Newsletters Archive
Page 6 of 8 (94 newsletters)
Updates from October 2020
Dear friends and colleagues, Election periods are critical for any democracy although often a challenging time in East and Horn of Africa sub-region, particularly for human rights defenders (HRDs). Last month, Tanzania held its general elections on 28 October amid a climate of fear and harassment that saw the re-election of President John Magufuli with […]
Updates from September 2020
Dear friends and colleagues, Electoral periods are often challenging times for human rights defenders (HRDs), particularly those monitoring elections and those promoting good governance. Cases of electoral violence, harassment and intimidation of opposition leaders and their supporters, plus violent disruption of protests continue to be witnessed and reported. A few of DefendDefenders’ mandate countries are […]
Updates from August 2020
Dear friends and colleagues, On 12 August, we celebrated International Youth Day. Despite the fact that the majority of our continent is younger than 35, young people rarely get a seat at the table. There is a democratic deficit in youth representation, but that does not stop young people from taking matters into their own […]
Updates from July 2020
Dear friends and colleagues, While the world struggles to maintain some semblance of normalcy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, let us refrain from being comfortable with the effects of the pandemic on human rights. In the past month, Uganda has seen more deaths due to the high-handedness of police than due to COVID-19. In the words […]
Updates from June 2020
Dear friends and colleagues, George Floyd’s murder has sparked unprecedented global outrage. Thousands of people in more than 4,000 cities around the world have made use of their right to peaceful assembly and condemned systemic racism and police brutality. DefendDefenders stands with the protesters and welcomes that the Black Lives Matter movement has now also reached the African continent. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, has condemned the murder and the UN Human Rights […]
Updates from May 2020
Dear friends and colleagues, While our offices have partially opened up again and many human rights institutions are slowly resuming their activities in person, our work continues to be shaped by COVID-19 dynamics. On 3 May, we celebrated World Press Freedom Day – an important day every year, but even more so during this pandemic. Freedom of information is key to […]
Updates from April 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to drastically shape our work. To contain the spread of the virus, most of our team has been working from home, but that is not to say that we have worked less.
Updates from March 2020
Dear friends and colleagues, As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads globally and extraordinary measures are being enacted to respond to this threat, DefendDefenders continue to do our utmost to protect human rights defenders (HRDs) in the East and Horn of Africa sub-region.  On 8 March, we joined the world in celebrating the International Women’s Day. In our campaign you […]
Updates from February 2020!
February was a hectic month for DefendDefenders with many progressive endeavours. As we continued to monitor the situation for human rights defenders (HRDs) in the East and Horn of Africa sub-region, we particularly followed the progressive, yet fragile, developments in South Sudan.
Updates from January 2020!
Dear friends and colleagues, 2020 is an auspicious year for women’s and girls’ rights, as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration – recognised as one of the most progressive roadmaps for women’s and girl’s rights. DefendDefenders will honour this anniversary by continuing to boost women human rights defenders (HRDs) in the sub-region. […]
Updates from December 2019!
Dear friends and colleagues, Happy new year! As we leave 2019 behind us, I wish to reflect on our activities and events that had an impact on the situation of human rights defenders (HRDs) in the East and Horn of Africa sub-region in December 2019. December was an eventful month, as we celebrated the International […]
2019: End of Year Message
Dear friends and colleagues, 2019 has been a busy and fruitful year for DefendDefenders and AfricanDefenders. As we near the end, I would like to take some time to reflect on our achievements and challenges during the course of this year. I am happy to report that these eventful 12 months were diligently spent enhancing […]