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Lessons to learn from the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting 2018 - Transparency, Freedom of Thought and Civil Society Involvement

Published on 2018-10-25, Amsterdam

The OSCE/ODIHR Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) is the largest meeting, where Civil Society activist and government officials from the OSCE region have the chance to come together to exchange their opinions on the broader issue of Human Rights and raise their voices – at least in theory.

In the following lines, the author would like to express his impressions of the first week of this year’s summit and would like to question, some of the processes implemented as part of this summit. The author attended this years OSCE HDIM as a volunteer / researcher of the Human Rights Vision Foundation (HRVF).

“One incident casts a cloud over the summit just at its beginning. One member of the official Tajik Delegation punches one of the civil society activists into his face, before kicking another one as well. But let me tell the story first, before analysing the reaction of the Tajik Delegation, the activists, some other participants and the OSCE itself.

It all started with a talk between the activists and the Tajik Delegation, including one of their members, who was a former member of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) called Ayomiddin Sattorov. One of the activists gave him a paper, where it was written ‘Free Tajik Political Prisoners’. After another member of the Tajik Delegation realized this and punched, kicked Sulaymon Orzuev and Vaisiddin Odinaev, two other Tajik activist. The Tajik Delegation went to their car and while the activists tried to stop the car, the car drove over the feed of another activist, Shuhrati Rahmatullo.

Being not satisfied with the reactions of both the Tajik Delegation and the OSCE, two attendees of the conference started to raise awareness for this issue. While the OSCE was trying to prevent the incident from getting more attention, the Tajik Delegation did not apologize for the incident at all. The OSCE just gave a short statement about the incident in the afternoon session after the incident happened. ‘HumanRightsQuerschnitt’, a blog on the broader issue of Human Rights, published a statement. The next day, one participant tries to spread the article in the plenary hall, but the security tries to stop her without having any justification, which is written in the Code of Conduct. One participant wants to speak about the incident at the working session, which was on religious freedom and freedom of thought and consciousness. What happened then has to be sharply criticized. First of all, the OSCE security staff threatened the participant, that if she is going to read out her statement, they will take away her badge to entry the conference. And if that were not enough, after the participants had decided to read out her statement, the moderator consistently interrupted her while she was talking. We can’t have a working session on freedom of thought, where the moderator of a panel consistently interrupts a participant, as this is also limiting the freedom of speech of this participant. To me it seems, that the OSCE just wants to prevent, that the Tajik government closes their programme office in Dushanbe and that this is more important than freedom of speech and thought, which was one of the issues at the conference. I, as a part of the Human Rights Vision Foundation, would like to raise the question: Dear OSCE, is this your approach to promote freedom of thought and transparency?

Having criticized the approaches of the OSCE on dealing with this incident, the rest of the article is dealing with the thematic issues, Tajik activists raised awareness for at the conference.

The third day of the conference was reserved to discuss issues concerning the rule of law, including topics like fair trials, democratic law making and the prevention of torture. At these sessions, both Freedom House and HRVF criticized the imprisonment of Buzurgmehr Yorov, a Tajik human rights lawyer, who was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Officially, he was found to be guilty of fraud and publicly insulting Emomali Rakhmon, the president of Tajikistan, but in reality, this has to be condemned as a politically motivated verdict, because he represented several members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, which the Tajik government, also politically motivated, claims to be an extremist group. The Human Rights Vision Foundation advocates for the end of torture and the rule of law. Pressure on relatives of the activists, who attends the conference, should be a thing of the past. Confessions of verdicts under torture are normal in Tajikistan, which have to be stopped immediately. The Eurasian Dialog Foundation supports the claim, that political prisoners have to be freed and claims, that international actors have to be more active. What should be mentioned is, that this could really help, as it can be seen in the case of Khairullo Mirsaidov. Moreover, the Independent Human Rights Protectors, represented by a former Tajik layer criticized, that procedural norms during court proceedings are violated, including the use of torture. Thereby indictments are almost always similar to the final decision of the court. The Association of Central Asian Migrants also criticized, that the number of acquittals is close to zero. Moreover, they criticized, that the judges are appointed by Emomali Rakhmon himself. Thus, the independence of the judges is not guaranteed. Group 24, another forbidden opposition group, also criticized the amendment to the constitution in 2016, when Emomali Rakhmon pave the way to be president for life.

The same day, a side-event, which was convened by the Global Advocates Foundation and co-convened by the University of Exeter, Freedom Now, Human Rights Watch and Fair Trials International on the human rights situation in Tajikistan took place. Maran Turner, executive director of Freedom now claimed, that not everyone, who is on trial have access to a defender. Moreover, she also raised awareness for the issue, that judges are not independently appointed. Saphira Fürstenberg, a researcher of Exeter University, who is responsible for Central Asia’s political exiles database criticized that the Tajik government misuses Interpol’s red notice system for their political crackdown on the opposition, having alerted already 1800 red notices. She prompted the EU to take more actions and grant refugee status to political activists from Central Asia. Steve Swerdlow, who is located in Bishkek as part of Human Rights Watch, supports the former speakers by saying, that we can speak of an ‘Emergency in Tajikistan’ when looking at the human rights situation.

Another important issues, which the Human Rights Vision Foundation tried to raise awareness include the control of religious education and the press, the discrimination of different minorities in Tajikistan, violations of the freedom of thought and the verdict of Tajik citizens due to likes and shares on Facebook.

A last issue, the author would like to raise awareness is the employment policy and advocacy strategy of the OSCE programme office in Dushanbe. According to Aizhan Kadralieva, a speaker at the side-event on ‘Impunity for Hate Crimes based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Central Asia’ the OSCE office discriminates queer people in their hiring process. Moreover, it has been said, that most of the staff is refusing to deal with LGBTQ+ issues in their professional work. This should be criticized and the OSCE to be asked to reflect this issue and manage to both not discriminate queer people in their hiring process and deal with the discrimination of LGBTQ+ issues in Tajikistan, as the situation is urgent and LGBTQ+ people are not just facing discrimination due to cultural values in the Tajik society, but also due to discriminating state policies, like the creation of a list of all LGBTQ+ people by the state.

What have to be done? First of all the OSCE should reflect their reaction on the incident between the Tajik Delegation and Tajik activists, which happened at this years HDIM. A conference, which is dealing with human rights issues, has to be facilitated in a way, where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Moreover, the OSCE should reflect the format of the conference. Speakers still have to stand in a long queue hours before the working sessions to register. Furthermore, the OSCE should make sure, that the issue of LGBTQ+ is more present in their work, especially in Tajikistan. Although the Tajik government starts talks with the opposition after the event, an apology for the incident is still missing and should be done. Nevertheless, the conference is a good opportunity for civil society activists and government officials to come together and discuss issues and problems concerning the human rights situation in the OSCE region.”

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