Archives: Resources

This submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan written by Muslims for Progressive Values calls for the abolition of the blasphemy law, which contradicts Pakistan’s ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The criminalisation of actual or perceived acts of blasphemy are without exception counter-intuitive to any state’s obligation to respect, protect, and fulfil the rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religions, and freedom of expression as provisioned by article 18 ad 19 of the ICCPR, respectively. Furthermore, as a faith-based human rights organisation, MPV affirms that criminalisation of blasphemy and apostasy are contradictory to the Quranic mandate of “no compulsion in religion” (Verse 2:256), which safeguards freedom of conscience.

The Government of Pakistan (GoP) ratified the ICCPR on 23 June 2010, and submitted a communication to the Secretary-General on 20 September 2011 stating “that it had decided to partially withdraw the reservations, made upon ratification, to articles [18 and 19] of the Convention”. Despite these commitments, legal and institutional obstacles continue to prevent the GoP from achieving and sustaining its human rights obligations regarding freedom of religion and belief and freedom of expression, particularly as these obligations pertain to the rights of religious and ethnic minorities.

As such, this submission addresses the legal, institutional, and social realities regarding how violations of article 18, 19, ad 27 of the ICCPR emerge when individuals accused of blasphemy are tried under certain provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code. In some cases, violations manifest against accused individuals as violence and persecution carried out with impunity by non-state actors. In the most extreme cases, accused individuals and other individuals associated with them have been murdered.

An infographic to debunk the myth that homosexuality is a Western import.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and related identities have been present in various forms throughout history. As seen from the infographic below, many cultures have included, with varying degrees of acceptance, individuals who practice same-sex relations as well as those whose gender, gender identity and gender expression challenge prevailing norms, and many cultures still do.

Created by the IDAHOT campaign, together with United Nations’ Free and Equal and with thanks to researchers at the Burkle Center for International Relations, UCLA.

Human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and inalienable.

Yet, today ultra conservative actors are targeting the systems established to protect our human rights. These actors use arguments based on extreme interpretations of religion, culture, and tradition, and rhetoric linked to state sovereignty, to justify rolling back fundamental rights and state impunity. These attacks target rights relating to sexuality and gender justice in particular, but pose a threat to the very core of our human rights – that they are universal and inalienable.

This research study was carried out by the Moroccan Family Planning Association in partnership with the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), Malaysia.

The research was conducted to generate evidence on the nature and consequences of unsafe abortions in Morocco and how religious fundamentalism (in the case of Islam) prevents adequate policies and practices for safe abortion services.

Abortion is largely prohibited in Morocco, as is pre-marital sex, which is illegal under the Criminal Code. Abortion is only allowed to save the life of the mother, with spousal consent. Illegality also means there are presently no official statistics on the number of illegal abortions performed in Morocco. Presently, the Criminal Code does not allow abortion in cases of pregnancy even in the case of rape, incest, or mental illness. Many women take desperate measures and seek abortion in unsafe conditions, face prospects of abandoning children, or resort to infanticide.

Policies and programmes in Morocco are influenced by Islam; raising Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights issues, such as access to safe abortion services, is largely shunned.

In May 2015, Morocco initiated a reform process by a directive of the King, to expand legal protections for women opting for abortion. The decision could help improve access to services, although even if the law is implemented adequately, it will continue to leave unmarried women out of the equation.

The recent directive is the first time that a Muslim institution is involved in the debate, as the abortion law was established under the Catholic Church in 1920 while Morocco was a French protectorate.

Recommendations

• Ensure the passing of the law and its enforcement, including the provision of an adequate training and implementation plan to service providers, so that abortion services become available to women in the case of rape, incest and foetal malformation.
• Establish adequate services, and train doctors and other medical staff, within healthcare establishments to manage and treat abortion complications as well as to provide medical and therapeutic abortions, without judgement.
• Ensure that the prevention of abortion is reinforced, focusing on family planning and emergency contraception. At the same time, consider the position and rights of young people, ensuring their access to these services, without discrimination and judgement.
• Acknowledge the real threat to women as a result of their access to unsafe abortion services and the causal connection to maternal mortality and morbidity.
• Create an environment to advocate for change and develop progressive viewpoints in relation to women’s position in society and gender equality and empowerment, with a view to uplifting the position of all women in Moroccan society, including marginalised and vulnerable women.
• Consider the involvement of all actors, including religious leaders, in changing mind-sets.
• Ensure the collection of data on abortion by State authorities is conducted in a non-discriminatory manner, ensuring the anonymity of patients and protection and respect for service providers.
• Implement strategies to increase awareness among the general public and stakeholders on the existing causality between abortion and maternal mortality.

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction
2. Profiling Morocco: SRHR and Religious Fundamentalism
3. Understanding the Interlinkages
4. Conclusions
5. Recommendations

ARROW has published a guide for advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) at the country level.

The guide uses the recommendations made to national governments in the publication “Ensuring human rights in the provision of contraceptive information and services: Guidance and recommendations” published by the World Health Organization in 2014, with the aim of ensuring that “the different human rights dimensions are systematically and clearly integrated into the provision of contraceptive information and services”.

The guide takes into account recommendations made by the WHO Guidance document, elaborates on what the recommendations actually mean, and provides a checklist with series of questions that probe into the extent of which a government has implemented or complied with a specific (set of) WHO recommendation(s). There are 17 such checklists, which together constitute a ‘tool box’ for assessing whether human rights are ensured in the provision of contraceptive information and services. The guide also provides an illustrative list of indicators for tracking adherence to human rights norms by contraceptive programmes.

The guide can be used by SRHR advocates, this includes women’s organisations, civil society organisations working on women, young people’s health and SRHR. The tool can also be used by health professionals within the health systems at the national level, as a resource and assessment tool for provision of rights based contraceptive information and services.

This advocate’s guide is meant as a generic tool. It will have to be adapted to different national and even sub-national settings, depending on its history of population control and the ethos of adherence to human rights, health system characteristics and resource levels. We hope this guide will enable SRHR advocates to use these WHO recommendations as a basis for holding governments accountable to respecting and upholding human rights in policies and strategies related to contraceptive information and services, and in the actual organisation and delivery of contraceptive services to users.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has published a report on how in contemporary India enforcement of the law by the police and the country’s justice system fails queer people and is in sharp contrast with India’s obligations under international human rights law.

This report is based on a study of how queer people in India experience the country’s laws and engage with the justice system. Chapter II describes how people in India are criminalized based on their real or imputed sexual orientation and gender identity. Beyond focussing on laws that criminalize queer people, the chapter also looks at laws that regulate legal gender recognition. Section 377 of the IPC and some broad and vaguely worded laws, such as those that criminalize sex work and begging, allow law enforcement officials to persecute people, including through spurious criminal charges and prosecutions, based on their real or imputed sexual orientation and gender identity. Meanwhile, even as legal gender recognition has attained constitutional protection through case law, this Chapter outlines the ICJ’s concerns about the implementation of the law. While provisions for the rights of transgender people are being made, a range of difficulties continue to affect their enjoyment.

Chapter III focusses on harassment, violence and abuse against queer people at the hands of the police, the concomitant lack of accountability, as well as the refusal of the police to file, let alone investigate, abuse complaints brought by queer people. It also describes how human rights violations committed by the police against queer communities – and police behaviour more generally – has a profoundly detrimental effect on the ability and willngness of queer persons to resort to legal avenues to obtain justice and redress for the range of human rights abuses they experience.

The international community must stand together. This is a wake-up call for our times. We face a multidirectional global avalanche of hate to which we must have an urgent global riposte. We must build and rebuild the culture of human rights and basic decency everywhere through effective, thoughtful, international law-abiding global action, within a universal human rights framework.

Karima Bennoune

In her second report to the Human Rights Council (34th session, March 2017), Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Karima Bennoune considers how the rise of fundamentalism and extremism, in diverse forms, represent major threats to human rights worldwide.

At a time of rising fundamentalisms and extremisms of all stripes, the report reiterates that fundamentalisms are not the preserve of one region or religion, and that different fundamentalist movements often reinforce each other through “reciprocal radicalization.”

The Special Rapporteur defines fundamentalism and extremism as ideologies with diverse manifestations but carrying common themes regarding their abuse of cultural rights, such as their attempts at cultural engineering aimed at redesigning culture based on monolithic world views, their limiting of the enjoyment of women’s human rights and restriction of the sexual and reproductive rights of all, and the desire to quash cultural opposition to their own agenda, including through stifling freedom of artistic expression and curtailing scientific freedom.

Of particular interest are explorations on the gendered nature of the assault on cultural rights, as well as the way fundamentalists contribute to other intersecting oppressions, in particular race, ethnicity, and national origin, and sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

Bennoune describes fundamentalist abuses as a transnational problem that require a transnational response.  At the same time, the report reiterates that all responses must be founded on the principles of human rights, offering important cautions against the use of fundamentalism or extremism as an excuse to quash dissent or restrict civil society space.  The Special Rapporteur identifies cultural rights themselves as key in dismantling fundamentalisms:

 “Cultural rights are critical counterweights to fundamentalism and extremism; they call for free self- determination of individuals, respect for cultural diversity, universality and equality.”

Key Conclusions and Recommendations:

• Engage in an effective struggle against fundamentalism and extremism so as to protect human rights, including cultural rights, but implement it in accordance with human rights standards. It must not be used as an excuse for violations of human rights.

• Respect and ensure the human rights of human rights defenders, including cultural rights defenders and women human rights defenders, challenging fundamentalism and extremism.

• Involve these human rights defenders with the relevant expertise and experience in all programmes and policy discussions at the international level regarding combating fundamentalism and extremism.

• Remove obstacles for the functioning of an independent civil society that promotes human rights in accordance with international norms

• Provide for and protect the separation of religion and State and guarantee religious freedom, including the right to believe, not to believe and to change one’s belief.

• Adopt a gendered approach to combating fundamentalism and extremism – “Every step forward for women’s rights is a piece of the struggle against fundamentalism.”

• Advocate for policies that combat discrimination in the right to take part in cultural life, and respect and ensure freedom of artistic expression

• Ensure that schools and curricula are not promoting fundamentalist or extremist ideology, violations of cultural rights or discrimination.

• Ensure that all victims of fundamentalist or extremist abuses, including in the cultural rights area, have access to an adequate remedy, reparation and compensation, without discrimination.

• Ensure that those at risk from fundamentalist and extremist violence and abuses, including as a result of exercising their cultural rights, are given asylum, not returned to contexts where they will be at risk and are fully protected from xenophobic attack. Victims of one form of extremism must be supported and protected from being victimized again by other forms of extremism.

• International civil society needs to do more to document the impact of fundamentalist and extremist ideology and abuses by state and non-state actors and campaign against both, as well as to provide support to the frontline defenders working on these issues.

• The UN human rights system should engage more systematically with issues of fundamentalism and extremism. An international expert meeting on the human rights impact of fundamentalism and extremism, including on cultural rights, bringing together those who have been working on these issues around the world, including women human rights defenders, should be convened to discuss best practice for responding.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
   • Defining and understanding fundamentalism and extremism
   • A human rights approach to fundamentalism and extremism
2. International legal framework
   • Relevant international standards
   • Analysis of fundamentalism and extremism in the United Nations system
3. Fundamentalism, extremism and cultural rights
   • Freedom of artistic expression and attacks against artists
   • Attacks against intellectuals and cultural rights defenders
   • The right to take part in cultural life without discrimination
   • Attacks against educational institutions, personnel and students
4. Conclusions and recommendations
   • Conclusions
   • Recommendations

The Global Gag Rule (GGR) is a U.S. foreign policy that – when enacted – prohibits foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that receive U.S. family planning funds from advocating for abortion or providing abortion as a method of family planning.

It does not prohibit activities around abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment. However, it is unclear as to whether or not services are actually provided under the three exceptions.

The GGR – also known as the “Mexico City Policy” – serves as a barrier to a wide range of health services for women and girls globally.  It has: