Letter to Baroness Ashton: Ten years on: the EU must reinforce its action on human rights defenders

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Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Common Foreign and Security Policy Vice President of the European Commission

Cc: Suvi Seppalainen, Member of Cabinet, HRVP Stavros Lambridinis, EU Special Representative for Human Rights Wojciech Wiesocki, Policy Officer, Human Rights Policy Guidelines and Multilateral Cooperation, European External Action Service (EEAS) Engelbert Theuermann, Chair, Council working group on human rights (COHOM) Patrice Lenormand, Deputy Head of Unit Governance, Democracy, Gender and Human Rights, DG DevCo

13/06/2014 – Saturday June 14 marks the ten year anniversary of the adoption of the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders (HRDs).i Human Rights Defenders are individuals, groups of people or organisations who promote and protect human rights through peaceful and non-violent means. This is often at great personal risk. On this anniversary, Amnesty International calls on the EU and its member states to take stock of the effectiveness of the Guidelines to date and to renew their commitment to translate them into meaningful action.

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