SRT Grantee News – July

Grantee news:

Strategic Initiative grantees:

• Human Dignity Trust, and Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE) – whose application will be considered in September under Combating Homophobic Laws – led a landmark case in which the High Court of Saint Lucia ruled in favour of decriminalising consensual same-sex relations. It was a significant victory for activists and has reduced the number of countries that criminalise same-sex intimacy to fewer than 65.

Programme grantees:

• A ClientEarth-supported case has led to a ruling that could set a precedent across Europe, after a Spanish court ruled that authorities failing to properly address water pollution from industrial livestock are violating people’s fundamental rights and should be held accountable. Scientists had found that a local reservoir contained dangerous levels of toxic chemicals, along with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
• ECCHR(European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights) helped in securing the conviction of a Syrian military doctor in Germany, of war crimes and crimes against humanity. His crimes included torturing, sexually abusing, and killing detainees in Homs and Damascus between 2011 and 2012 – he was sentenced to life in prison.
• Civitas Maxima initiated the criminal complaint that reopened an investigation into alleged crimes by a Spanish national during Sierra Leone’s civil war (1991–2002), including involvement in the blood diamond trade and complicity in the activities of the Revolutionary United Front. The organisation also played a key role in documenting evidence and supporting survivors.
• The National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders in Kenya (The Defenders’ Coalition) secured bail for three human rights activists who were arrested after protests in Kenya, which the police had repressed with excessive and lethal force. Earlier this year, the organisation was awarded the 2025 Fr. Kaiser Human Rights Award for “their tireless efforts in protecting and defending human rights”.
• Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) has been named by One World Media as the recipient of its Press Freedom Award. This award honours an independent media organisation from the Global South that uses journalism to spotlight urgent social, political, cultural, and economic issues.
• OMCT (World Organisation Against Torture) has launched The Global Torture Index – developed in collaboration with over 200 local civil society organisations. It will serve as a critical resource for policymakers, governments, media, and activists, offering actionable recommendations, measuring progress and regression, and identifying good practices.
• Off-Biennale, an independent art biennale, closed at the end of June, following over 10,000 visits to 15 exhibitions across Budapest showing the work of 81 artists. A review in Texte Zur Kunst highlighted how the anti-institutional framework fuels politically engaged art and resists Hungary’s right-wing cultural repression through humour and collective performance.
• European Network on Statelessness (ENS) and The Macedonian Young Lawyers Association (MYLA) have been collaborating under an EU initiative, the Roma Integration Phase III Programme. It provides legal aid, advocates for systemic reform, and ensures access to rights for stateless people: ‘Stateless for two generations’: BB’s story and the fight to end statelessness in North Macedonia | European Network on Statelessness
• Youth Initiative for Human Rights, KROKODIL and Heartefactall took part in Srebrenica genocide remembrance events. Youth Initiative for Human Rights held a public candle-lighting ceremony and an educational walk in Belgrade. KROKODIL organised a literary reading and panel discussion featuring regional authors. And in May, Heartefact put on their play, They Are All Gone, which explored personal and collective narratives connected to the genocide, and won its director the “Ljubomir Muci Draškić” Award.

Gifts:

• Physicians for Human Rights Israel has released a report that offers a detailed legal-medical analysis of Israel’s ongoing military assault in Gaza, concluding that it meets the criteria for genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which Israel is a signatory.