Module 14: Assessing Threats

When planning and facilitating this session, it is important to consistently apply an intersectional lens to each participant's identity and experiences, and their protection needs. Overlapping systems of discrimination and privilege, such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, racial and/or ethnic origin, economic status/class, marital status, citizenship, age and physical appearance, can have a profound impact on human rights defenders' and their communities' perception of and experience with risks and protection.

Introduction: 10 mins

HRDs receive threats because of the impact their work is having, and most threats have a clear objective to either stop what the defender or to intimidate them.

Defenders have to tread a fine line between careful management of threats and maintaining a sense of safety. Assessing the significance and danger of threats is part of that work.

A threat always has a source (the person who articulates the threat – even if anonymous), and an objective (linked to the impact of the defender's work). Threats aim to achieve major results with a minimum investment of energy. The person making the threat has chosen to do that, rather than take action. Why?

Maybe:

• the perpetrator has the capacity to act, but is concerned about the implications of acting openly
• the perpetrator has limited capacity to act and is hiding this lack of capacity behind a threat in both cases things may change and lead to direct action against a HRD at a later time.

A threat is usually linked to the impact of your work - as such it is a valuable source of information and should be analysed carefully in order to decide on the most effective action in relation to that threat – we will now do that analysis in groups looking at real life situations.
 

Group work: 25 mins

The facilitator can split the group into smaller groups eg 3 groups of up to 5 participants each. The facilitation team may have decided in advance to ask 3 participants to provide an example of a threat they received in each group, eg threat of arrest, online defamation, and physical attack. Alternatively, the facilitator can ask the group to choose an experience of one of their members to discuss (this may require more time).

Each group should discuss and then report back on the threat example chosen as follows:

6 Questions for Threat Analysis

1. What exactly are the facts surrounding the threat?
2. Has there been a pattern of threats over time?
3. What seems to be the objective of the threat?
4. Do you know who is making the threat?
5. After answering these questions, do you think the threat will be realised?
6. What options can an HRD consider to reduce the threat in this case?
    

Feedback/discussion (20 mins)
 

Individual work (5 mins)

Ask the participants to take 5 minutes now to think on your own how this session relates to your own situation. What do you do in your organisation if a threat is received? What do you do if you receive the threat? What do you need to do?
 

Threat reduction (10 mins)

As mentioned earlier, reducing threats is the most difficult aspect of using the Risk Formula. Reducing your vulnerabilities and increasing your capacities are easier because they are under your control.

However, there are some ways you may be able to reduce threats. You can use more than one strategy at the same time. You will have to judge which would work best for you:

1. Face the threat: - examples

• Develop a dialogue with the perpetrators (maybe they do not clearly understand what you do or are not aware your work is legal or underpinned by international standards)
• Find ways to communicate to the perpetrators the high political cost of threatening or attacking you either directly or via others (eg demonstrate you have influential allies at home or abroad)
• Publicise the threats you receive

Note: only use this strategy if you think it is safe to do so. Avoid it if you assess it could inflame the situation.

2. Share the threat amongst a bigger group of people - examples

• Publish controversial information as a coalition instead of just your organisation
• Do not put the names of individuals on sensitive reports etc – just the name of the organisation

  3. Avoid the threat - examples

• Temporarily stop doing the work that is receiving negative attention (or pretend to stop doing it)
• Move away temporarily to a safer place
• Increase your protection measures in other ways, eg
  - Have people accompanying you at all times
  - Change your routes and routines
  - Leave a detailed schedule of your movements with a trusted security contact, who should check in with you regularly during the day and do not deviate from your schedule without informing your security contact

Conclusion:

The facilitator may make some of the following points:

• If the threat is not immediate (in which case you need to act), this process of assessing the answer to each question will shape your protection plan
• Different threats require different tactics, although most will have some physical, digital and psychosocial elements
• There is a distinction between making a threat and posing a threat. Those who make a threat may escalate and carry it out, or may only be able to intimate you. Those who pose a threat may not issue a warning first. It is essential to do a good Actors’ Analysis to consider your supporters and opponents, their capacities and intentions.

Finally, it is important to stress that you cannot foresee the future or know the minds of others accurately, so it is always best to take the approach which seems to you to be the safest.