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| Effective human rights work is the best weapon against terrorism |
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- Afghanistan – In the eighties the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) conducted impressive campaigns in order to draw attention to the genocide committed by the Soviet attackers which claimed one million Afghan victims. Four million people had to flee the country. In the years following the withdrawal of the Soviet Army we warned about the one-sided arming of the extremist Taliban with the help of western countries and Arab dictatorships. From 1998 until 2000 we passed on detailed information about repeated massacres of thousands of Hazara, a Mongolian ethnic group counting two million people in central Afghanistan. Afghan people in opposition work together with the GfbV. We organise demonstrations with Afghan refugees and we speak up for their rights in Germany. We support women’s initiatives in Afghanistan and arrange the delivery of drugs for female doctors in Hazarajat.
- Ahmadiyya - Muslims in Pakistan – Ahmadiyya, who have been declared "heretic" – Muslims in Pakistan are time and again victims of massive religious persecution by the Pakistani state which we have reported about continuously. The GfbV repeatedly opposed to the notorious blasphemy law 295 C which could also mean death sentence for Ahmadiyya. In Germany we support the protection of individual Ahmadiyya refugees. The GfbV was awarded a human rights prize by the German Ahmadiyya Society.
- Bahá’í and Jews in Iran – Again and again the GfbV opposed to the executions and arrests of members of both denominations: by means of press reports, protests against the Mullah-Regime, lobbying parties and governments as well as organised pickets. We work closely together with the German Bahá’í-Society. We initiated a rally on the occasion of the Chatami –visit in Weimar (2000), we achieved a plea for imprisoned Bahá‘í and Jews by the German President Rau at the Weimar banquet and, among other things, we triggered off intense discussion in the Thuringia media.
- Kurds in Iran and Syria – It lasted only for a short while, the "Kurdish spring" of democracy and autonomy in Iranian Kurdistan (eight million inhabitants) which the GfbV reported about in great detail at the time. We organised – in vain – protests against the suppression of the Kurdish opposition by Chomeini (approx. 50.000 deaths), we informed about the background of the assassinations of the two chairmen of the Kurdish Democratic Party Prof. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna (13th July1989) and Dr. Sadiq Sharafkandi in Berlin (17th September1992 / Mykonos - affair).
The Syrian Assad–Regime has five different secret services and has had a terrorist tradition for decades. Assad exterminated the entire population of the Arab city of Hama. For 30 years the GfbV has repeatedly been drawing attention to the persecution of the 1,5 to 2 million Kurds, to the ban of their institutions, to the expatriation of hundreds of thousands and to the forced displacement of people. On numerous occasions they launched protest and lobby actions for imprisoned Kurdish dissidents and warned continuously of the exploitation of the extremist PKK (Kurdish workers’ party), whose leader Öcalan was depending on the instructions of Assad throughout the entire Kurds war in Turkey. Even at the end of 1998 the GfbV achieved that German-Yezidi youths from Celle who had been abducted into PKK training camps were allowed to return home.
- Kurds and Assyrian/Aramaeans in Iraq – The human rights work for ethnic groups in northern Iraq has been the longstanding main focus of the GfbV. The GfbV presented the media with the revealed involvement of German companies in the building up of Iraqi poisonous gas industry and they were the first to report about the poisonous gas offensive Anfal (150.000 Kurdish, Yezidi and Assyrian victims). They initiated the care of Kurdish poisonous gas refugees in Turkey, they looked after 50 000 refugees at an altitude of 2000 meters following the mass flight of two million Iraqi Kurds and Christians into Turkey, before the relief organizations arrived. They were the first German institution to re-build two of 5000 destroyed Kurdish villages and initiated the reconstruction of several hundred more villages. The extensive documentation about Iraqi violation of human rights since 1970 was followed by a close co-operation with Assyrian-Christian ministers and representatives of Iraqi Kurdistan in the since 1991 autonomous northern Iraq, and the organisation of the first international congress of the religious community of Yezidi in Hanover in January 2000.
- South Sudan and Nuba Hills – 1,5 million black Africans have been victims of the fundamentalist military regime in Sudan since 1989. Year after year the GfbV reports about bombardments of schools and hospitals, about camps, slavery and starvation. For years the GfbV has been warning that the international terrorism is supported by Sudan and even in mid-September 2001 we informed in radio and TV interviews about the close links of their rulers to Osama Bin Laden. In the summer 2000 we prevented by means of an international information campaign that Sudan - as a supporter of genocide and international terrorism - was given a seat in the UN-security council.
- Kabyles/Berbers in Algeria – Berbers in Algeria are regular victims of acts of violence by radical Islamists and infringements by security guards. With various open letters to the Algerian President and the European Union we continuously support the demand of the Berber movement for democracy and human rights. Exiled intellectuals from Kabylia have been working with the GfbV for years.
- Uigurs, Tibetans and members of the Falun Gong – are becoming more frequent victims of Chinese security forces. Two days after China offered to work with the anti-terror-coalition we appealed via radio and TV stations - whilst holding a protest picket- that Europe should not support Chinese state terror. During the summer of 2001 we launched various activities against the religious persecution and the expulsion of 12.000 buddhist nuns and monks from their monasteries in Tibet. In Central Europe we initiated the working coalition of the exiles between the ethnic and religious communities including the Chinese democracy movement. Western oil and natural gas companies who are investing in Singkiang and Tibet are currently being informed about their joint responsibility regarding mass executions of Uigurs and the expulsion of Tibetans.
- Chechens – After the documentation of Russian genocide in Chechnya in1994 - 1996 (80.000 victims) and since 1999 (approx.50.000 victims), which most German speaking media reported about, we work closely together with chechnyan women’s organisations for human rights and refugees. We initiated their appearance in European capitals and at international institutions and arranged contact with humanitarian organisations. During two discussions with German foreign minister Fischer and at press conferences we criticized the co-operation of the Federal Republic of Germany with Putin against the chechnyan population (Sergej Kowaljow, Russian human rights activist: "a pragmatism which comes close to prostitution"). The chechnyan partners of the GfbV condemn Chechnyan war crimes just as we do. At a press conference in Bern on 27th September 2001 with the Chechnyan foreign minister Maschadow and the Swiss GfbV chairwoman and member of the national council of the Swiss parliament Ruth-Gabi Vermot-Mangold the Swiss GfbV demanded the application of the Geneva convention on Chechnya.
- For the first time GfbV has published a Human Rights report on the Palestinian question with the Swiss GfbV being responsible for the first edition. GfbV International will publish an extended report. During winter 2001 / 2002 a campaign will follow.
Translated by Bärbel Heimansberg
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Helping the victims of terror worldwide |
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Calling a halt to the persecution of Muslims and Christians in Pakistan |
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