Monthly Newsletters

Dear Friends, As you already know, in the last weeks

Dear friends, The year is already shaping up to be

Dear Comrades and Friends, 2021 was a busy year for

November started on a promising note, after the UN Human Rights Council, at our and our colleague civil society organisations’ urging, on 5 November 2021 held a special session to assess the human rights implications of the 25 October military coup in Sudan, and adopted a resolution reinstating Sudan on the council’s agenda.

The final quarter of the year is one of the busiest periods at DefendDefenders. This is also heightened by the deteriorating situation in Sudan and Ethiopia that continues to destabilize an already delicate region.

September has been quite a busy month for us. Through our office in Geneva, we have since 13 September, been actively engaged in the 48th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC48) which runs until 8 October. You can read our oral statements to the council here.

After a difficult past month in which the second wave of COVID19 peaked in several of our focus countries, August brought with it some much needed reprieve in form of declined infections. As countries scale up vaccination efforts, it is our hope that this pandemic will soon be behind us, and that brighter days lie on the horizon.

July was a bittersweet month for us at DefendDefenders. Like everywhere else, COVID19 continued to wreck our lives. On the evening of 26 July, we tragically lost one of us – Mariam Nakibuuka, to the pandemic. Mariam was a valued member of our team, who, until her passing, served as a senior protection associate with our protection and security department.