2004: Creation of Alkarama in Geneva

Alkarama was created as a Swiss association in July 2004 by Qatari and Algerian human rights defenders – Adulrahman Al Naimi, Rachid Mesli and Abbas Aroua – to contribute to an Arab World where all individuals live free, in dignity, and protected by the rule of law. With this goal in mind, the founders decided to address the most serious violations of human dignity, physical integrity and freedom, namely extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention, with the hope that individuals who no longer fear being subjected to these violations can speak and act freely to call for their rights and ensure the rule of law in their countries.

At the time of Alkarama's creation, the United Nations (UN) mechanisms established to protect human rights worldwide rarely acted upon violations in the Arab region. Identifying this gap, Alkarama decided that in order to bring these violations to an end, it would act through the UN's mechanisms specifically. In doing so, Alkarama would also fulfil its objective to contribute to a better understanding of human rights and raise awareness of the UN's human rights protection mechanisms in the Arab civil society, including amongst social groups who often viewed these instruments as ineffective or understood rights as "Western concepts".

By acting as a bridge between the victims in the Arab world and the UN experts, whilst building the capacity of local activists to directly access UN mechanisms and use the decisions they adopt to call for the respect of human rights in their countries, Alkarama gave itself the means to achieve its two main objectives simultaneously. This involves speaking directly and regularly with victims and their families, lawyers or local activists to document individual cases of human rights violations; and submitting these cases to the UN mechanisms for them to request the relevant government authorities to remedy to the situation.

Between 2004 and 2007, Rachid Mesli, at the time Alkarama's sole employee in Geneva, submitted around 400 individual cases to the UN Special Procedures, leading to these mechanisms' action with a number of Arab States, and a noticeable improvement of the situation for many of the victims.

2005: Recruitment of Country Representatives in Lebanon and Yemen and launch of Alkarama’s Website

Following up on its successes and growing needs, in 2005 Alkarama recruits Country Representatives in Lebanon and Yemen in order to follow the human rights situation in these countries and document further cases of violations to submit to the UN. Alkarama's website was launched the same year.

2007: Establishment of the Alkarama Foundation

In April 2007, in the face of an ever-increasing workload and in order to undertake the necessary changes in capital and human resources, Alkarama registers as a Foundation under Swiss law. This change in status aimed to ensure greater stability and transparency, by enabling the Swiss authorities to review the organisation's financial records on a yearly basis.

2007: Working with UN Treaty Bodies

As of 2007, Alkarama began working with the UN Treaty Bodies – in particular the Committee Against Torture (CAT), the Human Rights Committee (HRCttee) and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) instituted by the newly established Human Rights Council (HRC) – by submitting alternative information regarding the Arab States' implementation of the relevant treaties at every stage of their review process. In doing so, Alkarama provides the CAT/HRCttee experts and members of the Human Rights Council access to information from civil society actors as well as concrete cases of violations of numerous articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

2009: Working to strengthen national human rights institutions

In 2009, noting that in the Arab world, national human rights institutions (NHRIs), which should act freely without any ties to the government, often lack independence, Alkarama started working with civil society to provide information to the International Coordinating Committee on NHRIs (ICC-NHRIs).

2009: Launch of the Alkarama Award for Human Rights Defenders - Opening of Cairo Office

Also in 2009, Alkarama launched the "Alkarama Award for Human Rights Defenders", a symbolic reward attributed every year to an individual or organisation that has significantly contributed to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Arab world (to read more about the Award and the previous laureates, click here). Through this award, Alkarama was able to fulfil two objectives: to bring attention to the work of Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in the Arab world, whilst providing the UN, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the media and the general public an opportunity to learn about the individual heroes struggling for the promotion and protection of human rights in the Arab region.

In 2009, the Foundation opened an office in Cairo, after the recruitment of a Country Representative.

2011 During the "Arab Spring" and after: Acting as a major relay of information

As the events of 2011 began to unfold in the Arab World, Alkarama stood alongside those calling for the respect of their rights and became a major relay of information for the UN mechanisms and the media, on the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and then Syria. With Country Representatives present in Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen, as well as several visits to Libya, Alkarama was able to closely monitor the violations occurring, reporting them in real time whilst raising awareness amongst the new groups rising to power of their obligation to respect human rights.

2012-2015: Reprisals against Alkarama

Alkarama's action, documenting and denouncing violations, has made many states in, or with interests in the region resent its work, which has led to reprisals against our organisation (smear campaigns, trials and arrests of members, accusations that the organisation was pro-Israeli, pro-Qatari, protecting terrorists or supporting political groups and other contradictory accusations). Some of the smear campaigns have also targeted some of Alkarama's Founding Members or Staff, in their own capacity and not necessarily because of their relation with Alkarama.

We unambiguously and irrevocably deny all these accusations, but for the sake of full transparency we provide here details of the cases.

2011: Harassment of Saadeddine Shatila, Alkarama's Lebanon Country Representative

On 25 July 2011, Alkarama’s representative in Lebanon, Saadeddine Shatila, was summoned for questioning by the Lebanese Military Intelligence in Beirut, and released seven hours later. The following day, the military prosecutor accused him of having “published information harmful to the reputation of the Lebanese Military” and referred him to a military investigative judge, in clear reprisals for his work documenting cases of human rights violations in Lebanon that he reported to the UN Human Rights Mechanisms.It is only in mid-February 2012, the Military Court investigative judge issued a decision closing the investigation against Mr Shatila, a decision which was later confirmed by the Government Commissioner to the Military Court. This followed a campaign by NGOs as well as an urgent appeal sent to the Lebanese authorities by the UN Special Procedures and a reprisal letter sent by the UN Committee against Torture.

2012: Arrest and detention of Alkarama's Executive Director in Paris

On 16 January 2012, Alkarama's Executive Director, Dr Mourad Dhina was arrested at Paris-Orly airport by the French police, responding to an international arrested warrant issued by the Algerian authorities in 2003, which claims that he “belonged to an armed terrorist group active in Zurich and in Switzerland” during the late 90s. For years, Dr Dhina had had openly called for democratic change in Algeria: he co-founded Rachad, a peaceful opposition group promoting the establishment of the rule of law, the respect of civil and political rights and good governance in Algeria.

On 10 February 2012, three UN Special Rapporteurs sent an urgent appeal to the French Government, expressing grave concerns over the risk that he may be extradited to Algeria due to his political activism and his activities related to the defence of human rights at the Alkarama Foundation.

On 4 July 2012, Dr Dhina was released from the “Prison de la Santé” in Paris following a ruling by a French Court affirming that the documents provided by the Algerian authorities were so incoherent and lacking any evidence that the French Prosecutor qualified them as “grotesque”.

2013: Closure of Alkarama’s office in Egypt and reprisals against Country Representative

Following these reprisals and the general crackdown on civil society organizations in the country following the military takeover in July 2013, Alkarama, just like all foreign organisations, was forced to close its Egypt country office.

On 1 September 2013, an arrest warrant was issued against Ahmed Mefreh, Alkarma’s Egypt representative, who had been instrumental in gathering information about numerous human rights violations in Egypt for submission to the UN human rights mechanisms, in particular the killing of 985 peaceful demonstrators in Rabaa Adawiya and Nahda squares in Cairo in August 2013. The warrant, which accused him of “being a member of an armed organisation” identified Mr Mefreh as working for Alkarama, and was therefore clearly issued as a reprisal for his work as a human rights defender.

On 16 September 2013, an urgent appeal was sent to the Egyptian authorities by the UN Special Procedures, expressing serious concerns over the issuance of an arrest warrant as a result of Mr Mefreh peaceful and legitimate work defending human rights. However, the Egyptian authorities never responded to these allegations.

2013: Listing of Alkarama's co-founder, Dr. Al Naimi, by the US department of Treasury

On 18 December 2013, the US Department of the Treasury named Dr Al Naimi, one of Alkarama’s founders, human rights activist and former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, as “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” under presidential Executive Order 13224.

The US Treasury did not submit any evidence or proof of its allegations against Mr Al Naimi, who denied all charges, and officially notified the American authorities in an affidavit of his willingness to appear before a court to establish the falsity of the charges.

Following his listing, some officials and the media sow some doubts about Alkarama claiming that the organisation was targeted by the US decision, attempting to discredit its work and that of its Arab and international partners, as denounced by the Council of the Foundation. Alkarama’s Executive Director Mourad Dhina commented on this situation in an article, “The Arab world needs bridge building, not terrorist listing”, arguing that the US decision was certainly not the way to go for advancing democracy and human rights in the region.In March 2014, the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen delivered a speech before the Centre for a New American Security on “Confronting New Threats in Terrorist Financing” in which he urged to “Alkarama and other organizations that have a relationship, directly or indirectly, with Nu’aymi to distance themselves from this disgraced terrorist financier”, stating that “[b]enign neglect cannot provide cover for those advocating for human rights while underwriting terror.” Since, Alkarama sought clarification with the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which officially confirmed in a letter that Alkarama “has never been sanctioned by OFAC” but that the designation of Mr Naimi concerned him in his private capacity.

November 2014: Ambiguous Listing of “Alkarama Organisation” by the United Arab Emirates

On 15 November 2014, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported that: “The UAE Cabinet has approved a list of designated terrorist organisations and groups in implementation of Federal Law No. 7 for 2014 on combating terrorist crimes”, among which the “Alkarama organisation”.

Several media outlets reported that this was targeting the Alkarama Foundation; however, our foundation was never notified of such a designation and did not receive any response when seeking clarification from the UAE. As such, the Alkarama Foundation does not consider itself concerned by the listing.

2015: Closure of Alkarama’s Yemen Office

In 2015, Alkarama closed its office in Sana’a, due to a deterioration of the security situation, after the Houthis took over the capital. Human rights defenders were also increasingly at risk of reprisals for their work documenting human rights violations.

August 2015: Arrest of Alkarama’s Legal Director in Italy

Similarly to Mourad Dhina’s arrest in Paris in 2012, on 19 August 2015, Alkarama’s Legal Director Rachid Mesli was arrested at the Swiss-Italian border on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the Algerian authorities in April 2002, which claims that he “had contacts with terrorists in Algeria” and was “a member of a terrorist group operating outside Algeria”, twisting his work as a human rights lawyer working for victims of human rights abuses and their families. On 22 August 2015, the Italian justice decided to put him under house arrest instead of keeping him in Aosta prison, following several calls from various NGOs, institutions and personalities, as well as an important media coverage of his case. On 28 August, three UN Special Rapporteurs sent an urgent appeal to the Italian Government, expressing grave concerns over the risk that he may be extradited to Algeria due to his peaceful and legitimate activities in promoting human rights in his country.

On 15 September 2015, the Turin Court of Appeal lifted the restrictive measure of house arrest against him, stating that the information presented to the Court portrayed him as an individual having “a range of activities aimed at the protection of human rights, hardly compatible with an accusation of terrorism.” On 29 December 2015, the Court of Appeal ruled against the extradition request by Algeria.

Alkarama Today

Alkarama today is made up of ten full time employees in Geneva, and three representatives in the Arab World. It also trains about 10 interns per year in its Legal and Media Departments.