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Three years after Tunisia: thoughts and perspectives on the rights to freedom of assembly and association from United Nations Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai

2014; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17449626.2014.896578

1744-9634

Maina Kiai, Jeff Vize,

European and International Law Studies

AbstractRoughly three years after the creation of his mandate, United Nations Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai reflects on the global state of assembly and association rights. Although the mandate was created against the backdrop of shrinking space for civil society, a massive and growing global protest movement has grabbed most of the headlines since 2011. Kiai argues that the mandate has made a measurable impact – it has helped raise awareness of repressive NGO laws, provided technical assistance to governments to strengthen assembly and association rights and developed soft law. But perhaps, the most important work of the mandate has been its contribution to a better understanding of just how important the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association are. Assembly and association rights are a powerful tool to promote dialog, pluralism, broadmindedness, tolerance and civic participation; they satisfy people's fundamental desire to take control of their own destinies. And if anything, the past few years have taught us that the worst turmoil comes when this desire is suppressed. When people are denied something so fundamental, rage inevitably follows. When people have no outlet for that rage, it can ultimately manifest itself as something much more chaotic than a street protest.Keywords: freedom of assemblyfreedom of associationfundamental rightsUN Special Rapporteurprotest Notes on contributorsMaina Kiai is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. He has more than 20 years experience working in civil society and human rights in Kenya, Africa and globally.Jeff Vize is communications officer for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly.Notes1. Narrative drawn from multiple media reports, including Beaumont (Citation2011), Ryan (Citation2011), Abouzeid (Citation2011), and “Tunisia Revolt” (2011).2. The five being Tunisia, Egypt (twice), Libya, and Yemen.3. At the time of writing, the third is scheduled for January 20–27, 2014, to Rwanda.4. All of the mandate's documents on the UK, including the report that followed the official visit, can be found at http://freeassembly.net/tag/uk.5. All of the mandate's documents on Georgia, including the report that followed the official visit, can be found at http://freeassembly.net/tag/georgia.6. These documents are all available at the mandate's websites, http://www.freeassembly.net and http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/AssemblyAssociation/Pages/SRFreedomAssemblyAssociationIndex.aspx.7. International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (Citation2013).8. For a discussion of this topic, see Kiai (Citation2013).9. United Nations Human Rights Committee, communication no. 1274/2004, Korneenko et al. v. Belarus (views adopted on 31 October 2006), para. 7.2.