Silence, threats, burnout – challenges for human rights defenders in times of war

War in Ukraine and Gaza has made the work of human rights defenders in these regions even more difficult than it already was. Keystone/AP

 
Warring parties do everything possible to avoid reports of their human rights violations becoming public. We spoke with activists from Ukraine and Israel about how they operate in such tough contexts.

The main tasks of human rights defenders include investigating, collecting information about, and reporting rights violations. They raise public awareness to ensure that human rights are respected. But how do they work in a war zone or in an environment where a large part of public opinion is against them? SWI swissinfo.ch met activists from Ukraine and Israel in Geneva’s Palais des Nations, where they had come to meet delegations and attend side-events during a session of the Human Rights CouncilExternal link.

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Access to information 

Human rights defenders depend on their sources and on the information they are able to gather. In war-torn or occupied territories, this is especially challenging.

“We are documenting testimonies from victims of the war in Ukraine,” says Lyubov Smachylo, an analyst with the Ukrainian organisation Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR).

MIHR’s main office is in Kyiv. It has direct access to victims and witnesses of rights violations, such as Ukrainians living in the north of the country – formerly under Russian occupation and now back under Ukrainian rule – or former prisoners in Russian jails. 

Smachylo, who lives between Kyiv and Paris, analyses documented testimonies of human rights violations committed by Russia. These include Russian armed forces acting with generalised impunity, the arbitrary detention of civilians – often accompanied by torture and ill-treatment – and in some cases enforced disappearances.  

Lyubov Smachylo from the Ukrainian Media Initiative for Human Rights. Courtesy of Lyubov Smachlyo

“We can’t go to the Russian-occupied regions in the east and south of Ukraine, but we have some contacts there,” Smachylo tells SWI.

For people in those regions, it is dangerous to talk about how their rights are being violated – for example, that they cannot get health insurance without a Russian passport. The Russian authorities regularly raid homes and check computers and telephones.     

The information that Smachylo and the MIHR receive from people in the Russian-occupied regions thus cannot be made public without endangering their informants. “But this information is important for our analysis, for understanding the patterns of human rights violations,” Smachylo says.  

MIHR is one of the few NGOs able to gather information on the ground. Virtually no international organisation can go into the occupied Ukrainian regions, not even the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).  

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), for example, has only limited access to Ukrainian prisoners of war. This absence of accountability and the underreporting of abuses mean there is an increased risk of mistreatment and of perpetrators going unpunished.  

Among other things, the MIHR deals with prisoners of war and civilians who have been arrested in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine or who are being detained in unknown places. Beatings and torture are rife, and some have died because of the poor detention conditions, says Smachylo.  

“We know of 55 places of detention in the occupied regions of Ukraine and 40 in Russia, where a total of at least 1,550 Ukrainian civilians are being held,” says Smachylo. Contacted by SWI, the ICRC did not comment on whether it has access to the occupied regions. 

Increasingly hostile environment

Tal Steiner is meanwhile a human rights lawyer and director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). The NGO holds Israel accountable on its use of torture, which is not illegal in the country, although there is an absolute prohibition on torture enshrined in international human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Steiner says her NGO’s work has become particularly difficult since the Hamas attacks of October 7 and the Israeli-Palestinian war. Israel has restricted access to political prisoners, while rights defenders find themselves in an increasingly hostile environment where they are regularly branded as “defending terrorists”.  

The political prisoners to which Steiner has access include Palestinians living in Israel and in the West Bank as well as Jewish Israeli citizens.   

“Working on the issue of torture – or on any issue in Israel that affects human rights in terms of security – has never been easy,” she says.  

Tal Steiner, right, pictured with Miriam Azem, advocacy associate at the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (ADALAH). Keystone/AFP/Coffrini

Compassion for Palestinian prisoners and the view that human rights apply to everyone have been greatly diminished since the war, Steiner explains. “This means that the circle that supports our work has become smaller.”

According to her, many Israelis have opted for security above human rights. Many also harbour feelings of vengeance towards Palestinians. “We saw this, for example, at the Israeli Prison Service (IPS),” Steiner says. There, extreme overcrowding since October 7 has led to a severe deterioration in conditions, including limited access to basic needs like water, electricity, food, and medical care. Human rights groups have also noted cases of severe beating of detainees and prisoners, sexual harassment and intimidation. 

Miriam Azem also took part in the SWI interview with Steiner. The international advocacy expert works for Palestinian organisation Adalah, which defends Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories in Israeli courts.

“Since October 7, the attitude towards our lawyers has changed a lot,” she says. This has become apparent in disciplinary committees, which handle disputes in universities. “Since the beginning of the war, over 120 disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against Palestinian students – citizens of Israel – for statements made on their private social media accounts” she says.   

She cites the example of Palestinian students with Israeli citizenship who have been accused of inciting terrorism on the basis of unfounded arguments. Adalah attorneys, who have represented 95 Palestinian students facing this charge, “were questioned regarding their loyalty to Israel”, Azem says.

According to Azem, there has been an increase in arrests and interrogations due to posts on social media.  

“The vast majority of these posts do not meet any criminal threshold. Nevertheless, the accusations against activists were grounded in Israel’s Counter-Terror Law, which carries severe imprisonment penalties,” she says. 

Working in difficult conditions 

In February, PCATI and Adalah, together with two other Israeli organisations, sent an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards. They called on Edwards to intervene immediately to stop torture and the systematic mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention facilities. Apart from private lawyers, these are the only four organisations that can currently visit Israeli prisons – Israel has denied the ICRC access.  

“We are therefore the only ones who can report what we have seen there,” says Steiner. Around 10,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently in Israeli custody, many of them detained without trial. However, no one is allowed to visit the Israeli military camps for prisoners from the Gaza Strip. PCATI fears a “new Guantanamo” is being established there, in reference to the US facility in Cuba where prisoners were held indefinitely without trial in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

In their appeal to the UN rapporteur, the four organisations also expressed concern about the dehumanising rhetoric being used by some members of the Israeli government. The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in charge of the IPS, has repeatedly spoken out in favour of subjecting Palestinians to degrading and inhumane treatment.  

In the meantime, UN rapporteur Edwards has called on Israel to investigate the numerous allegations of torture against detained Palestinians. Since the attacks of October 7, it is estimated that thousands of Palestinians including children have been detained, she has written. Edwards says she received allegations of individuals being beaten, kept blindfolded in cells, handcuffed for excessive periods, deprived of sleep, and threatened with physical and sexual violence.  

Burnouts and death threats 

Burnout and death threats are also part of the job. Smachylo says the war which stretches through the whole of Ukraine is an added strain on a very stressful job. Activists and staff members of her organisation spend hours writing reports detailing torture and mistreatment of Ukrainian citizens by the Russian authorities. She particularly highlights the risk of burnout for those who regularly carry out missions in the field. 

The Geneva-based World Organization against Torture (OMCT), which cooperates with the NGO, provides financial support for their psychological and therapeutic retreats.  

Steiner, for her part, draws particular attention to the huge amount of work involved. “In view of the grief over the tragedies of October 7 and the war in the Gaza Strip, cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians is proving to be a challenge right now,” she says. For her, it is fundamental that every detainee has the right to defense. 

Smear campaigns have also targeted her work. For example, the Israeli TV station Channel14, the equivalent of the rightwing US station Fox News, made a derogatory programme about PCATI and other organisations campaigning for Palestinian rights. The title: “Disgrace: the Israeli activists who take care of the treatment of Hamas terrorists”. The program led to harassment and threatening phone calls. Some of the emails Steiner received were about rape and death threats, others targeted her family.  

“We are aware that we are operating in an environment that is very hostile to our work,” says Azem. “As an NGO registered in Israel, we are extremely cautious.” Steiner adds that the persecution of NGOs in Israel and Palestine has a long history. Six Palestinian human rights organisations have been classified as terrorist by Israel. And several bills currently envisage a higher taxation rate for Israeli NGOs in order to block their work. 

Edited by Virginie Mangin/livm, dos