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Afghanistan: Human rights defenders living under “climate of fear”
by UN News, OHCHR, agencies
 
Oct. 2022
 
Taliban beat women protesting against school bombing, say witnesses. (Guardian News)
 
Women protesting against the suicide bombing of a school in Afghanistan, which killed 35 young Hazara women and girls and wounded dozens more
 
on Friday, have been beaten and shot at by Taliban according to witnesses.
 
Dozens of women from the Hazara community protested against the attack on the Kaaj educational centre in Dasht-e-Barchi, a neighbourhood home to the Shia Hazara community in western Kabul.
 
Those who died in the attack were mostly Hazara women aged between 18 to 24 years who had been preparing for an exam. Women who gathered to demonstrate against the killings said Taliban forces opened fire and used physical violence to break up the protest minutes after it had started.
 
“We were marching together and chanting for justice for our Hazara sisters who were murdered yesterday. This is a genocide of the Hazaras and all we want is education and freedom,” said one Hazara woman.
 
“The Taliban will never protect us and they can’t represent us in the international community. They attacked us with the edge of their guns and beat us up. I am still in pain as I speak.”
 
“The Talib sprayed pepper spray in our eyes, whipped us and humiliated us by calling us prostitutes who take money from the west to protest,” said another protester who did not want to be named.
 
No group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, but the Hazara community is increasingly coming under attack by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan according to human rights groups.
 
Public anger about the attack has intensified over the weekend, with protests spreading to Bamyan and Herat provinces. Hundreds of women marched from Herat University on Sunday morning demanding their right to education and safety for Hazaras. Witnesses confirmed that Taliban shot repeatedly at the women.
 
The killings have devastated the Hazara community in Dasht-e-Barchi, with families still trying to retrieve the remains of their daughters and demanding justice.
 
UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, issued a statement saying it was “appalled the by horrific attack” early on Friday morning.
 
“This heinous act claimed the lives of dozens of adolescent girls and boys and severely injured many more. The victims were practising for the entrance exam to university."UNICEF offers its heartfelt condolences to all families affected by this terrible event and wishes a swift recovery to the injured.” The agency said that any violence in any educational environment was “never acceptable”.
 
"Such places must be havens of peace where children can learn, be with friends, and feel safe as they build skills for their futures”.
 
"Children and adolescents are not, and must never be, the target of violence. Once again, UNICEF reminds all parties in Afghanistan to adhere to and respect human rights and ensure the safety and protection of all children and young people."
 
In his report to the Human Rights Council on 6 September, Mr. Bennett detailed how Hazara communities have been subjected to multiple forms of discrimination, negatively affecting their economic, social, cultural and human rights.
 
“There are reports of arbitrary arrests, torture and other ill-treatment, summary executions and enforced disappearances,” the Special Rapporteur insisted. “In addition, an increase in inflammatory speech is being reported, both online and in some mosques during Friday prayers, including calling for Hazaras to be killed.”
 
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/oct/02/taliban-beat-women-protesting-school-bombing-afghanistan http://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1129067
 
Feb. 2022
 
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, Women Are Suffering Needlessly This Winter, by Sally Anne Corcoran. (PassBlue)
 
As girls are being sold in the streets of Kabul, the Norwegian government flew in the Taliban and people from Afghan civil society into Oslo to talk to one another and with Western diplomats. While United Nations agencies have warned repeatedly that 22 million Afghans face acute hunger, the Taliban regime flirts with legitimacy while failing to comply with even its most basic assurances to commit to women’s human rights and girls’ full access to education.
 
Most secondary schools remain closed to girls, and women high school teachers who have not been paid for the last seven months have resorted to begging in the streets to feed their families. The UN and the rest of the international community must respond to the urgent needs of ordinary Afghans facing starvation this winter but must equally insist on the regime’s compliance with basic human-rights standards for all, particularly for women and girls.
 
The recent announcement by the United States to unfreeze $3.5 billion in Afghanistan’s assets from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City to go toward humanitarian relief is a useful step. But is it enough to keep tens of millions of people from dying of starvation, including children? The Taliban have promised to reopen schools for girls and for those in university by the end of March. We’ll see if it happens, and if it doesn’t, what the rest of the world will do.
 
Indeed, Britain is co-hosting a UN pledging summit in late March to boost donations toward a $4.4 billion goal to alleviate the humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan. The summit poses another important moment for countries to reinforce that global aid must emphasize the inalienable rights of women and girls in the country.
 
Overall, the translation of international human-rights obligations from the UN to settings in which the organization operates remains a challenge, especially in Afghanistan. However, national contexts are precisely the space in which the UN and the international community can make a substantial difference in carrying out women’s basic human-rights norms. It is also where action is urgently needed. This is especially the case with overwhelmingly oppressive regimes regarding women, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan.
 
The question of if and how a balance can be achieved between the commitment to uphold the human rights of women and to preserve cultural legitimacy warrants close attention by the UN. According to Susan Moller Okin, a political philosopher and American-based academic from New Zealand who specialized in multiculturalism and gender (and died in 2004), wrote that “most cultures have as one of their principal aims the control of women by men.”
 
The events in Afghanistan since August prove yet again that in times of crisis, the rights of women are demoted, devalued and expendable. They also show the propensity with which the UN and its member states sometimes accept as a fait accompli the cultural norms that place girls and women at risk of the worst physical harm; are denied access to their most basic human rights; and support their unquestioned subordination.
 
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom is recommending ways the UN can ensure women’s rights through its political mission in Afghanistan as the organization’s mandate is scheduled to be renewed in March. One suggestion is to strengthen the mission’s human-rights monitoring work, which can focus explicitly, the league says, on the rights of women and girls, among others in society.
 
The imposition of a gender apartheid system in Afghanistan excludes women from all dialogue in the continuing emergency humanitarian scenario, precisely when their ideas and contributions are most needed. It sows the seeds for negative results, protracted insecurity and conflict to resurface.
 
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani Nobelist, makes this precise point: When she was 15, she was shot in the head by Pakistan’s branch of the Taliban because of her advocacy for girls’ education. She told the UN Security Council last fall that she was hearing more about cases of Afghan girls and women teachers being told to stay home. She urged global powers to send a “clear and open message” to the Taliban that any working relationship is contingent on girls’ education.
 
“Speaking with one voice for girls’ education can compel the Taliban to make real concessions,” she said. “This is vital not only for Afghan women and girls themselves but for long-term security in the region and our world.”
 
Conflict often worsens societal inequalities. This is evident in Afghanistan, as reflected in the increasing instances of child marriage, the prohibition on women working and the overall imposition of a gendered system in the country since the Taliban takeover. However, conflict and the breakdown of the societal framework that ensues also provide a window of opportunity for challenging and redefining cultural and gender norms.
 
The UN and the international community must take advantage of their position of power in negotiations with the Taliban to seize the moment to secure women’s human rights and participation in Afghan society. Seizing this moment is crucial not only for the women of Afghanistan, but also for long-term international security.
 
* Sally Anne Corcoran is an Irish Research Council Scholar, at the Irish Center for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, National University of Ireland Galway.
 
http://www.passblue.com/2022/02/15/meanwhile-in-afghanistan-women-are-suffering-needlessly-this-winter/ http://odi.org/en/insights/think-change-episode-10-what-has-the-impact-of-taliban-rule-been-one-year-on-afghan-womens-perspectives/ http://unama.unmissions.org/un-releases-report-human-rights-afghanistan-taliban-takeover http://soundcloud.com/evappodcast (Episode 14A: Horia Mosadiq)
 
Dec. 2021
 
Afghanistan: Humanitarian crisis threatens basic human rights. (UN News/OHCHR)
 
Respect for fundamental rights and freedoms by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan is critical to ensuring stability in the country, says the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.
 
Briefing the UN Human Rights Council, Nada Al-Nashif detailed how the profound humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is threatening basic rights, with women, girls, and civil society among those most affected.
 
Dignity or deprivation
 
“How the de facto authorities – indeed, and the international community - address the drastic economic and humanitarian crises in the country will determine Afghans’ enjoyment of human rights, now and into the future,” she said.
 
“They will mark the difference between potential lives of dignity and well-being – or accelerating deprivation, injustice and tragic loss of life.”
 
Staff from the UN human rights office, OHCHR, remain on the ground in Afghanistan, where the economy is largely paralysed and poverty and hunger are rising.
 
Ms. Al-Nashif said that as Afghans struggle to meet basic needs, they are being pushed to take desperate measures, including child labour and child marriage. News reports have also surfaced of children being sold.
 
The situation is further compounded by the impact of sanctions and the freezing of State assets.
 
“The difficult policy choices that Member States make at this critical juncture, to avert economic collapse, are literally life and death. They will define Afghanistan’s pathway into the future,” she said.
 
Ms. Al-Nashif reported that although fighting has receded since August, when the Taliban took over, Afghan civilians remain at risk of conflict as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIL-KP) and other armed groups are still carrying out lethal attacks.
 
Extrajudicial killings
 
Despite a general amnesty by the Taliban, announced in August, her office has received “credible allegations” of more than 100 killings of former Afghan national security forces and others associated with the former Government. At least 72 killings were attributed to the Taliban, and in several cases the bodies were publicly displayed.
 
“In Nangarhar province alone, there also appears to be a pattern of at least 50 extra-judicial killings of individuals suspected to be members of the ISIL-KP. Brutal methods of killings, including hanging, beheadings, and public display of corpses have been reported,” she added.
 
Concern for women and children
 
Ms. Al-Nashif was also deeply concerned about the continued risk of child recruitment, particularly boys, by both ISIL-KP and the de facto authorities. Children also continue to comprise the majority of civilians killed and injured by unexploded ordnance.
 
Meanwhile, women and girls face great uncertainty when it comes to respecting their rights to education, livelihoods and participation. Some 4.2 million young Afghans are already out of school, 60 per cent of them girls.
 
There has also been a decline in girls’ secondary school attendance, even in provinces where the de facto authorities have permitted them to attend school. This is largely due to the absence of women teachers, since in some locations girls are only allowed to be taught by women.
 
Although a 3 December decree on women’s rights was “an important signal”, Ms. Nashif said it leaves many questions unanswered. “For example, it does not make clear a minimum age for marriage, nor refer to any wider women and girls' rights to education, to work, to freedom of movement, or to participate in public life,” she said.
 
Furthermore, women are largely prohibited from working, except for some teachers, health workers and NGO staff. They also cannot take products to market since local de facto authorities have closed women-operated bazaars.
 
“Many Afghan women and girls now have to be accompanied by a male relative whenever they leave their residence. These are strictly enforced in some places, but not all,” Ms. Al-Nashif told the Council.
 
She warned that UN partners estimate that restricting women from working will contribute to an immediate economic loss of up to $1 billion.
 
Civil society under attack
 
Afghan civil society has also come under attack in recent months. Since August, at least eight activists and two journalists have been killed, and others injured, by unidentified armed men.
 
The UN mission in the country, UNAMA, has documented nearly 60 apparently arbitrary detentions, beatings, and threats of activists, journalists, and staff of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, attributed to the de facto authorities.
 
Several women's rights defenders have also been threatened, and there is widespread fear of reprisals since a violent crackdown on women's peaceful protests in September. Many media outlets have shuttered, as have numerous civil society groups.
 
Furthermore, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has been unable to operate since August, while the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association faces a loss of independence as the de facto authorities now administer its activities under the de facto Ministry of Justice. 
 
“The safety of Afghan judges, prosecutors, and lawyers – particularly women legal professionals – is a matter for particular alarm,” Ms. Al-Nashif added. “Many are currently in hiding for fear of retribution, including from convicted prisoners who were freed by the de facto authorities, notably men convicted of gender-based violence.”
 
Ms. Al-Nashif stressed that upholding human rights is critical for Afghanistan to move forward.
 
“The de facto authorities’ respect for and protection of fundamental rights and freedoms of all persons in Afghanistan, without discrimination, is integral to ensuring stability. Failure to uphold human rights will inevitably lead to further turmoil and unrest, and will hold back Afghanistan’s development,” she said.
 
“Moreover, as a member of the international community, Afghanistan is bound by the existing international obligations of the treaties it has ratified. Obligations under these treaties remain in place, regardless of the particular authorities exercising effective power.”
 
“Avalanche of hunger and destitution”: WFP
 
The disintegrating Afghan economy is making it difficult for people to get enough to eat, the World Food Programme (WFP) said. The UN agency urgently needs $220 million a month in 2022 as it ramps up operations to provide food and cash assistance to more than 23 million Afghans facing severe hunger.
 
WFP has assisted 15 million people across all 34 provinces in the country so far this year, reaching some seven million in November alone, up from four million in September.
 
“Afghanistan is facing an avalanche of hunger and destitution the likes of which I have never seen in my twenty plus years with the World Food Programme,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the agency’s Country Director there.
 
Desperate measures
 
WFP’s latest phone survey found an estimated 98 per cent of Afghans are not consuming enough food, a worrisome 17 per cent increase since August. Families are barely coping, the agency said, and are resorting to desperate measures with the onset of winter, with eight in 10 eating less, and seven in 10 borrowing food just to get by.
 
http://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1107902
 
Nov. 2021
 
Human rights defenders in Afghanistan describe living under a climate of fear, threats, intense insecurity and growing desperation, a UN expert said, calling for an urgent coordinated response from the international community.
 
"The threat is very real," said Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders. "Defenders tell me of direct threats, including gendered threats against women, of beatings, arrests, enforced disappearances, and of defenders being killed. They describe living in a climate of constant fear.
 
"Among those most at risk are defenders documenting alleged war crimes, women defenders, in particular criminal lawyers, cultural rights defenders, especially those working in banned sectors such as music, and defenders from minority groups. Defenders tell me that some have erased their online data history to evade identification, and that the Taliban are resorting to other ways of finding them - for example that one HRD was identified by an injury to his leg."
 
Lawlor said she had received online testimonies from around 100 human rights defenders, including those in rural provinces, detailing specific tactics used against them. The Taliban have raided the offices of human rights and civil society organisations, searching for the names, addresses and contacts of those who used to work there, she said.
 
"Many defenders are well known in their local communities, in particular in rural areas, and have left for the anonymity of the cities, but even there they are forced to constantly change locations," the UN expert said. "Most have also lost their source of income, further limiting their options to find safety."
 
Lawlor called for immediate international support to act on concerns of local defenders, including an urgent plan for the evacuation of defenders at high risk, along with their families.
 
"These are the people who have been fighting for 20 years to advance human rights in their home towns and cities," she said.
 
"Many say they feel abandoned. States who have supported their work for the past two decades must do more to provide visas, travel documents and routes to asylum for the hundreds of defenders left behind and at risk."
 
Selection of testimonies:
 
"There is no freedom of association, no gatherings no freedom of expression. Every day 5 or 10 people are being arrested. Family members are afraid of being recognised. Human rights defenders** and others are being pursued, arrested and killed. Family members don't even claim the dead bodies in the street. They are afraid. **Human rights defenders were not prioritised in the evacuation efforts." - woman human rights defender (WHRD) in western Afghanistan.
 
"Freedom of expression is very limited. The media cannot operate freely. HRDs and WHRDs cannot raise their voices now. They will be threatened if they do." - HRD in south
 
"The Taliban cannot be expected to stick to their word. They are unanswerable to anyone. HRDs were the public face of the human rights movement, they are now at risk. Women are the victims of this takeover. The future looks dark."
 
"I worked in 34 provinces of Afghanistan for women's rights. I am at home and can't go to the office. There is no space for women leaders and activities for human rights defenders. HRDs are being smeared as foreign agents. Women want to keep working, to protect the gains made for women's rights in the last 20 years. Today there's no education or jobs for women."
 
"There are 38,000 prisoners who have been released. They were the people who had problems with the HRDs and those working on justice and rule of law. Released prisoners are a direct threat to HRDs."
 
"A mother came to me and complained about the torture of her 12-year-old child by the Taliban. She asked me to help him as a child rights activist. She thought that even now we could defend their children's rights, but what was not clear to her, was that I have no more authority and the ability to defend her and her son, as I myself have been sidelined along with human rights activism in Afghanistan."
 
Nov. 2021
 
Closing Secondary Schools to Girls causing lasting harm, writes Fereshta Abbasic - Consultant for Human Rights Watch
 
“I want to go to school and become an independent woman who chooses and decides for her life,” 16-year-old Nasiba told me. “If I am educated, men wouldn’t dare to interfere but if I am not, they will decide my whole life for me.” She lives in Kabul and has not been able to return to her secondary school since the Taliban took over Afghanistan on August 15.
 
(Her name and that of others quoted are pseudonyms).
 
The Taliban have effectively banned girls from education past primary school by ordering secondary schools, which include grades seven and up, to reopen only for boys.
 
Although Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid claimed on September 21 that the Ministry of Education was preparing for “the education of high school girls as soon as possible,” only a few secondary schools have reopened in some provinces.
 
The ban in most of the country and an unclear Taliban policy makes millions of girls understandably fearful for their education.
 
Even if girls’ schools reopened immediately, their studies, including preparation for exams, plans to graduate, and university applications, have already suffered a severe setback. And the harm increases every day.
 
Women across Afghanistan continue to protest, asking for schools to reopen and for women’s right to work. “If the Taliban have really changed, they should prove it by letting our daughters go to school and us to go work,” said Zainab, a friend in Kabul who participated in one of these protests.
 
Roya, 18, was supposed to graduate from high school this year and was preparing for the university entrance examination. “I always dreamed of being a lawyer and had been preparing to get into law school,” she said. “But now with the Taliban taking over I don’t think I have a future.”
 
Education is a fundamental human right, but in the past two months it has been taken away from millions of Afghan girls. The Taliban should reopen secondary schools for girls across the country without further delay. Nasiba and Roya know that their futures, and the future of Afghanistan, depend on it.
 
http://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-human-rights-defenders-living-under-climate-fear-un-expert http://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghan-girls-education-i-don-t-think-i-have-future http://www.fidh.org/en/region/asia/afghanistan/broken-promises-civil-society-under-siege-after-100-days-of-taliban


 


Address the climate crisis and the other socio-economic injustices
by Antonella Regular, Joaquin Salinas, Mitzi Tan
CIVICUS: global alliance of civil society organisations
 
CIVICUS speaks with Antonella Regular and Joaquin Salinas, Communications Coordinator and Training Coordinator of Juventudes COP Chile (COP Chile Youth), an independent youth platform focused on climate action. The group seeks to create advocacy spaces for young people and be an intergenerational and intersectional space for mutual learning.
 
What are the key environmental problems you encounter in Chile?
 
One key problem is that of environmental sacrifice zones or areas with a high level of environmental impact, that is, areas that concentrate a large number of polluting industries that have a direct impact on communities.
 
Another problem is mining and the way in which extractive rights are positioned above the rights of communities and the environment, with operations such as the controversial Dominga project in the Coquimbo region on Chile’s north-central coast. And in the south, the issue of deforestation.
 
These environmental issues are our entry point into the communities: they allow us to know what their challenges and goals are so that we can exert influence and act, and not just make demands. Our platform seeks to create solutions to address the problems.
 
The fact that young people do not find spaces where they can be heard and actively participate in decision-making is also a problem. Chile is currently going through a constituent process: there is a very diverse and plural Constituent Assembly, which was directly elected by citizens, and which is drafting a new Constitution.
 
For the first time there is the possibility that some historical demands that have been ignored for the longest time will be met. At this decisive moment it is important for young people to be included in decision-making and to be able to influence the design of progressive public policies.
 
How do your actions connect with the global climate movement?
 
The Juventudes COP Chile platform tries to function as a bridge between civil society and international advocacy spaces such as climate conferences. Our goal is for civil society as a whole to be empowered with opinions and demands to exert influence within these spaces. We have opened spaces for participation and established alliances, and all the proposals that have emerged from these spaces will be delivered to COP26.
 
Juventudes COP Chile promotes the participation of young people and encourages them to take an active position. We are making proposals rather than just demanding change by holding up a sign.
 
What progress do you expect from COP26, and more generally, how useful do you find such international processes?
 
There are many issues left pending from COP25. For instance, there is a need to finalise the rulebook in relation to article 6 of the Paris Agreement, regarding carbon markets, for states and companies to trade greenhouse gas emissions units. We hope that at COP26, states will finally reach an agreement and there will be a breakthrough in this regard. They should also stop postponing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) until 2050. And NDCs should no longer be voluntary. The fact that they are almost feels like mockery given the state of the climate crisis.
 
Progress is urgently needed because we are seeing that climate change is real and it is happening. Some changes are already irreversible: we are experiencing them on a daily basis in our relationship with the environment and we may hardly be able merely to adopt adaptation rules anymore.
 
Parties at COP26 should realise this and put their own interests aside to think about the survival of the human species. They must listen to science and to young people. The participation of young people in these processes cannot be a mere protocol: it must be real, active and meaningful.
 
What changes would you like to see in the world or in your community that could help solve the climate crisis?
 
In our communities we hope for more participation and access to information. In Chile there is a great deal of centralisation: everything happens in the capital, Santiago de Chile, and that creates a deficit of citizen participation in decision-making and information delivery at the community level. We hope that progress will be made on issues of decentralisation and redistribution of effective decision-making power.
 
One of the principles upheld by Juventudes COP Chile is precisely that of decentralisation, and that is why we work with people from different parts of the country. We would like to see a much bigger adoption of some of the practices that we have adopted at Juventudes COP Chile, such as artivism, regenerative culture, horizontal relations and community work.
 
At the national level, we hope that politicians will start to take this problem seriously. They must work to reduce pollution and alleviate the climate crisis. They must start by recognising that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis, drastically affecting the quality of life of the most vulnerable people and communities. It is important that there is a recognition that this is happening and that it is a serious problem.
 
An important step to start moving forward would be for Chile to finally sign the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, better known as the Escazú Agreement. This is the first regional environmental agreement in Latin America and the Caribbean and the first in the world with specific provisions on human rights and environmental defenders. For years the state of Chile pushed forward the negotiations that resulted in this agreement, but then decided not to sign it. It should do so without delay.
 
CIVICUS speaks with Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a young climate justice activist based in Metro Manila, Philippines, who organises with Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines and is active in Fridays for Future International.
 
What’s the key climate issue in your community?
 
The Philippines is plagued by several impacts from climate change, from droughts that are getting longer and warmer to typhoons that are getting more frequent and more intense. Aside from these climate impacts – that we have not been able to adapt to and leave us with no support when it comes to dealing with the loss and damages – we also face numerous environmentally destructive projects, often undertaken by foreign multinational companies, that our government is allowing and even encouraging.
 
Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines, the Fridays for Future of the Philippines, advocates for climate justice and to make sure that voices of people from the most affected communities are heard, amplified and given space. I first became an activist in 2017 after working with Indigenous leaders of the Philippines, which made me understand that they only way to achieve a more just and greener society is through collective action leading to system change.
 
Have you faced backlash for the work you do?
 
Yes, just like anyone who speaks up against injustice and inaction, our government through its paid trolls red-tags and terror-tags activists – it basically calls us terrorists for demanding accountability and pushing for change. There is a fear that comes along with being a climate activist in the Philippines, which has been characterised as the most dangerous country in Asia for environmental defenders and activists for eight years in a row. It’s not just the fear of the climate impacts, it’s also the fear of police and state forces coming to get us and making us disappear.
 
How do you engage with the broader international climate movement?
 
I organise a lot with the international community, especially through Fridays for Future – MAPA (Most Affected Peoples and Areas), one of the global south groups of Fridays for Future. We do it by having conversations, learning from each other and creating strategies together, all while having fun. It’s important for the global youth movement to connect with one another, unite and show solidarity in order to truly address the global issue of the climate crisis.
 
What hopes, if any, do you have for COP26 to make progress on your issue, and how useful generally do you find such international processes?
 
My hope doesn’t lie with the so-called leaders and politicians who have continued business as usual for decades for the profit of the few, usually for the global north. My hope lies in the people: activists and civil society coming together to demand justice and to really expose how this profit-oriented system that brought us to this crisis is not the one that we need to bring us out of it.
 
I think COP26 is a crucial moment and this international process has to be useful because we’ve already had 24 too many. These problems should have been solved at the very first COP, and one way or another we have to make sure that this COP is useful and brings meaningful change, not just more empty promises.
 
What one change would you like to see – in the world or in your community – to help address the climate crisis?
 
The one change I ask for is a big one: system change. We need to change our system from one that prioritises the overexploitation of the global south and marginalised peoples for the profit of the global north and the privileged few. The way we view development, it shouldn’t be based on GDP and everlasting growth, but rather on the quality of people’s lives. This is doable – but only if we address the climate crisis and all the other socio-economic injustices at its roots.
 
http://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/interviews http://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/53163/russia-invasion-of-ukraine-supercharging-food-insecurity-middle-east-north-africa/


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