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CIAO DATE: 08/04

Human Rights Defenders on the Frontlines of Freedom: Protecting Human Rights in the Context of the War on Terror

Carter Center
May 2002

Carter Center

 

In November 2003, we at The Carter Center had the honor to bring together leading activists of the human rights and democracy movements from 41 different countries. Before his tragic death in Baghdad, the late United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello and I had decided to convene this gathering because we considered it to be very important to assess new challenges facing those on the frontline of the struggle for freedom. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First), and Human Rights Watch had issued some disturbing reports concerning difficulties facing human rights defenders throughout the world as a result of the U.S.-led war on terror. We agreed that it would be important to bring together activists from the national level in order to hear directly from them.

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