Fwd: Requesting Endorsement - FA - HRDA - National Consultation - UPR IV - Thematic Reports (FoAA, FoE&O, NHRCI, HRDs)
Dhirendra Panda
From: Henri Tiphagne <he...@pwtn.org>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2022 at 17:33
Subject: Requesting Endorsement - FA - HRDA - National Consultation - UPR IV - Thematic Reports (FoAA, FoE&O, NHRCI, HRDs)
Sorry for cross posting if any
FA and HRDA held a series of four national consultation between October 11 - 13 and 18, 2021 on freedom of association and assembly (FoAA), freedom of expression and opinion (FoE&O), rights of human rights defenders (HRDs) and the response of NHRC India (NHRCI) on shrinking civic space in India. The decision taken during the consultations were that the reports will be prepared as stakeholders’ report initiated by Human Rights Defenders’ Alert – India (HRDA) with the support of FORUM ASIA (FA) and then be sent for endorsement among the participants of the consultation and individuals like you to be submitted as four independent stakeholder submissions to the UPR IV process, for which the deadline is March 31, 2022.
In the light of the above, the action to be undertaken by you are as follows:
1. Your endorsement:
1.1 Your endorsement may be as an organization / platform / network / trade union / political party / association / even as a publicly well-known and reputed individual / expert on human rights issues. Our suggestion is, as far as possible, getting the endorsements from organizations would be really appreciable, excepting in the case of special individuals/ experts. In this case, you need to mention the name of your platform and the details of the individual, signing on behalf of the organization (name and WhatsApp number). Kindly note to send the said details of your willingness to endorse each of these four reports by email to Rini (ri...@pwtn.org) from my office. You are required to endorse the same only once for all the four thematic reports. You do not need to send separate emails indicating your endorsement of each of the reports.
1.2 In the endorsement mail that you will be sending to Rini, I kindly request you to keep your email subject title as follows: Endorsee – FA- HRDA – UPR IV - Thematic reports – All the four thematic reports (kindly mention the name of the reports you are endorsing if you are not willing to do it for all the four) – Your Organization Name. Send only by email and not by WhatsApp. The name of the individual or the organization has to be clear and in CAPS if necessary, so that we do not make mistakes while listing them in our common list.
1.3. For any specific reason, which we totally respect and understand, especially in the present situation, if you are opting to endorse anonymously, please let us know so that your endorsement will go as an ‘anonymous organization’ that wishes not to reveal its identity as it fears reprisal from the state if the name is made public. You may completely trust us, as at no circumstances we will be revealing your name or any other details and it will be going as ‘Anonymous No. I’, ‘Anonymous No. II’ etc.
2. Endorsements by your colleagues/ associates:
Each of you are leaders who are known to a large section of people (individuals/ organisation/platform/network/trade union/political party/association). You may even have state level, district level, taluk level units and it would be highly appreciated if each of your own units or organizations that you belong to or your own friends in public life would like to endorse separately and therefore, in addition to your own endorsements, kindly share this with your members / associates / other organizations / other known individuals and also kindly remind them to send their endorsements to Rini.
3. Edits/ suggestions:
Please note that there is a strict word limit (5630) which is followed for the UPR stakeholders’ reports. However, we have tried to incorporate all the important subject matters, if not in the body, at least in the footnotes, despite the limitation that it comes up with. If there is something that we might have missed / not included, but you consider it as required to be definitely added, please send back the report with your comments and changes in track changes mode, for us to incorporate it wherever possible. Therefore, kindly ensure to use this as sparingly as possible.
4. Deadline:
I urge you to kindly concentrate on sending your endorsements by March 21, 2022 (Midnight IST) and then the shared endorsements can be sent later, keeping March 25, 2022 (Midnight IST) as the deadline. As you may know, there will be a lot of technical work that has to be done (like listing the endorsees' names in alphabetical order etc.) before the submission.
We are targeting around 5000 endorsements. I am sure there will be no hesitancy from your end to endorse the thematic reports, as each of you are concerned about all the four topics that we have dealt in our reports.
1. Freedom of association and assembly (FoAA)
2. Freedom of expression and opinion (FoE&O)
3. Rights of human rights defenders (HRDs)
4. The response of NHRC India (NHRCI) on shrinking civic space in India
Therefore, I humbly request each of you to ensure that you multiply the endorsements of the four independent stakeholder reports, as much as possible.
5. Factsheets and Recommendations
Once the endorsements are done, our editing team will prepare a one-page factsheet for each of the themes with recommendations. The recommendations that we are drafting will be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) and these factsheets with recommendations will be used for advocacy with all the embassies in India and Geneva for all the state parties to put forth to India, SMART and precise recommendations on matters that really needs action from the Republic of India (State under Review).
This is undoubtedly a collective work and it requires collective strength. HRDA is only initiating this work on all your behalf. Kindly note that we will not have time for reminders and therefore we are expecting that you will be doing the needful by endorsing the four thematic reports yourself as well as sharing them with as many colleagues of yours as possible, who are actively engaged on these matters at various levels.
We are expecting your full cooperation in this endeavour as you have shown during the days of the national consultation in October, 2021. Please do not hesitate to contact Rini (WhatsApp / Signal: +91 9747649453) for any further clarity on this matter.
Please note: You may kindly find the three thematic reports attached below, except the one on the situation of HRDs in India, which will be sent to you by tomorrow. However, if you are willing to endorse all the four today itself, please feel free to do so. Otherwise, you may do the endorsement separately for the fourth one once it reaches you.
Sincerely,
Henri Tiphagne,
National Working Secretary, HRDA
On behalf of FA members in India
Enclosed:
Three thematic reports on:
1. Freedom of association and assembly (FoAA)
2. Freedom of expression and opinion (FoE&O)
3. The response of NHRC India (NHRCI) on shrinking civic space in India