Amid escalating conflicts and rampant violations of human rights all over the world, spreading “human rights education” is not an easy task. But a non-governmental organisation from Japan is beginning to make an impact through its “global citizenship education” approach.

At the current annual meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which began on Sep. 8, two side events marked the beginning of what promises to be a sustained campaign to spread human rights education (HRE).

Alongside the first, the launch of the web resource “The Right to Human Rights Education” by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a special workshop was also convened on HRE for media professionals and journalists.

The workshop was an initiative of the NGO Working Group on HRE chaired by Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a prominent NGO from Japan fighting for the abolition of nuclear weapons, sustainable development and human rights education.“It is important to raise awareness of human rights education among media professionals and journalists who are invariably caught in the crossfire of conflicts” – Kazunari Fujii, Soka Gakkai International

“This is the first time that the NGO Working Group on Human Rights Education and Learning and a group of seven countries representing the Platform for Human Rights Education and Training have organised a workshop on human rights education for media professionals and journalists,” said Kazunari Fujii, SGI’s Geneva representative.

Fujii has been working among human rights pressure groups in Geneva to mobilise support for intensifying HRE campaigning. “Through the promotion of human rights education, SGI wants to foster a culture of human rights that prevents violations from occurring in the first place,“ Fujii told IPS after the workshop on Tuesday (Sep. 16).

“While protection of human rights is the core objective of the U.N. Charter, it is equally important to prevent the occurrence of human rights abuses,” he argued.

Citing SGI President Daisaku Ikeda’s central message to foster a “culture of human rights”, Fujii said his mission in Geneva is to bring about solidarity among NGOs for achieving SGI’s major goals on human rights, nuclear disarmament and sustainable development.

The current session of the Human Rights Council, which will end on Sep. 26, is grappling with a range of festering conflicts in different parts of the world. “From a human rights perspective, it is clear that the immediate and urgent priority of the international community should be to halt the increasingly conjoined conflicts in Iraq and Syria,” said Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the new U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“In particular, dedicated efforts are urgently needed to protect religious and ethnic groups, children – who are at risk of forcible recruitment and sexual violence – and women, who have been the targets of severe restrictions,” Al Hussein said in his maiden speech to the Council.

“The second step, as my predecessor [Navanetham Pillay] consistently stressed, must be to ensure accountability for gross violations of human rights and international crimes,” he continued, arguing that “impunity can only lead to further conflicts and abuses, as revenge festers and the wrong lessons are learned.”

Al Hussein, who comes from the Jordanian royal family, wants the Council to address the underlying factors of crises, particularly the “corrupt and discriminatory political systems that disenfranchised large parts of the population and leaders who oppressed or violently attacked independent actors of civil society”.

Among others, he stressed the need to end “persistent discrimination and impunity” underlying the Israel-Palestine conflict – in which 2131 Palestinians were killed during the latest crisis in Gaza, including 1,473 civilians, 501 of them children, and 71 Israelis.

The current session of the Human Rights Council is also scheduled to discuss issues such as basic economic and livelihood rights, which are going to be addressed through the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the worsening plight of migrants around the world, and the detention of asylum seekers and migrants, including children in the United States.

“Clearly, a number of human rights violations and the worsening plight of indigenous people are major issues that need to be tackled on a sustained basis,” said Fujii. “But it is important to raise the awareness of human rights education among media professionals and journalists who are invariably caught in the crossfire of conflicts.”

During open discussion at the media professionals and journalists workshop, several reporters not only shared their personal experiences but also sought clarity on how reporters can safeguard human rights in conflicts where they are embedded with occupying forces in Iraq or other countries.

“This is a major issue that needs to be addressed because it is difficult for journalists to respect human rights when they are embedded with forces,” Oliver Rizzi Carlson, a representative of the United Network of Young Peacebuilders, told IPS.

Commenting on the work that remains to be done in spreading global citizenship education, Fujii noted that tangible progress has been made by bringing several human rights pressure groups together in intensifying the campaign for human rights education.

“Solidarity within civil society and increasing recognition for our work from member states is bringing about tangible results,” said Fujii. “The formation of an NGO coalition – HR 2020 – comprising 14 NGOs such as Amnesty International and SGI last year is a significant development in the intensification of our campaign.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Catalina Marileo and Luis Aillapán, a Mapuche husband and wife in front of their home in Puerto Saavedra, in the central Chilean region of La Araucanía. In 2002 they and other relatives protested against military personnel preparing to build a highway on their land. They were prosecuted and tried under the anti-terrorism law and ultimately acquitted. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Jun 24 2014 (IPS)

Chile has made a commitment to the international community to improve human rights in the country and erase the lingering shadow of the dictatorship on civil liberties.Making progress on women’s sexual and reproductive rights, reforming the controversial anti-terrorism law, guaranteeing the human rights of indigenous peoples and universal access to education and health are among the promises Chile made to the United Nations in June.

“We see that Chile is constantly taking steps toward the fulfilment of its obligations,” Amerigo Incalcaterra, the regional representative for South America of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told IPS.

On Jun. 19 the country underwent its Universal Periodic Review, a mechanism overseen by the U.N. Human Rights Council, for the second time in 2014.

At its appearance before the Council in Geneva, Switzerland, the Chilean government formally accepted 180 of the 185 recommendations made by the 84 member states, and turned down five.

Chile is one of the most conservative countries in Latin America, and is one of just six nations in the world where abortion is banned under any circumstances. Divorce was only approved in 2004, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community is still fighting for legal recognition of same-sex couples.

Education and health are deeply stratified, generating a spiral of inequality that this country of over 17 million people is clamouring to see reversed.

Native peoples like the Mapuche lack constitutional recognition in Chile and have engaged in confrontation with the authorities and powers-that-be for decades, seeking restitution of ancestral lands that were taken from them.

The Human Rights Council’s recommendations were addressed earlier this year by the rightwing government of President Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014), only weeks before he left office in March.

Piñera accepted 142 recommendations, rejected 13 and “took note of” another 30, which he said he could not commit to fulfilling because they depended on securing congressional approval.

“‘Taking note of’ these recommendations was a new departure in international law because recommendations must be accepted or rejected,” Paula Salvo, principal lawyer for the National Human Rights Institute (INDH) which took part in the session in Geneva, told IPS.

On May 30, the government of socialist President Michelle Bachelet sent a written “correction” to the earlier report, in which she accepted 180 recommendations and rejected five.

Among the five not accepted were two from the Vatican, on the rights of the human person from conception and the protection of traditional family identity, and another on Bolivia’s right to an outlet to the Pacific ocean.

According to Incalcaterra, Bachelet viewed many of the recommendations rejected by her predecessor as a part of her government programme, including the decriminalisation of therapeutic abortions in the case of foetal inviability, danger to the life of the mother and rape.

A bill to allow termination of pregnancy in these cases will be debated in parliament in the second half of this year.

Incalcaterra, whose regional headquarters are in Santiago, said that the U.N. recognises that abortion is “a complex, health-related issue”, while the Human Rights Council asks states to legislate for “at least these three cases” of abortion.

As well as legalising therapeutic abortions, the government promised to reform other laws inherited from the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, like the anti-terrorism law, which is enforced virtually exclusively against alleged offences by Mapuche indigenous people in their struggle to reclaim their traditional lands.

This law imposes high penalties, dual trials by civilian and military courts and “faceless” witnesses, among other anomalies. The government promised not to use the law against Mapuche people and to respect their human rights.

Another remnant of the dictatorship that still endures 24 years after the return of democracy is that any case involving military personnel, whether as victims or accused, can be tried in military courts. Under the promised reform, military personnel accused of common crimes will be tried in civilian courts and in future no civilian will ever be tried in a military court.

Hernando Silva, a researcher for Observatorio Ciudadano (Citizen Observatory), told IPS that his organisation is pleased that the state has accepted these recommendations, and is hoping that “they are implemented once and for all, and not just recognised.”

“It is not the first time that Chile commits itself to legislate about military courts or the anti-terrorism law” without anything happening to bring it about, he said.

“Bachelet herself  promised to stop enforcing the anti-terrorism law against the Mapuche people during her first term (2006-2010), but did not deliver,” he added.

Silva stressed that “this time, she needs to fully live up to her human rights obligations.”

Incalcaterra said that there is no legal compulsion to fulfil the Human Rights Council’s recommendations, but he pointed out that “all work done at the international level is based on good faith.”

“When you undergo this exercise, in dialogue with other states, and you agree to recognise the recommendations as appropriate, obviously you have to go back in four years’ time and report on what you have done,” he said.

The goal of the Universal Periodic Review, he said, is to promote the human rights of all people living in a country.

“We should see it as additional support to help states to establish public policies, improve their legislation where necessary, create institutions if they are lacking, devote resources, collect statistics and analyse them, organise campaigns, etcetera,” he said.

Chile’s fulfilment of its commitments will be reviewed in four years’ time.

The INDH has a role as the state supervisory institution and in its view there are urgent needs, such as the ratification of certain international human rights treaties.

A government human rights agency, a national plan and more human rights education are also needed.

For the many victims of the dictatorship who have not received reparations, the INDH believes a permanent assessment agency should be established for pending cases, and legal and social advice should be made available to torture victims.

INDH lawyer Salvo told IPS that “the government must create a permanent review mechanism for the U.N. recommendations,” because from now on “the challenge is internal.”

At least 93,000 people were killed in Syria’s conflict by the end of April this year, but the true number could be “potentially much higher”, the United Nations human rights office says.

The exact figure released on Thursday – 92,901 people – is much higher than the U.N.’s last death toll back in January, of 59,000 people.

“The constant flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels,” said Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. “This is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher.”

An average of more than 5,000 people have been killed every month since last July, while rural Damascus and Aleppo have recorded the highest tolls since November, the report said in its latest study compiling documented deaths.

Among the victims were at least 6,561 children, including 1,729 children younger than 10.

Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from the U.N. headquarters in New York, described the figures as “staggering”.

The U.N. has not had much access to Syria, and therefore has been unable to count bodies. Instead, it carried out a statistical survey.

“They have gone through sources which had the names, dates and locations (of those killed),” our correspondent said, adding that the U.N. acknowledges it has “underreported the number of deaths”.

Rebel-led mass killing

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels reportedly killed at least 60 people, including civilian government loyalists, in a battle in Halta, a Sunni-majority village in the country’s east, activists said.

The fighting over the past few days targeted members of the Shia community, highlighting the increasingly sectarian nature of the country’s civil war.

The opposition fighters reportedly stormed and burned civilian homes in the village in the eastern Deir Azzor province.

The attack is said to be in retaliation for an earlier assault by Shias from Hatla that killed four opposition fighters.

A Syrian government official denounced the attack on the Shia-section of the Sunni-majority Hatla village as a “massacre” of civilians, the Associated Press news agency reported on Thursday.

A video posted online by rebels on Tuesday, entitled “The storming and cleansing of Hatla”, showed dozens of fighters carrying black flags celebrating and firing guns in the streets of a small town as smoke curled above several buildings.

Most armed rebels in Syria are from the country’s Sunni majority, while President Bashar al-Assad has retained core support among the minorities, including his own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, along with Christians and Shia.

U.S. debates strategy

The alleged massacre came as the U.S. again debated how to help the Syrian opposition.

Addressing reporters with his British counterpart William Hague in Washington, US.. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that a political solution that would end the war and save Syria was still being sought.

The U.S. has weighed for months whether to give arms to the rebels, but the issue is now firmly on the table given increased involvement by Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese Shia group, and as Iran backs President Assad on the battlefield.

“We are focusing our efforts now on doing all that we can to support the opposition as they work to change the balance on the ground,” Kerry said at the joint news conference.

Kerry’s comments came as regime forces were reported to be preparing for a major offensive on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo.

The Obama administration is meeting this week on whether to arm the Syrian rebels, a topic that Kerry said he discussed with Hague.

The meetings come ahead of a G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.

G8 leaders are expected to discuss a coordinated response to the Syrian conflict, and how to bring the rival sides together at a peace conference.

For his part, Hague said Britain, the U.S. and allies in Europe and the region – a group known as the London 11 that has met in Turkish and Jordanian cities – may need to step up their efforts to help the opposition.

Also on Wednesday, trouble flared on Syria’s borders, with Lebanese police saying that a Syrian helicopter fired rockets on Arsaal, a village in the country’s east, wounding at least two people.

* Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.