Building a protest movement massive enough to topple a president used to take years, even decades. The internet changed that, as we discovered over in the Arab Spring. In this episode someone who was at the heart of a mass mobilisation in his home country, Guatemala, explains how an almost accidental series of choices and connections in 2015 put him and a small group of others at the head of a movement that - under the slogan, Justicia Ya! - Justice Now! - forced the country’s president to resign. Gabriel Wer tells host Akwe Amosu of his initial bewilderment at what he and fellow organisers had unleashed, his determination to achieve its goals, and then the growing recognition that long-term change was going to need a different approach. 

And in the Coda, a social justice activist in Hong Kong explains how rock climbing gives him a powerful metaphor for weathering defeat and nurturing resilience.

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When human rights and social justice activist Johnson Yeung wants a break, he exchanges Hong Kong’s forest of skyscrapers for the real thing, a nearby forest of trees and a rockface that he and fellow climbers can scale, finding trust in mutual reliance, the resilience to fall and recover, and - on reaching the top - a breathtaking view.

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Palestinian activist Issa Amro grew up studious and apolitical – until his university was permanently shuttered in 2003 by the Israeli military in response to the second intifada. The campaign he and others launched to get it reopened was successful but as the full reality of the Israeli Occupation struck home, he decided to commit to non-violent activism and has been organizing in his community ever since. Almost two decades on, a senior UN official has called 2022 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005. In this episode, Amro explains how he and others have, over the past two decades, built a resilient movement, focused especially on young people, to resist the violent seizure of Palestinian property by illegal settlers and harassment by Israeli security forces.

And in the Coda, a Colombian human rights worker tells us how dancing Salsa lifts her spirits. 

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Vivian Newman Pont is a human rights advocate and researcher at Dejusticia in Colombia. The work exposes her and her colleagues to the impact of war and impunity and inevitably takes a toll. When things get too much, Vivian fires up some music and gets out on the dance floor.

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Strength & Solidarity returns December 8 with a fourth season of insightful interviews with human rights advocates and defenders. As always we’re hearing about the tools and tactics activists are choosing and using in these challenging times and asking what works, and why? 

First up, Palestinian organizer and activist Issa Amro tells us how non-violence and the video camera are putting power in the hands of Palestinian communities and how young activists are being prepared to succeed as leaders in the resistance. From Guatemala, the story of how a massive social movement emerged almost by accident. And three women leaders from the US, Sudan and  the Philippines come into our studio to talk about the global backlash against women’s rights. And later in the season, we have episodes on rights and justice work in Colombia, Egypt, Nigeria and Israel - with more to come. Not to mention “The Coda” – a pause for reflection by human rights people about  how they find respite, solace and energy to do their work.  Join host Akwe Amosu and her guests on Thursday December 8.

Relative to other marginalised people, the disability community had to wait a long time for their rights to be globally asserted. But the adoption, 15 years ago, of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) marked a major step forward, from the language of charity and medical strategies to the language of rights. Now widely ratified, the Convention has had a remarkable effect: expanding protections and bringing together people from different corners of the disability movement to shift deeply entrenched assumptions about agency and capability. In a period when many have questioned whether investing in standard-setting is worthwhile -often arguing instead for a radical disruption of institutional approaches -the human rights framework seems successfully to have given agency to a community that badly needed it. Alberto Vasquez is a Peruvian lawyer with a history of activism around psychosocial disabilities in his own country and in the Latin American region. He reflects on both the solidarity and vibrant activism that emerged, and says even those under guardianship or coercion by mental health authorities are seeing the possibility of change.

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The spontaneous welcome given by Poland’s citizens to Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion drew applause all over the world. But there was another, less positive story –the open hostility shown to the black and brown, queer and Roma people also trying to cross to safety. Or worse, the brutal treatment being meted out by border guards to refugees from places like Syria and Afghanistan who were at that same moment trying to enter Poland from Belarus. Activists trying to support those who arrive are accustomed to expressions of xenophobia and racism and to politicians stigmatizing minorities to build their base. But could deeper empathy and more support be possible, with the right strategies? Reflections from Anna Alboth, of the Minority Rights Group on what does and doesn’t work to increase solidarity. 

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For minority communities it can be exhausting to sustain morale and self-confidence in the face of exclusion and stereotyping. Raheel Mohammed, director of Maslaha, a London-based organization dedicated to defending and supporting muslim communities, has been moved and inspired by the writings of Saidiya Hartman on waywardness –as a strategy to refuse oppression, even when you are a incarcerated.

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Eighteen months ago, Shaharzad Akbar was still leading Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission and gave this podcast an insight into what it meant to try and infuse rights into the laws, institutions and culture of a country that was a crossroads for conflict and competing foreign interests. She acknowledged that for many, the language of human rights felt like a foreign import but she believed citizens’ hopes and expectations of government had fundamentally changed in the past two decades. The US was planning to withdraw its forces and talks with the Taliban in Doha were under way. Akbar worried about their return to power might mean, especially for women’s rights. Fast forward to today, the Taliban is in charge and worst fears with regard to rights and freedoms have been confirmed. Shaharzad Akbar, now exiled, returns to reflect on whether the Taliban will be able to enforce its regressive authoritarian rule and what happens now to the struggle for rights. 

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Last month, Ferdinand Marcos Junior was elected president of the Philippines, thirty-six years after his father was chased from office by the People Power revolution in 1986.  For activists like Mary Jane Real, this is grim news, bringing back memories of brutal rule, torture and impunity. But an essay by Rebecca Solnit brings her a surprising insight.

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