A Year of Human Rights Wins Worth Celebrating

Since 2001, Amnesty International has run the Write for Rights campaign, encouraging their supporters to write letters, emails and tweets to those in power who have the chance to stop abuses of human rights. This year, VICE has partnered with Amnesty to highlight some of the stories of those featured in this year's campaign, and to encourage you to get involved. You can find out more and get writing here, or here if you’re in Canada.

At this point, it’s a cliche to call 2020 what it was: an almost unmitigated disaster. A deadly pandemic was the backdrop to a year of successive environmental catastrophes, historic crackdowns and human rights abuses.

It was a year many would wish to forget, but within those 12 months there were also some moments to be celebrated. Moments of personal triumph, happiness and joy, as well as swinging wins for human rights across the world. Here are just a few

Last year started with a bang: January saw marriage equality finally extended to Northern Ireland, five years after the rest of the UK. In May, the first same-sex couples tied the knot in Costa Rica, while December saw the passage of a bill legalising same-sex marriage and simplifying gender recognition procedures in Switzerland – though that’s still likely to go to a referendum this year.

In March, the Spanish government introduced a new bill to redefine rape as sex without consent, becoming the tenth country globally to do so.

The announcement followed high-profile gang rape cases in Spain, after which campaigners argued the justice system failed victims. The cases included the so-called “La Manada” (wolf pack) case, in which a lower court found that five men were only guilty of the lesser offence of sexual abuse. The ruling, handed down in 2018, sparked protests across the country and triggered a commitment from the government to reform the legal definition of rape, bringing it in line with international human rights standards.

In April of 2020, after receiving over 400,000 letters from Amnesty members in solidarity with young people from the Grassy Narrows First Nation, Canada finally took an important step toward justice.

Fifty years ago, an upstream pulp mill dumped an estimated ten tons of mercury into the river system that the Indigenous Anishinaabe people rely upon for their livelihoods and cultural traditions, which is protected by a treaty and human rights law. The high level of mercury found in fish caught in Grassy Narrows has tragically impacted generations of community members. Mercury poisoning attacks the nervous system, causing numbness, coordination problems, loss of vision, learning disabilities, brain lesions and many other health conditions. Children whose mothers were exposed to methyl-mercury face developmental and health challenges for the rest of their lives.

Successive Canadian governments, both federal and provincial, withheld crucial health information from the people of Grassy Narrows, refused to clean up the river system, failed to provide specialised healthcare and, at points, denied there was a threat from mercury poisoning.

Following decades of struggle and relentless advocacy by community members, April of 2020 saw the signing of a $19.5 million agreement to build a mercury care home facility in both Grassy Narrows and a neighbouring Anishinaabe community equally impacted by the mercury poisoning. The provincial government has also committed to remediation of the water system.

Starting in March of 2020, authorities in El Salvador detained thousands of people for alleged coronavirus quarantine violations in government “containment centres”. Amnesty International reviewed legal documents that stated some people were detained after leaving their homes simply to buy food or medicine. In many instances, people were held in these centres for weeks, with no information of when they would be able to leave and no access to preventive measures such as social distancing, clean water, masks or effective testing.

Fortunately, by the end of August, the number of people in these centres started decreasing significantly, thanks to the efforts of local NGOs, calls from the international community and rulings by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. By the end of 2020, the centres had been emptied completely.

In February, the sentences of women’s rights defenders Yasaman Aryani and her mother, Monireh Arabshahi, were substantially reduced following the actions of 1.2 million Amnesty supporters.

Almost one year previously, on the 8th of March, 2019 – International Women’s Day – a video featuring Aryani, Arabshahi and other women’s rights defenders went viral. The footage shows the women without their headscarves, peacefully distributing flowers to female passengers on a metro train in Tehran and discussing their hopes for women’s rights in Iran.

On the 10th of April that year, Aryani was arrested by Iranian security forces and taken to an unknown location. Her mother was arrested the following day. Over the next nine days, Aryani was held in solitary confinement and, according to her, was subjected to intense interrogation sessions, eventually being pressured into making a “confession” that “opposition” from abroad had “incited” her human rights activism, forcing her to proclaim she was “repentant” and that she “regretted” her actions.

In July of 2019, both Aryani and Arabshahi were sentenced to 16 years in prison. Following sustained international campaigning by Amnesty supporters, that sentence was reduced on appeal to nine years and seven months, of which they will serve five years and six months. While this is something of an improvement, the pair should never have been detained in the first place – and the battle continues to secure their unconditional release.

In July of 2020, the life of South Sudanese teenager Magai Matiop Ngong was saved, partly due to an overwhelming amount of international solidarity mobilised by Amnesty International.

When Magai was 15 years old, he got into a physical altercation with a neighbour. Magai took his father’s gun and, when his cousin tried to intervene, Magai fired warning shots into the ground. At least one bullet bounced up, hitting his cousin, who later died in hospital. Magai did not have a lawyer to represent him at trial – as is required by law – and was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging.

People around the world took an incredible 765,000 actions, including writing letters and tweets, calling for Magai’s death sentence to be quashed, stopping him being killed for his part in what he claims was a tragic accident. On the 14th of July last year, the South Sudan Court of Appeal reversed the death sentence, and Magai was removed from death row on the 29th of July. (The family of the deceased have appealed the decision and the outcome of that appeal is pending).

At the time, Magai told Amnesty, “Thank you so much. I have no words. You have no idea how my heart is filled with happiness.”

In July, following the release of a report by Amnesty International, Brazil’s federal public prosecutor in Rondônia state announced that her office would investigate accusations of illegal deforestation and land seizures in the supply chain of JBS, the world’s largest meat producer.

A week later, the company’s former independent auditor confirmed that it had challenged JBS for falsely claiming its Amazon operations are deforestation-free. Later, top European investment house Nordea Asset Management removed JBS from its portfolio, attributing its decision to exposés about JBS’ indirect supply chain. In October, JBS pledged to monitor its entire supply chain by 2025, including the problematic “indirect supplier” farms linked to illegal deforestation.

July 2020 saw the outlawing of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Sudan. In November, Sudanese authorities announced that the police would begin enforcing the ban, informing communities that the practice was illegal and now carries a penalty of up to three years in jail. Importantly, the director general of police, Ezzeldin El Sheikh, spoke of how essential it is that religious leaders play their part in helping bring an end to the practice in the largely Muslim country.

Ahmed Elzobier is Amnesty’s Sudan researcher and told VICE, “In Sudan, changing the law in 2020 and criminalising female genital mutilation (FGM) is always a positive step. The amendment to the law followed decades of resilient campaigns by various civil society organisations in the country. However, FGM practice is deeply entrenched in the country. Sudan has one of the highest rates of FGM prevalence in the world. Punitive measures alone will not make the tradition disappear overnight. Criminalising FGM should be accompanied by long-term and sustainable campaigns about the life-threatening consequences of the practice on the lives of millions of women and girls across the country.”

The same week as the announcement on FGM, the council of ministers announced it would be ratifying all articles of the 1999 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which represents an important step towards bringing an end to child marriages in the country.

The end of November 2020 saw Scotland become the first country in the world to make period products free for all. Following a years-long campaign, a bill introduced to Scottish Parliament by Labour MSP Monica Lennon was passed unanimously, creating a legal duty for local authorities to ensure tampons and sanitary pads are available to “anyone who needs them”.

At the end of 2020, scenes of jubilation in Argentina hit the headlines as the country made history by legalising abortion.

Following a decades-long fight, and fulfilling his campaign promise, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández sent a historic bill to Congress to legalise abortion. A mammoth session in the Senate ended with senators approving the bill, which had earlier passed through the country’s chamber of deputies, 38 to 29, with one abstention. The passing of the bill allows anyone who needs it to get an abortion up to 14 weeks into pregnancy; previously, abortions had only been legally available in cases of rape or medical emergency.

In November and December of 2020, Amnesty International ran the 19th iteration of their Write for Rights campaign, which saw hundreds of thousands of letters, emails, texts and tweets sent in support of ten individuals and groups fighting human rights battles across the world. People like Gustavo Gatica, Nassima al-Sada and the El Hiblu 3 continue their fight in 2021, with pressure from Amnesty members and supporters essential in helping them to secure justice.

With the world continuing to struggle through the coronavirus pandemic, it’s important to remember, acknowledge and relish the victories and progress still being made. As 2021 unfurls, there are still so many fights being fought, and so many victories to be won.