News Archive
Page 24 of 134 (1332 articles)
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: FULL-TIME SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR
Job Title: Systems Administrator Reports to: Technology Program Manager Location:  Kampala, Uganda Start:  March 2023 Application deadline:  January 27th 2023 BACKGROUND DefendDefenders was established in 2005 as the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project and registered as a foreign Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Uganda. DefendDefenders exists to strengthen the work of Human Rights Defenders in the sub-region […]
Updates from December 2022
Dear Friends, First, congratulations upon completing 2022. For those whose year was blighted by loss, bereavement, or any other form of misfortune, I condole and empathize with you, and wish you a kinder 2023. At DefendDefenders, we concluded the year on a high, with our traditional flagship event – Claiming Spaces: Tactical Tools for Human […]
Human Rights Defender of the month: Kasale Maleton Mwaana
Kasale’s human rights activism precedes his years. The son of pastoralist parents from Ngorongoro district in northern Tanzania, he grew up seeing his parents and entire community having to defend their land and way of life against authorities who thought their lands could be put to better use. Now, at 25, Kasale is already one of the most recognizable advocates of his people’s cause, much to the ire of Tanzanian authorities. “Our people’s struggle goes back many generations. It started with the pushing out of our forefathers from Serengeti to gazette Serengeti National Park in 1959, and then further evictions from the Ngorongoro crater to gazette the Ngorongoro conservation area in 1975. Since then, every generation has had to resist further evictions. It’s now my generation’s turn,” he says.
End of year message 2022
Dear friends, colleague human rights defenders, Greetings from DefendDefenders and AfricanDefenders. As we wrap up 2022, it is important to reflect and evaluate our efforts towards strengthening the safety and resilience of human rights defenders (HRDs) in Africa to enable us strategise better for 2023. This year, the world transitioned from a crisis phase of […]
Claiming Spaces 2022 Communique
 Claiming Spaces: Tactical Tools for Human Rights Defenders 7-10 December 2022 Dar-es-saalam, Tanzania  Final Communique: In commemoration of International Human Rights Defenders Day and International Human Rights Day, DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project) in partnership with Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC) co-convened the twelfth edition of Claiming Spaces: Tactical Tools for Human Rights […]
Pushing Boundaries:The case of East and Horn of Africa’s youth human rights defenders
Pushing Boundaries: The case of East and Horn of Africa’s youth human rights defenders In a report published today, DefendDefenders and AfricanDefenders present a comprehensive summary of the case of East and Horn of Africa’s youth human rights defenders. The report focuses on understanding their working environment in the sub-region, mainly focusing on the countries […]
White Paper on the impact of Covid-19 on Human Rights Defenders
The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic is a serious global health crisis that has caused over six million deaths worldwide and continues to threaten many people’s health and livelihoods. The pandemic revealed fundamental cracks in national and global health systems. It has brought inequality within and between countries into sharp relief and tested our resilience as […]
Updates from November 2022
Dear Friends, Dear friends and colleagues, November is that time of the year when we take stock of our year’s work, take note of our highlights, reflect on where we fell short, and strategise on how to better our efforts in the coming year. From 16-19 November, we convened for our annual staff retreat to […]
Human Rights Defender of the month: Pierre Claver Mbonimpa
Arguably no single individual personifies Burundi’s human rights struggle like Pierre Claver Mbonimpa. Born 72 years ago in the small East African country, Claver’s quest for human rights and justice is as old as his country’s modern history. When his country was plunged into a civil war that killed an estimated 300,000 people following the 1993 assassination of President Cyprien Ntaryamira, Claver was one of its earliest victims. Then a close confidant (he was also a former driver) of the assassinated President, he was framed, and arrested, and would go on to spend the next two years between 1994 and 1996 in jail. It is in prison that the ulcer of injustice bit him hard. There, he met inmates who had either been wrongfully imprisoned or who had been remanded for long periods without trial, all living in dehumanising conditions. “I was strongly revolted by the injustice. Here were probably innocent people whose years were being wasted away by an unfair judicial system, with no one to stand up for them. I swore that I would try to do something about it once I got out myself,” he says.
Reflections on the 51st session of the UN Human Rights Council
HRC51 was a historic session for the UN Human Rights Council. For the first time, initiatives on permanent members of the UN Security Council (the “P5”) were on the table. While the one on China failed, the other, on Russia, was adopted. In both cases, African states’ votes were key. Most African states voted “No” […]