Open letter to UK Foreign Secretary on GCHQ surveillance of human rights groups

To the Right Hon Philip Hammond MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Government of the United Kingdom

Re: Surveillance of human rights organisations

Dear Foreign Secretary

We write to you to express our deep concern at the ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal on June 22, 2015, which reveals that the GCHQ carried out surveillance on two important and respected independent international human rights groups illegally.

These two organisations, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Legal Resource Centre in South Africa are well known and widely respected in the international human rights movement.

Though the Tribunal found technical violations in the surveillance process our concern lies with the act of the surveillance itself. If the role of surveillance is to protect the public from serious crime and threats to their security, what possible explanation can there be for surveillance of human rights groups – a practice if carried out by other states would attract the criticism of the UK government. Indeed in the FCO Human Rights and Democracy Annual Report of 2014 you, as Foreign Secretary, were quoted as saying “We call on governments around the world to do more to foster the role of civil society in promoting and defending human rights” – a role which the report warns is under threat by governments around the world squeezing the global “civil society space”. Can we suggest that spying on civil society groups seems at odds with fostering the government’s role “in protecting and promoting human rights” as is later stated in the annual report, and further undermines the security of this space?

Two immediate questions arise from this judgment.

Can you explain the rationale for placing human rights organisations under surveillance?

And importantly, at whose request was this surveillance authorised – which government department or foreign government requested that the surveillance take place and to what effect?

We would appreciate an early answer to these questions.

Organisational endorsements

30		Electronic Frontier Foundation	United States	Jul 01, 2015
29		Bolo Bhi	Pakistan	Jun 30, 2015
28		Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice(CCEJ)	South Korea	Jun 28, 2015
27		Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication(BNNRC)	Bangladesh	Jun 27, 2015
26		Amnesty International	Worldwide	Jun 26, 2015
25		Open Rights Group	UK	Jun 26, 2015
24		Privacy International	worldwide	Jun 26, 2015
23		GreenNet	United Kingdom	Jun 26, 2015
22		Internet Rights and Principles Coalition	International	Jun 26, 2015
21		ICT Watch - Indonesia	Indonesia	Jun 26, 2015
20		Association for Progressive Communications	International	Jun 25, 2015
19		Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet)	Kenya	Jun 25, 2015
18		OpenMedia	Canada	Jun 25, 2015
17		Dataskydd.NET Sverige	Sweden	Jun 25, 2015
16		Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya)	Kenya	Jun 25, 2015
15		Access		Jun 25, 2015
14		Derechos Digitales	Chile	Jun 25, 2015
13		Liberty	UK	Jun 25, 2015
12		Asociación por los Derechos Civiles - ADC	Argentina	Jun 25, 2015
11		Digital Defenders Partners	Ukraine	Jun 25, 2015
10		Global Geneva	Switzerland	Jun 25, 2015
9		ARTICLE 19	Worldwide	Jun 25, 2015
8		Australian Privacy Foundation	Australia	Jun 25, 2015
7		World Wide Web Foundation	Worldwide	Jun 25, 2015
6		Instituto Bem Estar Brasil	Brazil	Jun 25, 2015
5		Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan	Pakistan	Jun 25, 2015
4		ACI-Participa	Honduras	Jun 25, 2015
3		Public Knowledge	U.S.	Jun 24, 2015
2		Privacy and Access Council of Canada		Jun 24, 2015
1		Global Partners Digital	UK	Jun 24, 2015

Individual endorsements

6		Tapani Tarvainen	Finland	Jun 26, 2015
5		Wolf Ludwig	Switzerland	Jun 25, 2015
4		Robert Bodle	USA	Jun 25, 2015
3		Walid Al-Saqaf	Sweden	Jun 25, 2015
2		Marianne Franklin		Jun 25, 2015
1		Jennifer Schulte		Jun 25, 2015