Strength & Solidarity

The death in March 2023 of US disability rights activist Judy Heumann provoked grief but also joyful celebration of a leader whose strategic instincts and sheer grit helped secure victories that improved peoples’ lives. Heumann never lost her faith in activism - building power at street level. She led persons with disabilities and their allies in blocking traffic, occupying buildings and often literally putting their bodies on the line for the cause. Three disability rights advocates – Catalina Devandas, Alberto Vasquez and Peter Torres Fremlin reflect on that history and ask whether activism is still a central tool for their community. They discuss factors like inclusion and identity as sources of both strength and division, and the pros and cons of integrating disability rights work in the wider human rights movement. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

The election in 2010, of Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban and his Fidesz party triggered a lurch to the right and authoritarian rule. It brought legal restriction, bureaucratic harassment and public vilification to the country’s civil society and human rights community. Official hostility made it difficult for NGOs to survive and made individual rights workers’ lives hell. The most marginalized and vulnerable groups – migrants, queer community members, Roma and others – have come under particularly sustained attack. It would not have been surprising if the net outcome of such targeting were a weakened human rights movement and a profound loss of confidence. And yet, says Stefánia Kapronczay, co-director of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the outcome has been very different. And in the Coda, a poem by beloved Iranian poet Simin Behbahani and the story of her meeting with a young Tehran activist. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

In recent months, a sustained uprising in Iran led by women, has inspired admiration and across the world. It is by no means the first time in over 40 years of fundamentalist Islamic rule – there have been repeated waves of courageous protest since 1979. The poem in this episode’s Coda is by beloved Iranian poet Simin Behbahani, and was written during a moment of rebellion in 2009 when citizens came out to reject election results they believed had been rigged. Human rights activists Farnoosh Hashemian reflects on what the poem – and its author – mean to her.For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Some people love change but, in most cases, the words, “we need to revise our strategy,” do not elicit cheers from a team. Whether it’s the upheaval and uncertainty, or the prospect of long, often fractious meetings to choose between alternative paths, most of us would like to get on with the job and stop tinkering. This episode is about a UK organization, Freedom From Torture, that faced up to the truth about their waning impact and made a major pivot, from their long-standing model to one in which they had little experience. Chief executive, Sonya Sceats, reflects on some tough debates and decisions and tells us how it all worked out. And in the Coda: Dilrabo Samadova reminds us that human rights were being advocated in Persian poems more than a thousand years ago, and delights in the way poetry shows up everywhere in the life of her country, Tajikistan. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Human rights advocate Dilrabo Samadova marvels at the way poetry get into absolutely every aspect of life in her country, Tajikistan, and notes that solidarity, justice, and equality feature in Persian verse as far back as the sixth and seventh centuries, proving these are not “western values.”For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Standing in solidarity with those whose rights are being abused sounds like an easy choice. But when you get up close, it can look more complicated. What seems an obvious strategy to those in the frontline bearing the brunt of abusive treatment, might look aggressive and risky to someone in a support organization. So who gets to decide? Should it be up to each organization to decide how to support those who need their help? Or should those at the sharp end be able to set the strategy and expect others to follow? Two allies in South Africa’s human rights movement - S’bu Zikode, President of shack-dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, and Nomzamo Zondo, Executive Director of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute – sit down with host Akwe Amosu to explain how they work, and who gets the last word when they disagree. And in the Coda, exiled human rights lawyer Tutu Alicante expresses his excitement about the young musicians of his country Equatorial Guinea, who are using their art to fight dictatorship and corruption. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

For Tutu Alicante, human rights lawyer and long time activist against dictatorship and corruption in Equatorial Guinea, it has sometimes felt like an uphill struggle. But there are some new kids on the block – young artistes who are using their music to condemn the illegitimate wealth of the president and the shocking poverty of the country’s people. And it’s giving Tutu hope.For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

How should we describe the state of the global struggle for women’s rights? It is surely impossible to make a single overarching assessment– even as battles are won on one front, major challenges remain – or emerge - on another. Yet if it is hard to generalize about progress, we can at least note that conditions are scarcely favourable. To pick only three global trends - authoritarian rule, identity-based exclusion and economic instability - none of these help advance women’s freedoms. As International Women’s Day 2023 approaches, we invite three feminist leaders to assess this moment in their respective fields. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

On January 21, 2023, human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko was murdered in Swaziland. He was a remarkable advocate for rights and democracy, a commitment that brought him into direct confrontation with his country’s absolute ruler, King Mswati III over decades. His family, friends and fellow citizens are grief-stricken and the international human rights and justice community is outraged. Maseko had been due to spend a week with a group of human rights activists and leaders in our Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights. We met to celebrate his work and decided to share this audio recording of the event. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information, please visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Send your ideas and feedback to pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

It is now more than a decade since Egypt’s January 25th Revolution, otherwise known simply as “Tahrir Square.” All over the world in 2011, people watched the footage from Cairo in amazement at the scale of the mobilization, the creation of community and a remarkable range of services in the square, and the eventual ejection of the Mubarak regime which opened a path to elections. But it was all over in less than three years when General Al-Sisi’s counter-coup restored military dictatorship. What has life been like for activists and rights defenders in the years since, and what is left of the passionate activism that powered the revolution? In 2011 Mohammed Lotfy had been working abroad for Amnesty International but he came home to help build a new society. Now the executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, he sees, at first hand, the daily reality of those who made the revolution and, in his own family, the cost of defending rights in Egypt today. And in our Coda, a Nigerian activist tells us how Audre Lorde has transformed his approach. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org