Defending the Human Rights Defenders

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) rights activists from Uganda, Kyrgyzstan and Senegal, lawyers from Russia and Congo, journalists from South Sudan, and several other human rights activists from Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Burundi, Somaliland and Palestine; this is just a sample of human rights defenders who have been welcomed for a temporary stay in the Netherlands within the Shelter City programme. It is one of the fl agship programmes of Dutch human rights foreign policy. While praised for helping certain individual human rights defenders, there are also critical questions posed: How are people selected for the Shelter City programme? Is it money well spent to support certain individuals for a limited amount of time and whose number is inherently limited? Would it not be better to support larger groups or organisations defending human rights? And does protection of human rights defenders by foreign States not conceal the fact that they should primarily be protected by the home State? ....