The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) says its commitment to impartiality and accuracy of information has informed its work over 30 years.
The GHRA has been able to operate on a modest budget because it has always benefited from the generous volunteer spirit of many people and with the solidarity of a wide range of individuals, business religious and charitable organisations, it said. Case-based protection activities anchors its human rights activism and, it has handled cases such as abuses suffered within the framework of the administration of justice, torture, police brutality, extra judicial execution, corrupt magistrates, judges, prosecutors, and attorneys, unacceptable delays and extortionate fees.
Other areas of concern featured regularly in the GHRA reports relate to abuse of the media and freedom of expression, access to National Insurance Scheme benefits, the absence of services to address mental illness, sexual violence against young women and girls and the elderly, land/health and identity rights of Amerindian peoples and rights abuses suffered by people living with HIV/AIDS. Over the years, it has engaged in electoral reform, election monitoring, constitutional reform, reform of laws relating to disabilities, indigenous people, forestry and mining, prison reform, termination of pregnancy, broadcast legislation and national policies relating to HIV/AIDS.
In 1998, the Guyana Human Rights Centre was built which provided a more permanent home after almost twenty years of being housed in a number of dilapidated dwellings. The release said that in an era where Guyanese activism is overly dependent on external funding; it remains a source of much satisfaction that the Centre was built from funds raised by the current and past membership who continue to contribute to its maintenance.
According to the release the Association was founded in 1979 by a group of individuals drawn predominantly from professional labour and religious backgrounds. It was created out of concerns which arose from the dictatorial powers accumulated by the then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. One year earlier, an infamous referendum approved replacing the Independence Constitution (by a voter turn-out of 14%) for one better suited to the prevailing dictatorial realities.
From the beginning the GHRA’s work was influenced by the pioneering human rights activism developed during that period in Latin America where military dictatorships prevailed. The body has since benefited from internships, methodologies and philosophy which shaped that movement with, notably, the imperative that it be politically independent. Along with this, the credibility of human rights activism rests on the twin pillars of impartiality and accuracy of information, it said.
Congrats GHRA but you have become a shadow of yourself. At the risk of being accused of being a PNC or AFC, I’d say the GHRA after 1992 has become more an organisation with a name and not one with action! The activism went out the door! GHRA takes pride in being founded by professional labour and religious background but look what is happening to some section of professional labour and no word from GHRA. Recently there were letters from Sam Hinds and Lincoln Lewis on the discrimination in bauxite but silence from GHRA. Hope GHRA use its 30th to reflect on how its reduced militancy has contributed to the escalating human rights abuses of Guyanese and return to its pre-1992 militancy.
“Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.”
– The Dalai Lama, 1989 Nobel Lecture.
Yeah…bs,safeguarding rights….whose rights?The GHRA is more like an opposition party to any purposeful and reflective thinking person.
We have to be careful with groups like GHRA. What are their social roots ? Some of these middle class outfits with their “professional” leadership inherently are with the status quo which is middle and upper class interests. They want order and discipline so their said interests are protected. Politially, they will garvitate to the right.Protests against so called “abuses by officialdom” vary in intensity depending on where their bread is being buttered.
“Politically independent” ?. No such animal. Talk is cheap. When the chips are down, and the people began to assert themselves by taking back societies from privileged elements like the said uncaring (not all–some of them are idealist and well meaning) middle and upper classes, they will find something to crow about. And I may say, very selective indeed (In Guyana where was the GHRA when inncoent people were being massacred by the criminal Fineman and the string pullers ?)OH yes, I forgot, they wre hollering about “Police brutaliy”.
The reference to Latin Ameica is unfortunate. Some of them, like in Chile actively sided with the military….
they were also mimicking the pee pee pee about lack of democracy during the pnc rule. in fact the pee pee pee were on their bandwagon. what have changed? don’t the pee pee pee like people commenting on their undemocratic and high handed tactics against people that don’t agree with them. suck it up aint reddy ; the fact of the matter is that the ghra is doing a good job calling the pee pee pee out when they try to trample on the guyanese people.
high-a-REDDY; THE MIDDLE/UPPER are NO-CLASS considering their TRACK-RECORDS. Many of the POORER-CLASS are CLASSIER than them!
You are right Reddy, the GHRA should have went after Fineman who was abusing his victims rights. And they should have supported the police in their brutality and heavyhandedness against suspects not yet tried for any crime. Your wisdom is beyond reproof.
30 years, what a joke.
whose rights were they protecting?
SN can you explain >
SN cant and wont answer that so let me::
GHRA is protecting string pullers of the criminal entaprise called Political Masters:
More jokes coming your way.Stay tune.
The GHRA is a very shameless organisation like the PNCR, the two of them can shake hands,,,I have never seen these people made a fair call in their whole 30 years,,,What a shame Mc Cormack and others…
YYYYIKES:::SN print this one ehehehehehehe….
Freespeech: looks I got got de boot from blogging by the dictatorship at SN::::eheheheheheheheh
According to the high and mighty dictatroship at SN….
we must do as they say::::
Protecting whose rights, sure not those who suffered and is still suffering at the hands of those seeking political power by extra parliamentary means.
Non story!Yaaaaawwwwnnn!
what have they done shuuups,Mother of four DIES after beating.
SN, dit you take it upon yourself to type and publish this article;or did the GHRA has forced it upon you as NEWS? This organisation SAFEGUARD and PROTECT human rights the way GPF and GDF SERVE AND PROTECT the citizens. They have HANDELED so many cases.How mant are being solved or having GOOD END RESULTS? The time they would take to mention the kind hearted and good people that donated, they should let the world see the their PROGERSS after THIRTY YEARS..The SILENCE of the GHRA makes me think that they do not EXIS any more or they have become COMVIENTLY dumb.
Whose rights?