On genocide, humanity, censorship and the role of lawyers🕯️
What does it mean to be human.
That’s what I wrote this morning, and it was a declarative sentence, not a question.
Today, the announcement that the Israeli cabinet is due to approve a ceasefire in Gaza is on my mind, and all my heart pulls towards the hope that peace comes soon, but that is mixed with sadness for everything already past, and some fear about what is yet to come.
Also, guilt. 🍉
About a year ago, I was commissioned to write a brief reflection on Holocaust Memorial Day for an audience of Scottish lawyers. It was briefly published online on 26 January 2024, before it was taken down because of a complaint from someone senior in the organisation.
I was told that I was free to self-publish what I had written; but I was too hurt and angry to do that. In hindsight, I wish I had published it last year.
A year on, yesterday, I took it out to have a look and I thought there might still be some value to publishing it now. Sometimes it is good to return to our reflections on the future, and get honest about where we got it right and where we got it wrong. Sadly, I think I got this one right – but will let you be the judge.
(If you don’t feel like wading through the article, feel free to scroll down to the postscript and reflections at the end …)
Fragility of Freedom: Reflections on Law and Lighting the Darkness for International Holocaust Memorial Day 2024
What is IHMD?
Every year, on 27th January, we mark International Holocaust Memorial Day, in memory of the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, as well as the millions also murdered under Nazi persecution of other groups. We also remember the victims of more recent genocides, including in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
To mark this day, we light a candle – in memory of those who perished, and also in solidarity with millions of people who are, today and in this moment, sitting in their homes, in the dark and the cold, facing state-led persecution and the injury and death of their families because of something that made them who they are, for example their ethnicity or faith – for example, the Rohingya, Uyghurs, Yazidis, Ukrainians and Palestinians in Gaza.
Why Does IHMD Matter?
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, a charity funded by the UK Government to support and promote IHMD in the UK, was founded to help us “learn from genocide – for a better future”. The Trust supports events that bring people together to learn about the past, in the believe that doing so will promote empathy and renew our hope and resolve to take collective action for a better future.
This year, in the context of the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza, the Trust has issued a statement which deplores the death of innocent civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, and calls for an end to the conflict. They have taken special care to remind organisers:
“The men, women and children murdered were of many different faiths, ethnicities, classes and many other different characteristics, but they all shared a common humanity. At a time of division remembering our common humanity is more important than ever.”
Holocaust Memorial Trust, Guidance to Organisers in Light of the Conflict in Israel and Gaza, January 2024
The Fragility of Freedom: Lessons from History and the Role of Law
Every year, the Trust chooses a theme and this year they have focused on: The Fragility of Freedom, noting:
“Freedom means different things to different people. What is clear is that in every genocide that has taken place, those who are targeted for persecution have had their freedom restricted and removed, before many of them are murdered.”
We have seen states use identity-based restrictions of freedom historically, and at present, in order to control populations, and the use of these types of restrictions are now widely recognised to form a crucial early part of the Ten Stages of Genocide. Taking, for example, solely the example of restrictions on freedom of movement that have preceded significant and large-scale harm, injury and death of populations:
- During WWII, as the German army started occupying European countries, Jewish people in those countries were often forced into ghettos, living in cramped conditions and often doing hard labour for the Nazis or German industries.
- The Rwanda Genocide in 1994 when Tutsis were ordered by state radio broadcasts to stay in their homes – we now acknowledge this order enabled perpetrators to target and kill Tutsi households – ending in the murder of over 1 million Tutsis in just 100 days.
- Uyghur Muslims in China are forcibly relocated to Xinjiang Province and since 2017, forced “re-education” in internment camps with the aim of eradicating Uyghur cultural identity. It is estimated that up to 1.8 million people, not only Uyghurs but also Kazakhs, Krygyz and other ethnic Turkic people have been detained in these camps.
- Since 2005, the 2 million Palestinians living as refugees in the Gaza Strip, an area only 25 miles long, have been subject to a total blockade imposed by the Israeli state – by land, sea and air. Today’s estimates are that 25,000 people have now died in Gaza since October 2023, approximately 2/3 of them women and children.
The Role of Law: In Whose Service?
As members of the legal profession in Scotland, we should pause to reflect on the role of law in preventing or redressing genocide – or even, in its use in halting steps towards an outcome that might one day be recognised as genocide.
We must recognise that the law has often been used in the past to legitimate and reinforce targeted discrimination, ill treatment and killing that has preceded genocide, rather than as a force that protected our common humanity and our better values.
In every one of the above cases, the state actors imposing divisive restrictions like these have contested claims that their actions were unlawful or unjustifiable – maintaining their actions to be lawful, necessary and legitimate.
Furthermore, very often, in recent times, state actors who have justified imposing restrictions of freedom that directly impact, or disproportionately impact, specific populations have found ways to do so within the law – relying on established exclusions to the application of the law – for example, the interests of combatting terrorism (protecting public security).
A reflection, therefore:
Studying the history of genocide suggests that the global international human rights law as it stands, and leaving state actors to hold themselves to account for breaches of people’s rights – be that the Genocide Convention, or the European Convention on Human Rights – is not, and never will be sufficient to protect us from intentional, state-led persecution of minoritised groups, or the erosion of mechanisms of accountability, like the rule of law.
And therefore, we require both international courts and tribunals – as well as curious, interested and critical global public opinion and movements – to continue to independently scrutinise states that seek to restrict peoples’ freedoms and, where necessary, hold them to account.
Bringing it All Back Home: The Role of Lawyers in Scotland and the Fragility of Freedom at Home
So what can we do?
First, we can acknowledge our common humanity and the interdependence of our communities, and look for ways – large and small – of engaging in the sharing, learning and reflection that the Trust seeks to encourage on IHMD.
The conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and Bosnia may feel far, in time and place, from Scotland. But as our world grows ever smaller, you may find that connections between you and these conflicts only one, or two, relationships apart.
Second, we can take collective action for a better future.
We can take action to support people facing persecution around the world, by: lighting a candle in remembrance and solidarity, donating to humanitarian efforts to sustain and support people in current conflicts and using our own legal and professional skills, resources and networks to amplify the calls for justice from victims of discrimination and help preserve the evidence of harmful and genocidal activities.
And finally, we can take collective action at home, too.
The Trust goes on to warn that our own freedoms are fragile, too. They urge us to remain vigilant where states seek to restrict our other civil liberties, as a means of reducing challenge to unlawful state action and the ability to hold the state to account. They add:
“Not only do perpetrator regimes erode the freedom of the people they are targeting, demonstrating how fragile freedom is, they also restrict the freedoms of others around them, to prevent people from challenging the regime.
Despite this, in every genocide there are those who risk their own freedom to help others, to preserve others’ freedom or to stand up to the regime.”
We have seen, in the past several years, attacks by UK Government figures on lawyers and the rule of law, and on the independence of our judiciary – and we have seen the law societies across the UK denounce these attacks and vigorously defend the work of public lawyers who act on behalf of individuals holding the government to account.
We have also seen UK legislation with the aim of restricting the right to protest, and a concern that increasing restrictions to the right to protest, together with an attempt to discredit the work of public lawyers and an independent judiciary, may herald the start of an erosion of state accountability that ends with increasing loss of freedoms for us all.
So in conclusion, as members of the legal profession in Scotland, and of wider global legal community, we can collectively do our part – at home and abroad – to urge governments and institutions to uphold the rule of law, to protect the human rights defenders who defend the freedoms of others and to remain mindful of the fragility of our freedoms and vigilant over the small flames we tend in the darkness.
Jen Ang is a human rights lawyer and co-founder of JustRight Scotland. She is also an ambassador for Human Rights Measurement Initiative and founder of Lawmanity, a legal consultancy that seeks to make the law more equal for humans.
Postscript
- The current estimated death toll attributable to the 15-month conflict in Gaza is now 46,707, approximately 18,000 of whom are children. This represents 1 in every 50 people in Gaza. Al Jazeera, 15 January 2025.
- South Africa instituted proceedings at the International Court of Justice pursuant to the Genocide Convention, to which both Israel and South Africa are signatories, accusing Israel of committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza. In March 2024, the ICJ imposed interim measures ordering Israel to halt its assault on Rafah. Israel did not, in the end, abide by this order.
- In November 2024, the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant (Israeli Minister of Defence 2022-24) for the alleged commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza strip from October 2023.
🕯️Thanks for reading The Long View again this week and it’s okay if you didn’t make it to the end of the article! This is a tough subject, especially so when the news is so bleak and difficult to process at what is already a dark and unforgiving time of year.
Final reflections:
I’m glad I decided to publish this article today.
The freedom to think, write and dream of alternate futures and to engage in discourse that aims to make sense of our present – in all its imperfect, contradictory and confused glory – is precious.
And one we should use wisely, remembering that our freedoms exist to uplift, nurture and protect our common humanity. 🕯️
First published on LinkedIn on 17 January 2025:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/genocide-humanity-censorship-role-lawyers-jen-ang-m1qee/
