Strategy

Through our collaboration with, among others, Tirana Legal Aid Society we have helped thousands of Roma in the Western Balkans to register with the authorities. Thereby making it possible for them to claim their basic human rights. Photo: Tirana Legal Aid Society.

Introduction

Civil Rights Defenders is an international human rights organisation defending people’s civil and political rights and empowering human rights defenders. Upholding the respect for human rights is the responsibility of governments. Nevertheless, all countries need a vibrant civil society as an independent watchdog and a counter-weight to the power of the state. 

We believe that local forces are best placed to be driving this work thanks to their permanent presence and closeness to those whose rights are violated. Our approach takes a long-term perspective and is based on an active field presence, regional expertise, and close collaboration with local partners. We strive to strengthen civil society and empower human rights defenders, including those at risk. Many brave individuals have devoted their lives to helping victims of human rights violations, often placing themselves at risk of harassment or worse.

Together with a great number of partner organisations, we monitor the deeds and words of governments and authorities, demanding change, justice and reparations when people’s civil and political rights have been violated. We take legal action against states and power holders, and conduct lobbying and advocacy work to effect change and influence public opinion. In totalitarian states, we support efforts to ensure that people have access to independent information for discussion and debate.

In September 2009 we changed our name, from Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, to one that better reflects who we are and what we do – Civil Rights Defenders – a defender of people’s civil and political rights. As our symbol we have chosen the tip of a fountain pen to underscore that the pen is the mightiest of weapons – mightier than the sword. The heart in the centre represents the individual at the centre of our attention. When we changed our name we also broadened our geographical mandate from the former Eastern Bloc to include other regions.

Our priorities in terms of where we work and what we do are presented below in our strategy.

Robert Hårdh,
Executive Director, Civil Rights Defenders

Our Vision

A peaceful and secure world with freedom and justice for all.

We believe that a world where people’s rights and liberties are respected is a safer world to live in. Our vision is based on the Helsinki Accords, from 1975, which acknowledged that the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is a significant factor for peace, justice and the development of friendly relations and cooperation between all states.

Our Mission

We defend people’s civil and political rights and empower human rights defenders.

To achieve our vision, we strive to ensure that people are able to enjoy their civil and political rights. Human rights come in the line of fire in totalitarian states as well as in the new and old democracies. Therefore, we want to be an active part of civil society in Sweden, while empowering human rights defenders in countries with undemocratic regimes and in countries in transition from dictatorship or violent conflict. We seek to monitor the human rights compliance of states, demanding accountability, justice and reparations when people’s human rights have been violated. We strive to inform the public about their rights and lobbying those in power. And we provide support to local human rights defenders.

Our work

Our overall objective is to improve people’s access to freedom and justice through improved respect for their civil and political rights. To achieve this we work towards the following goals:

People are empowered to claim their human rights by getting

-    Increased access to legal aid.
-    Increased access to information.

States take responsibility to respect, protect and fulfil human rights by

-    Improved human rights compliance in law and practice.
-    Improved implementation of human rights norms and standards.

Local human rights defenders are empowered by

-    Strengthening their skills and expertise.
-    Stronger protection mechanisms for human rights defenders at risk.

We defend human rights in Sweden where we have our Head Office. In our international activities, our goal is to be active in countries and regions where the respect for the individual’s civil and political rights is the weakest. We take a regional perspective in our operations since the problem we want to address often forms part of a regional problem.

Ten rights in focus

We emphasize the following ten rights and our activities aim at protecting one or more of these.

The right to life and physical integrity
The right to liberty and security of person
The right to a fair trial and an effective remedy
The right to respect for private and family life
The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion
The right to the freedom of expression
The right to freedom of assembly and association
The right to protection against hate speech and war propaganda
The right to political rights

The tenth and most fundamental part of our activities is to promote the right to protection against discrimination. We always take the aspect of discrimination into consideration, so as to draw attention to and protect groups that are particularly vulnerable.

Working methods

We believe that all countries need a strong civil society that scrutinizes those in power in order to continue to develop in a positive direction. People who defend the rights of others in dictatorships and authoritarian countries are often persecuted themselves. Police, military or public officials threaten, harass, jail, ill-treat them – or worse. Many human rights defenders risk their lives in the course of their work. That is why we combine our human rights work with the empowerment of our partners. We primarily use the following three working methods:

Support to human rights defenders:

We use our international network of human rights defenders to empower our partner organisations and networks. We seek to draw attention to the situation for human rights defenders in the countries where we work. We support them with training, resources and expertise to protect the space in which they act and strengthen their performance.

Monitoring and accountability:

Together with our partners we scrutinize the state authorities and demand accountability when the legislation, or the way it is applied, is in conflict with the civil and political rights. We pursue legal proceedings against the states and those in power that violate human rights.

Lobbying and advocacy:

We conduct lobbying and advocacy work aimed at national and international decision makers. In totalitarian states, we reach out with independent information to people through alternative media for discussion and debate.

Our fundamental values

In order to achieve our objectives in a changing world we continually review and sharpen the methods we use. We also stay true to our fundamental values: Integrity, skills and efficiency permeate our organisation and our way of working.

Integrity:

We are an independent non-governmental organisation that pursues pressing issues. We are highly committed to our work and we do not shy away from difficult subjects or geographical regions where the political authorities do not tolerate human rights defenders. We do not accept grants from donors who want to direct our operations or who do not support our objectives.

Skills:

We have considerable expertise in our field. Our analysis is based on solid research and fact checking, and on international human rights standards. We always strive for high quality in our work and we seek to support the development of skills and expertise of our local partners.

Efficiency:

We are a result-oriented and slim organisation with tight financial controls and management. To ensure accountability and transparency in our results reporting and follow-up, we are constantly refining our result based management system. We adjust to changing situations and we are flexible when so required.

Partners

We work with organisations and individual human rights defenders. We only work with non-governmental, religiously and politically independent organisations that do not use or advocate violence. Generally, our partners are local NGOs. However, in countries where such are not permitted, we may collaborate with individuals and loose networks with the aim of building an organisational structure. Most of our partners work on a non-profit basis. Exceptions exist for independent media companies, which need support in order to be able to operate at all in highly repressive regimes. However, irrespective of the situation, we always apply zero tolerance to financial irregularities and corrupt practices. The UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders makes it clear that everyone can be a defender of human rights. A human rights defender is someone who acts to promote or protect human rights. Our local partners are human rights defenders, and so are we. From our perspective, everyone who takes part in human rights activities is a human rights defender. Human rights defenders have certain obligations. They include accepting that the human rights apply to everyone and everywhere. Moreover, a human rights defender must always act in a peaceful manner.