The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has reiterated its pledge to protect individual citizens against abuse by officialdom.
This pronouncement was made in a statement to mark its 40th anniversary on October 17. The GHRA explained that it was founded in 1979 by a group of individuals drawn predominantly from professional, labour, and religious backgrounds in response to the “infamous” referendum that approved replacing the independence constitution by a 14% vote.
According to the association, the vast majority of cases it has handled have involved abuses suffered within the framework of the administration of justice: the death penalty, torture, police brutality, extra-judicial execution, deaths in prisons and police cells, as well as conditions in police lock-ups. Other areas of concern over the years included sexual violence against young women and girls, rights of Amerindian peoples, gender identity and sexual orientation, people with disabilities and people living with HIV and AIDS.
Over the past forty years, the GHRA says it has observed the evolution of the “horizon of rights” and in so doing has recognised the “many ways of being human.” In addition, its third area of work has been to bring awareness about rights through the formal education system, social media, production of campaign materials, training programmes with the police, prisons system, teachers, nurses, HIV carers, persons living with HIV and AIDS, youth and similar training in communities.
An annually elected Executive Committee has guided the affairs of the Association, along with three Co-Presidents, an arrangement, it says, which in the early years reflected the three major sources of membership referred to earlier. However, in later years, a more diversified membership emerged, over eighty of whom have acted as Executive Committee members over the past forty years. It also stated peak membership of over seven hundred members occurred during the late 1980s and the 1990s coinciding with the Guyana Action for Reform and Democracy (GUARD) movement in which the GHRA played a leading role.
The Guyana Human Rights Centre which was formally opened on Inter-national Human Rights Day 1997, provided a more permanent home after almost twenty years in a series of dilapidated or very modest dwellings. And in an era in which Guyanese activism is “overly dependent on external funding”, the GHRA is proud to state that the Centre was built from funds raised by the current and past membership.
The association acknowledged that its forty years as a civil society institution has been the work of “many hands” which a wide range of persons can rightly commemorate. It disclosed that it has been able to operate on modest budgets thanks to the generous volunteer spirit of many people and the solidarity of a range of business, religious and charitable organisations. “While much remains to redress with respect to enjoyment of human rights in Guyana, these many persons may justifiably consider that without their efforts the situation would have been much worse.”
The GHRA’s 40th anniversary was commemorated by an exhibition, held from October 17th to October 24th at the National Library, highlighting some of the events of the association. Mini-exhibitions were also to be mounted at the General Post Office and at regional libraries.
