Castan Centre Global Internship Report

Sophia Kagan, Intern - Human Rights First New York, 2005-06

“The reason I have stood firm is to show that
it is possible to stand against darkness and ruthlessness.”

- Akbar Ganji, July 2005

Akbar Ganji, the author of this quote, is an investigative journalist who wrote extensively about the Iranian government’s involvement in the murder of intellectuals and writers in the 1990s and regularly denounced the regime’s use of torture in prisons. Because of his criticism, Akbar was imprisoned for 6 years under the charge of ‘acting against national security’ and held under appalling conditions that posed a dire threat to his life (and were no doubt intended as a further punishment for his activism). Akbar’s case raised substantial international scrutiny, which refused to die down. Akbar was released in April 2006. Despite initial fears that he would be rearrested on fresh charges, Akbar is enjoying his freedom and recovering his health.

From January to April this year, I interned with an organisation that advocated for Akbar’s release and the release of others like him around the world. Human Rights First (HRF) is a leading NGO, based in New York and Washington. Its goal is the protection of the rule of law and it has programs covering a wide range of human rights issues from legal representation of asylum seekers, to US government accountability, to crimes against humanity. I interned with the Human Rights Defenders Department, a team of staff dedicated to the protection of human rights defenders in danger of violence or persecution in their home countries. The way in which the department assists these defenders is tailored to individual cases. It may involve writing an alert to members of the Defenders Action Network (DAN) asking them to send an email to a political leader, a head of a department, a Minister or a UN body that is able to assist the human rights defender in some way. Members of the DAN number into the thousands and are ordinary individuals who are interested in assisting human rights defenders. Another mechanism is for the team to write letters directly to the government in question. In some cases it is best to raise as much awareness as possible about the plight of a human rights defender and this may involve writing letters to the media and others. Other times, it is more suitable to communicate privately with members of the local government or other influential individuals such as members of the US congress. Sometimes, it is necessary to refer the matter to the UN Special Representative for Human Rights Defenders. And in other cases, what is required is practical assistance such as help in organising a lawyer or providing legal information.

I realised the first day that I arrived at HRF on January 4, much to my pleasure, that my time there would not be spent photocopying bits of paper and correcting spelling errors in reports. It was going to be an opportunity for me to give real input into the work of the department. I knew this because there was a stack of reports, files and transcripts of the prosecution of a prominent human rights defender in Russia waiting for me when I came in, and my first project – drafting a section of a White Paper report (which could be disseminated to all interested individuals including members of Congress, NGOs, etc) regarding the case and its importance in the context of human rights in Russia. In drafting the section, I analysed everything from freedom of speech cases in the European Court of Human Rights to sections of Russian tax legislation and Russian administrative law (the Russian authorities were trying to bankrupt the defender’s NGO through tax legislation) in order to get a full understanding of what the Russian government was doing and whether their actions were in fact legal.

I encountered many similar cases where governments and prosecutors attempted to silence human rights advocates by arresting them on trumped up charges (such as defamation, etc). Unfortunately, many of the trials that followed were fundamentally flawed and unjust. Similarly, in cases where a human rights defender or their families sought access to the justice system in order to address persecution or violence suffered, the ensuing investigation and trial were often inadequate and biased, especially where the person responsible was linked to the government. For example, several cases I worked on involved the death (or disappearance) of a human rights defender, with much of the evidence pointing to the involvement of a governmental body (such as the police or intelligence services). In these cases, the trials of suspects were flawed and the links to governmental bodies were left unexplored.

It is for this reason that much of my work involved researching the possibility of utilising regional or international mechanisms to achieve a remedy. One of my projects involved writing a report on international legal remedies available to human rights defenders in Russia and countries in the Former Soviet Union. Another was a legal memorandum to a South East Asian NGOs outlining the international mechanisms that they could use to bring to justice persons responsible for the murder of a prominent local human rights activist, and the likelihood of success in using these mechanisms.

My internship with Human Rights First was extremely positive for many reasons. Firstly, I admired the organisation’s emphasis on collaboration - with other international human rights organisations and of course, the local human rights defenders themselves. The input of local human rights organisations was crucial – not only was it important because local activists provided invaluable on-the-ground information, but also because they would be most vulnerable to government pressure that could occur as a backlash to advocacy strategies taken by international human rights organisations. It was therefore always important to make sure that the Human Rights Defenders team never inadvertently put activists under further danger. There was constant communication between the human rights defenders and the Human Rights Defenders team and many of the defenders (who were able to do so) visited the offices in New York.

Another great aspect of the internship was that I was made to feel part of a team. I attended regular meetings with the Human Rights Defenders Program, I was invited to go to dinner with them to celebrate the completion of new reports (to a restaurant which could be Russian, Thai, Uzbek, etc, depending on which country the report covered). My input and opinions were always welcomed and often incorporated in the work of the department.

The internship gave me the opportunity to assist not only the Human Rights Defenders Program but also to engage with many different departments of Human Rights First.  I assisted with Russian translation for the Asylum Seeker department, I attended brainstorming sessions for the Darfur team and I listened to brown bag discussions (lunchtime meetings where someone at HRF would speak about a particular field trip they conducted (eg. to Guantanamo Bay, or to the trial of a human rights defender). The people that I met at Human Rights First all had extraordinary life stories and a long list of achievements and getting to know them was inspiring to say the least. I also met numerous others in the human rights field whose experiences I found fascinating. New York is a hubbub of human rights activity so in attending meetings, lectures, discussions and conferences, I was able to meet some outstanding people in the human rights community.

The Castan Centre provided me with an outstanding opportunity to get to know the inside of a human rights organisation and my internship with Human Rights First was not only a very enjoyable experience, but also one that had a formative impact on me and my career plans. It was only a small contribution to human rights protection, when compared to that made by human rights defenders (like Akbar Gangi) but it was a contribution that I am proud to have made.