Tactics and tools for the protection
of Human Rights Defenders

26 October 2011

2011 is the 14th year that an Annual Report is produced by the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.

An annual rendez-vous for the protection of defenders, it highlights the most serious cases of obstacles and threats against defenders in each country.

The 2011 Report denounces, with hundreds of examples, the many kinds of acts of repression that defenders suffer. Each day, with their families and friends, they suffer attacks and harassment, threats and arrests, arbitrary detention, defamation campaigns, restrictions in terms of freedom of association and expression, etc.

The 2011 Report resituates the fight of Human Rights defenders in the geopolitical context of 70 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Asia, the Americas and Europe.

A geopolitical analysis of the region is followed by a country-by-country presentation of the stories that defenders live every day.

Based in particular, but not solely, on 509 urgent interventions published by the Observatory between January 2010 and April 2011, the 600 pages of the report are the clear proof of the urgent need to provide better support for the combat of these architects of progress.

Published in 5 languages (English, Arabic, Spanish, French and Russian), it is a unique advocacy tool on the subject of defenders.

Foreword by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Stéphane Hessel

Sidi Bouzid, December 17, 2010: In a desperate move, Mohamed Bouazizi, a young unemployed Tunisian, set himself fire. On January 4, he succumbed to his injuries, and the next day, several thousand people attended his funeral; this was the beginning of a large peaceful protest movement, a movement of hope for change that, against all odds, would lead to the overthrow of corrupt and liberticidal dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt.

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Launch of the 2011 Annual Report of the Observatory at the United Nations Headquarters in New York

To watch the press conference, click here

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