form of food and cash. 75% of the population of Gaza are refugees or displaced persons, and the access to the already small territory had been reduced from between 300 – 1000 meters of the perimeter fence, taking up 29% of the arable farming land. And while the world is currently watching the attacks on Gaza, the West Bank – specifically “Area C” – continues to face systemic discrimination, attacks, and murder by Israeli forces and settlers. Farmers are also being prevented access to their lands having immediate impacts on livelihood, and long-term impacts on Palestinian food security and food sovereignty. 

Following Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, during which around 1300 persons – many of them civilians – were killed, the government of Israel has doubled down on its closure of the Gaza Strip and is committing war crimes. As hostilities entered the 17th day, heavy Israeli bombardments on Gaza, from the air, sea and land, have continued almost uninterrupted, killing 4651, including at least 1873 children and displacing one million people in the Gaza Strip (OCHA updates). Israeli airstrikes continue to destroy essential infrastructure and medical facilities.

The people of Gaza are trapped and under heavy siege with no way to exit the territory. Consequently, the civilian population of Gaza is affected the most by current Israeli airstrikes and a possible ground invasion. Persons under medical care in hospitals or with other medical or mobility restrictions cannot evacuate. Additionally, fuel and power reserves have run out in some places and are at the brink of running out in others, including those that power live-saving machines in hospitals. Israel is blocking entry to Gaza of life-saving aid and supplies. The loss of civilian life continues to climb each day Gaza remains under siege.

Israel is weaponizing food through its blockade and ongoing siege, which is illegal under international law. Prior to these attacks, and due to the Israeli blockade, Gaza had limited food imports and scarce potable water resources. Gaza’s sole water aquifer was almost fully contaminated prior to the siege; now Israel has cut off the only water pipeline to Gaza, and due to electricity cuts, wells and water pumping stations are out of service. Fears of dehydration in Gaza are already surfacing. Farmers cannot safely access their lands, which are largely near the perimeter fences and heavily militarized. Fisherfolk are constantly being fired upon, arrested, and expelled from the sea.

The UN has consistently called Israel to lift blockades, as well as to end violence in Gaza and the other Occupied Palestinian territories- however Israel continues to act with impunity, backed by powerful financial and political powers. The USA and other western states in particular have not deterred Israel from committing crimes, but have assured their unconditional support. Several UN Special Rapporteurs have alerted that the escalation of the crimes against humanity in Gaza is perpetuating the risk of genocide against the Palestine people.

Collective punishment and attacks on civilians amount to war crimes. We strongly condemn the deliberate killings of innocent civilians and persons being taken hostage by Hamas. We denounce the actions of the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces, which are in violation of international law. Israel has legal obligations to Palestinians as an occupying force, including the protection of the population in the territories it occupies. The ongoing aggression will lead to ongoing instability and potentially further conflict in the region and internationally. The atrocity unfolding can and must be stopped. In line with the Geneva Conventions, the Charter of the United Nations and subsequent human rights instruments, all states have international obligations to prevent war crimes and take joint and separate action to achieve the full realization of human rights in Gaza and the West Bank. 

The only means towards ending decades of violence and oppression, while also ensuring justice for Palestinians, is through addressing the root causes of the conflict including through ending the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and recognising the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. As members and supporters of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition, we, the undersigned organisations, demand states to take actions to immediately: 

  • Immediately establish a ceasefire and end the bombing and attacks in Gaza; 
  • Ensure the provision of food, water and medical supplies to people in Gaza; 
  • Lift blockages preventing the flow of people and goods into Gaza;
  • Release hostages taken by Hamas and Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel; 
  • Ensure justice and reparation for victims;
  • Support the work of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel to collect and preserve evidence on war crimes committed by all sides, and ensure that perpetrators are held accountable. This should include investigating the responsibilities of all states who have failed to deter conflict parties from committing those crimes or provided support; 
  • Take concrete steps toward addressing the root causes of violence and finding a solution to the conflict, which secures the rights of Palestinians and ends the current apartheid and colonial occupation of Palestine. 

Signed by:

ACTUAR, Portugal 

Brazilian Forum for Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security (FBSSAN), Brazil 

Center for Social Development, India 

Defensoría del Derecho a la Salud, Mexico 

Focus on the Global South

FIAN Colombia 

FIAN Honduras 

FIAN Indonesia 

FIAN International  

FIAN Nepal 

FIAN Sri Lanka 

FIAN Switzerland 

FIAN Uganda 

Habitat International Coalition – Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) 

Indonesia for Global Justice (IJG) 

Katarungan, Philippines 

Movement of Organic Agriculture of Lanka (MAEL), Sri Lanka 

National Fisheries Solidarity Organization (NFSO), Sri Lanka

Masifundise, South Africa 

DESCA Observatory 

Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC), Pakistan 

Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, India

Right to Food Campaign, India

Society for International Development (SID)  

Solidaritas Perempuan, Indonesia 

Sri Lanka Nature Group (SLNG), Sri Lanka 

UBING (Policy Research for Alternative Development), Bangladesh

URGENCI 

Youth Forum for the Protection of Human Rights, India 

Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB), Zambia

Anne C. Bellows PhD, Syracuse University, Syracuse, Italy

 

 

 

 

Guarani and Kaiowá leaders call on EU and UN to support their struggle

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In Brazil, 62% of existing indigenous lands and territorial claims are pending administrative regularization or demarcation. The resulting tenure insecurity is at the heart of multiple human rights violations and a brutal land conflict which has seen 795 indigenous people murdered and 535 cases of suicide within the past four years. The Guarani and Kaiowá Peoples of Mato Grosso do Sul are among the main victims.

Human rights violations and abuses, socio-territorial conflicts and insecurities against the Guarani and Kaiowá (GK) are largely driven by incursions into their traditional territories by agro-industrial corporations, landowners, luxury condominiums, illegal prisons and the expansion of infrastructure megaprojects to transport commodities. Conflicts have occurred between armed militias formed by farmers and their rural unions and paramilitary actions and military operations by state security forces lacking judicial authorization. 

Exploitation of natural resources 

Widespread violations of the Guarani and Kaiowá’s right to adequate food and nutrition have their origin in historical and ongoing dispossession of their ancestral lands. This predatory exploitation of their natural resources has resulted in water, land and air contamination by pesticides and the denial of practically all their human rights. From the difficulty of accessing documentation and public services, to the psychological and physical violence resulting from generalised racism, to the dependence on irregularly delivered food baskets, all these violations culminate in alarming rates of food insecurity and hunger. The already dire situation worsened considerably during the Bolsonaro regime which saw a systematic dismantling of social policies, programmes, and structures, and the promotion of anti-indigenous policies and sentiments. 

In a recent study by FIAN Brasil and the University of Grande Dourados, carried out in five Guarani and Kaiowa communities, it was found that 77% of households live with some level of food insecurity, while 33.6% of households have insufficient food to feed their families. 

During the advocacy tour, the indigenous leaders will meet members of the European Parliament, the European Commission’s External Action Service, as well as representatives of human rights bodies and diplomatic missions in Geneva. They will also be participating in the 54th Human Rights Council session and the examination of Brazil by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. FIAN Brazil together with other civil society organizations has submitted a report on the situation of ESC rights in the country.  

‘We are being murdered’ 

“We came to Europe to demand the demarcation of our lands, the recognition of traditional lands, the homologation of lands… to give a voice to youth, women, elders. To clamor for the world to know how we live … how we are being murdered, how we are being violated, massacred… by the very powers of the Brazilian state…,” said Inaye Gomes Lopes, a counselor in the municipality of Antônio João, in Mato Grosso do Sul and one of the representatives advocating in Europe this week.  

“I hope that the UN/European Union officials will notify the Brazilian authorities so that they implement our territorial rights, which are stipulated in the Brazilian Constitution, and denounce how our rights are being violated, continue to be violated, and (how we) are being massacred…”

Their central demands also include effective protection of Indigenous Peoples from violent attacks in the context of reoccupations of their ancestral lands, the completion of the demarcation processes, and rejection of the “temporal framework” thesis and Bill 2.903/23.  

Moreover, European policy makers and legislators are urged to ensure that existing and currently negotiated trade deals, as well as investments and actions by the companies based in or with ties to EU and its member states, do not further fuel the land conflict or otherwise contribute to violations of the rights of the GK people. The banning of exports of harmful agrotoxics, prohibited in the EU, to Brazil and other countries is another key demand.

FIAN Brazil and FIAN International have been accompanying the Guarani and Kaiowa since 2005. Together with Aty Guasu, CIMI, and Justicia Global they have a petition pending at the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights. 

For more information or media interviews please contact Amanda Cordova Gonzales cordova-gonzales@fian.org  
 

Photo Credits: Ruy Sposati/CIM

Criminalization against Filipino Peasants reaches the UN

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Geneva, May 8, 2023 – The Movement for Agrarian Reform and Social Justice (Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan / KATARUNGAN), together with Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM), FIAN International, Transnational Institute (TNI), and Focus on the Global South submitted today a complaint to the United Nations (UN) human rights protection mechanisms to alert on the persecution of Filipino peasants who are advocating for the just implementation of the government’s agrarian reform program and seek redress for violations of their rights.

Over the past years, Filipino peasants have confronted numerous threats to their fundamental rights to land, life, housing, livelihood, and basic freedoms. One glaring challenge has been the continuing and systematic criminalization of their movements through the filing of fabricated charges by landlords, influential claimants, and corporations and their agents. The main aim of these Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPP) disguised as civil or criminal claims is to sow fear and silence dissent, including peasants who are claiming their rights to land. The systematic criminalization of peoples’ movements results in deeper poverty and marginalization of peasant communities through physical and economic dislocation towards a future of uncertainty.

Criminalized peasants and their family members, including their children, suffer serious anxiety and mental anguish. Most often, they do not have access to legal professionals of their choice and are burdened by the high cost of litigation, which draws on resources they need to meet their basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and the education of their children. The fear of arrest and actual loss of liberty through imprisonment lead to untold economic hardship and loss of basic dignity. Moreover, paid media often vilify criminalized peasants and delegitimize their rights claims.

Despite agrarian reform and social justice being enshrined in the Philippine Constitution and legislated into national laws, the continuing and systematic criminalization of peasants reflect judicial institutions that are unable to extend basic guarantees of due process and fair and speedy trial. The weak and snail-paced implementation of pro-poor land policies often provide anti-land reform actors such as landlords and corporations the space and opportunity to file trumped-up criminal offenses to harass peasants and overwhelm their land rights claims. The arrest and criminalization of peasant leaders—who are often primary targets of fabricated charges—create an atmosphere of fear amongst peoples and communities and serve as a deterrence against peasants from asserting their rights to land, as well as a stern warning that such assertions could lead to their imprisonment.

It is in this context that the above-mentioned movement and organizations sought the intervention of UN mechanisms to address the situation of Filipino peasants by investigating these concerns and conducting a dialogue with the Philippine government to guarantee the protection of peasants’ rights. Furthermore, the complaint calls on the Philippine government to comply with its international commitments on human rights, specifically the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). This entails putting an end to the criminalization of peasants, expediting the implementation of agrarian reform, and preventing land grabbing through the enactment of a national land use law and fair implementation of land use plans.

Download the Press release

CONTACTS:
Danilo T. Carranza Secretary-General, Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN) E-mail: danny.carranza@gmail.com and katarungan.inc@gmail.com
Raffaele Morgantini Representative of Centre Europe Tiers Monde (CETIM) – organization with ECOSOC consultative status at the UN E-mail: contact@cetim.ch and raffaele@cetim.ch / Website: www.cetim.ch
Raphael Baladad Program Officer, Focus on the Global South Email: raphael.baladad@focusweb.org / Website: www.focusweb.org/.

UNDROP supports peasants’ struggles for human rights

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The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2018, lays out the rights of peasants and small-scale fishers who feed most of the world’s population yet often struggle against state laws and policies promoting agribusiness and extractive industries as well as land and ocean grabbing.

UNDROP underlines the international community’s commitment to protect, fulfil, and respect peasants’ and fishers human rights. These include the right to food, land, seeds, biodiversity, water and other natural resources, food sovereignty, a healthy environment and effective access to justice.

Powerful recognition

The declaration is a powerful recognition of the importance of food sovereignty and agroecology and the legitimate struggles of peasants and fishers around the world defending their livelihoods and way of life. But it must be implemented in full.

For example, in submissions to the UN’s Universal Periodic Review of countries human rights records, FIAN and others have called on the Indian government to honor its UNDROP commitments in the state of Odisha.

Since 2005, peasant communities in Jagatsinghpur, Odisha have faced evictions, house demolitions  loss of livelihood, police violence, arbitrary arrests and criminalization while peacefully resisting the illegal decimation of their livelihoods, which mainly depend on paddy, betel vine and cashew cultivation as well as small-scale fishing. At least 40,000 people are affected.

The state has facilitated a series of illegal land grabs and ecological destruction, most recently to clear land for Indian steel major Jindal Steel Works (JSW) group. This blatant disregard for the human rights of local peasants is a clear breach of India’s own constitutional protections as well as international obligations laid out clearly in UNDROP.

Reflects legally binding obligations

UNDROP defends people’s right to oppose attempts to grab land, rivers, and oceans and recognizes peasants’ rights to conserve, use, exchange and sell traditional seeds which is under threat from laws that criminalize farmers for doing this. It also highlights the need for a coherent interpretation and application of existing international human rights obligations.

It was approved after nearly two decades of mobilization by La Via Campesina, the world’s largest movement of peasant food producers and other allies, including FIAN International.

UN declarations are not legally binding but often reflect legally binding international human rights obligations.

In the coming week, in the run up to the fourth anniversary of the adoption of UNDROP, FIAN International and La Via Campesina will provide support to local struggles with a new UNDROP website. It aims to gather knowledge and experience of UNDROP’s progress around the world and become a platform for sharing and supporting rural struggles.

For more information please contact Tom Sullivan sullivan@fian.org

Communities resist state sanctioned land grab in Jagatsinghpur, India

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Local communities have been facing eviction, loss of livelihood, and criminalization since 2005, when their land was first forcibly allocated to the now abandoned POSCO steel project. That project sparked strong local resistance against the environmental destruction and illegal seizure of community land on which local people largely depend on to make their livelihoods cultivating betel vines and cashew trees.

Disastrous human rights impacts

Their struggle forced POSCO to withdraw in 2017. But then Odisha’s state government handed the community’s land to JSW subsidiary, JSW Utkal Steel Ltd. (JUSL) prompting local communities in Dhinkia, Nuagaon, Govindpur and neighboring villages to continue their struggle that began with POSCO.

The new planned megaproject includes an integrated steel factory, a sea port, a cement grinding plant, mines and a power plant. If it goes ahead it would displace up to 40,000 people, according to estimations, with disastrous impacts on their rights to food, water, work, health, adequate housing, as well as a healthy environment.

Most local people are agricultural workers and fishers. Their livelihoods are based on the rich biodiversity and fertility of the area. Many are daily wage labourers from the marginalized Dalit community who already live in precarious economic circumstances.

State authorities have pushed through plans to forcefully evict them and strip them of their livelihoods in clear breach of existing laws and court orders, with total disregard for India’s international human rights obligations and without the consent of the affected communities. The Ministry for Environment approved the project despite many irregularities.

Violent repression and arbitrary arrests

Ever since the first violent land grabs in 2005, villagers have been subjected to arbitrary arrests and detention. According to the Anti-Jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement, anyone involved in protests faces criminalisation with an estimated 400 cases pending and warrants issued for about 700 people.

The situation has escalated since December 2021, when police attempted to arrest a village leader in Dhinkia village, the epicentre of the protest. Subsequently, the administration began destroying the communities’ valuable betel fields. On January 14, a group of about 500 people were attacked by police who injured many of them including women, children and the elderly. Since then the area around Dhinkia village has been heavily militarized with local people placed under close surveillance, and subjected to regular ID checks and harassment including arbitrary arrests which have robbed many of their livelihoods.

“I couldn’t go to my daily work being a daily wage laborer working in the nearby betel vines of our village Dhinkia along with my son,” said one villager.

“After the horrific incident by the police brutality on 14th January 2022 we were forced to be in exile with my entire family but eventually got arrested and been kept in judicial custody for more than a month with my wife and 18-year-old daughter. My son and his wife are still in exile to avoid arrest. My family got ruined due to the forceful betel vines demolition and police atrocity.”

The situation in Jagatsinghpur demonstrates clearly the degree of influence and grip that powerful companies often have over state institutions. It highlights the urgent need for a binding UN treaty to reiterate the primacy of human rights over investment agreements.

This should include provisions not only in relation to the state’s obligation to protect human rights from the harmful activities of business enterprises, but also to respect human rights by ensuring states do not violate human rights by facilitating projects such as those supported by Indian authorities in Jagatsinghpur.

Read FIAN's UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) submission here

For more information, please contact Sofia Monsalve monsalve@fian.org

 

Denounce the criminalization of Palestinian civil society organizations

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We, the undersigned, stand in firm internationalist solidarity with Palestinian Civil Society and demand the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reverse their recent decrees against six of the most important rights-based organisations in occupied Palestine.

On October 19th, 2021, the Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, issued a military order declaring six Palestinian civil society organisations “terrorist organisations.”

The six organisations are Addameer, al-Haq, Defense for Children Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

On November 7th, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) classified these same organisations as “unauthorised,” paving the way for further prosecution.

This represents the latest in an ongoing string of unsubstantiated allegations against Palestinian human rights organisations by the Israeli government.

The Israeli government’s recent steps to criminalise and attempt to silence these six organisations is a dangerous escalation of a trend that we see taking place worldwide, targeting human rights organisations and particularly those organisations defending land, water, territories, and the earth.

For decades, the Israeli occupation has denied Palestinians access and control over their own lands, waters, territories and commons. The occupation is a source of profound human and environmental rights violations against the Palestinian people, including pollution, destruction of livelihoods, land and water grabbing, discriminatory planning laws, forced evictions and displacements, military violence, torture, and destruction of human lives.

The six organisations that the Israeli government has criminalised form part of the bedrock of Palestinian civil society that has been protecting and advancing Palestinian human rights for decades.

They work across a full spectrum of issues of global concern, including children’s rights, prisoners’ rights, women’s rights, socio-economic rights, the rights of farmworkers, justice and accountability for international crimes.

This issuing is an appalling next step in the criminalisation and efforts to silence Palestinian civil society that opposes the inhumane occupation by the Israeli government.

The published designation decisions give the Israeli government the possibility to close offices, arrest staff and members of the organisations that are being criminalised and seize organisational assets. Penalties can extend to those who assist or are in contact with the criminalised organisations.

Frontline Defenders exposed findings that indicated that six Palestinian human rights defenders, including those from the NGOs designated as terrorist organisations, were hacked with Pegasus, spyware developed by the cyber-surveillance company NSO Group.

The spyware was active in 2020 and 2021, prior to the designation status, and indicates another failure of NSO’s company policies on human rights and the ability or will of the Israeli government to impose human rights regulations on companies, which deeply impact the violation of rights of Palestinians organising and advocating for human rights.

Altogether, these Israeli government actions create a threat to the safety and security of the people who make up these organisations, to the organisations themselves and to the very important work that these organisations do in promoting and protecting human rights.

This unfair and unfounded measure has been widely criticised by Civil Society Organisations the world over [SEE BELOW]. Advocates of peace, justice and human rights across the globe are demanding Israel reverse its illegal and draconian decision.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet said in a recent statement:

“The banning of organisations must not be used to suppress or deny the right to freedom of association, or to quash political dissent, silence unpopular views or limit the peaceful activities of civil society. The national authorities responsible for proscribing organisations must comply fully with the State's international human rights obligations, including by respecting the principles of legal certainty, proportionality, equality and non-discrimination.”

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) is the largest agricultural institution in Palestine and was established in 1986 to improve the situation of Palestinian farmers and fisherfolk.

UAWC received the prestigious Equator Prize in 2014 by the United Nations Development Agency for its outstanding work on sustainable agriculture and preservation of local seeds through its seed bank.

In the West Bank, UAWC’s work focuses mainly in ‘Area C,’ rural areas which Israel has explicit goals to annex and where Israel has been accelerating its process of expanding illegal settlements. It is worth noting that a week after Gantz’s declaration, Israel announced plans to build 3,144 new illegal settlement homes in the West Bank.

The work of UAWC, as well as the other five organisations being accused is key in the construction of a just, fair, sustainable world, free of all systems of oppression, including patriarchy, colonialism, racism and classism.

We, as social movements and civil society organisations, join in with hundreds of other organisations across the globe who have stood up to denounce this injustice. We call on the international community, especially the UN Human Rights Council, US government, Members of the European Parliament, and European Governments to:

  • Denounce all smear campaigns against Palestinian civil society organisations, press the Israeli government to immediately and fully rescind its designation of so-called “terrorist organisation” against these six Palestinian human rights groups; and
  • Use their diplomatic means to hold the Israeli government accountable to adhere to international law and human rights standards and put a permanent end to the occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel, a state which violates international law daily in the absence of any form of accountability.

We would like to invite you all to mobilise together on November 29th, International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, to denounce this alarming criminalisation of Palestinian CSOs that resist an inhumane occupation policy and to support the Palestinian population to survive in these dramatic circumstances.

You can act by:

  • Asking your government to speak out against this violence and demand an end to Israel’s appalling injustices.
  • Sharing pictures and videos with messages of solidarity and demands for governments widely on social media. Toolkit here. 

We stand firmly in internationalist solidarity with the six Palestinian NGOs and the Palestinian peoples and call for a permanent end to the occupation of Palestinian lands and an end to this outrageous violence and criminalisation.

Sign on the statement here.

Sincerely,

Friends of the Earth International

Via Campesina

Word March of Women

FIAN International

GrassRoots International

Bizilur

CETIM

Nepal: Corona Virus Disease (COVID19) Pandemic and Its Impacts on Right to Food of Vulnerable Communities and Groups

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Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in Wuhan province, China at the end of 2019 and then spread rapidly all over the world badly affecting in every sector of human life. Nepal is also not far from it. Hence the Government of Nepal has declared ‘Nationwide Lockdown’ since 24 March 2020 with aim to control and prevention of COVID-19. Total 40590 numbers of cases reported positive and death counted 239 with 22178 recovery numbers of case in Nepal1 with direct impact to the every sectors of development in Nepal.

The impact of COVID-19 & ‘Long Period Lockdown’ has been started to observe in all development sectors as political, social, economic, industrial, market, tourism, hotel, aviation, agriculture etc; and more focusing to the livelihood of most vulnerable people such as marginal farmers, landless people, informal sector labor, returnees/migrant labor population etc including Right to Food Violated Communities being supported by FIAN Nepal under ‘Case Work Process’ creating hunger and food insecurity. Hence, CSO monitoring has been carried to observe filed situation vulnerable communities, collect filed issues & problems, identify areas of support and recommend to the concerned governments with filed level solution to overcome right to food violation due to COVID-19.

Download here

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