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Network of Concerned Historians

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Network of Concerned Historians
HeadquartersGroningen, Netherlands
Websiteconcernedhistorians.org

The Network of Concerned Historians (NCH) is a human rights network that aims to provide a bridge between international human rights organisations campaigning for censored or persecuted historians (and other concerned with the past) and the global community of historians. Its work consists of two core activities: the collection of information on persecuted and censored historians; and the dissemination of urgent actions for persecuted and censored historians (and others who write about the past).[1][2][3] The NCH publishes an Annual Report covering countries around the globe.[4][5]

Background

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History

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It was created in 1995 by Antoon De Baets, prof. em. of History, Ethics and Human Rights by Special Appointment of the European Association of History Educators (EuroClio) at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands (2014–) and President of the International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography (2022–).[6][7] It was partly inspired by a roundtable titled "Power, Liberty and the Work of the Historian" at the 1995 International Congress of Historical Sciences in Montreal, Canada.[8][9][10] In the Summer of 2020, Ruben Zeeman, a graduate student of Comparative History at the Central European University in Vienna, Austria, joined NCH as co-editor.[11]

Affiliates

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In 2001, it became one of the founding members of the Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR). It has fraternal ties with Academia Solidaria of the Historia a Debate at the University of Santiago de Compostela (since 2003)[12] and with the Scholar Rescue Fund of the Institute of International Education in New York (since 2008).[13][14] It is further affiliated with several international human rights organisations, including Scholars at Risk (since 2007), the Science and Human Rights Coalition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (since 2008), the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (since 2011), the International Students of History Association (since April 2013) and PEN America (since 2024).[15][16][17] Its website is regularly archived by the Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research at Columbia University.[18]

Structure

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Mission

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It is inspired by article 1 of the Constitution of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (1926, as amended in 1992 and 2005): “It [the Committee] shall defend freedom of thought and expression in the field of historical research and teaching, and is opposed to the misuse of history and shall use every means at its disposal to ensure the ethical professional conduct of its members.”[19]

It works according to four principles:

  1. Universality; it works for bona fide historians everywhere, regardless of where they live, in democratic or non-democratic countries...
  2. Impartiality; ...and regardless of who they are, mainstream historians or their opponents.
  3. Independence; it receives no subsidies.
  4. Distance; its presented information does not imply that NCH shares the views of historians (or others) mentioned in it.[20][21]

Topics

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Its work consists of a variety of topics:

  1. History; these include limitations to archival access, legal cases against historians, politicisation of history education curricula and textbooks and censorship of historical research and popular history production (e.g. novels, films, theater, internet).
  2. Memory; these include limitations to commemorations and access to cemeteries and memorials, and the destruction of cultural heritage.
  3. Freedom of Information and Expression; these include laws infringing on the freedom of information and expression, defamation and libel cases and cases on privacy and secrecy.
  4. Right to the Truth; these include the obstruction of the workings of transitional justice and truth commissions, the passing of impunity laws and the forestalling of reparations and reconciliation measures
  5. Activism by historians and others concerned with the past, including politics, journalist and human rights advocacy.[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]

Among the professions represented in their work are historians, archivists, archaeologists, anthropologists, students, high school teachers, librarians, truth commission members, journalists, librarians, authors and film makers.[29]

Activities

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Annual Reports

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It publishes an Annual Report documenting instances of censorship that fall within its mandate that happened globally in the preceding year. The Report is published every August and contains on average 150 pages covering 100+ countries. The Annual Reports have been published since 1995 and are all available on the organization's website.[30] In their 2024 report, the regional distribution was: Europe/Central Asia (36); Middle East/North Africa (16); Americas (14); Sub-Saharan Africa (24); Asia/Pacific (21). Its documentation is based on information provided by trusted news and human rights organizations, including BBC News, Al Jazeera and Human Rights Watch.

Campaigns for Historians

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In addition to regular documentation, it also spreads campaigns on history-related topics with its community of around 3700 subscribed historians. Past campaigns included letter writing campaigns set up by Amnesty International and petitions shared by Memorial (society). In 2024, it shared campaigns for the Sierra Leonean historian and journalist Chernoh Alpha Bah, the imprisoned President of the Truth and Dignity Commission (Tunisia) Sihem Bensedrine, and the detained Talysh historian Igbal Abilov.

Further Resources

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Whereas archiving worldwide censorship and campaigning for history-related topics are the Network's core operations, it also collects information on a variety of other history-related subjects:

  1. Memorial: It compiles a memorial for historians killed for political reasons from Ancient times to the present;
  2. Legal cases: It collects history-related cases, including those related to time, memory and the work of historians;
  3. Defamation cases: It brings together defamation cases targeting or brought by historians. Among its examples were Polish-Canadian historian Jan Grabowski's libel case against the right-wing nationalist Polish League Against Defamation in 2018[31];
  4. Codes of Ethics: It gathers codes of ethics for historians, archaeologists and archivists;
  5. Human Rights Resources: It provides a database of human rights resources for historians, including statutes of international courts, human rights organizations and international treaties pertaining to cultural rights, and organizations and sources documenting the judicialization of history (e.g. memory laws);
  6. UN resolutions: It gives an overview of United Nations General Assembly Resolutions related to history between 1946–Present;
  7. Historians and the Nobel Peace Prize (1901–Present)
  8. List of Historically Informed Political Leaders
  9. Political Figures with a Historian's Background Indicted by International Tribunals

References

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  1. ^ "Mission". Network of Concerned Historians. Retrieved 23 November 2024.
  2. ^ Antoon de Baets. "The Network of Concerned Historians: A Decade of Campaigning" (PDF). History Australia: The Australian Historical Association. Retrieved 23 November 2024.
  3. ^ "Betroffene Geschichtsschreibung". Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 25 February 2003 – via NZZ.
  4. ^ "Network of Concerned Historians : NCH Annual Reports 1995–2024". concernedhistorians.org.
  5. ^ Zeeman, Ruben (25 September 2022). "Around the World, Censorship of Historians is Tied to Attacks on Democracy". History News Network.
  6. ^ Gaete, Catalina (23 October 2018). "Two Decades of Mapping History Under Threat".
  7. ^ "International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography : Board". www.ichth.net.
  8. ^ "The Organization that Fights for Human Rights for Historians".
  9. ^ De Baets, Antoon (2006). "The network of Concerned Historians a Decade of Campaigning". History Australia. 3: 16.1–16.9. doi:10.2104/ha060016.
  10. ^ "Two Decades of Mapping History Under Threat". 23 October 2018.
  11. ^ "Roundtables on 'Censorship in History Education' Address Academic Freedom | Central European University". www.ceu.edu.
  12. ^ De Baets, Antoon (2005). ""Imagination Will Not Breed in Captivity" the Network of Concerned Historians After Ten Years". Annales Aequatoria. 26: 509–512. JSTOR 25836867 – via JSTOR.
  13. ^ "Partner Organisations - IIE Scholar Rescue Fund".
  14. ^ https://concernedhistorians.org/content_files/file/va/news9.pdf
  15. ^ "Network of Concerned Historians : Affiliations". concernedhistorians.org.
  16. ^ "Network of Concerned Historians (NCH)". 8 January 2016.
  17. ^ https://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/
  18. ^ https://wayback.archive-it.org/1068/*/http://www.concernedhistorians.org/
  19. ^ "Constitution – International Committee of Historical Sciences".
  20. ^ https://www.concernedhistorians.org/content_files/file/va/mandate.pdf
  21. ^ "The Organization that Fights for Human Rights for Historians".
  22. ^ "Crimes against History".
  23. ^ "Network of Concerned Historians : Legal Cases".
  24. ^ "Network of Concerned Historians : Historians & Defamation Cases".
  25. ^ "Censoring History Education Goes Hand in Hand with Democratic Backsliding". 19 March 2023.
  26. ^ "Suppression of Public Commemoration is an Early Warning of Authoritarian Abuse of History". 26 February 2023.
  27. ^ "Ruben Zeeman". 28 September 2023.
  28. ^ De Baets, Antoon (2023). "12 Historians and Human Rights Advocacy". Professional Historians in Public (PDF). pp. 299–326. doi:10.1515/9783111186047-012. ISBN 978-3-11-118604-7.
  29. ^ https://www.concernedhistorians.org/va/issues.pdf
  30. ^ "Network of Concerned Historians : NCH Annual Reports 1995–2024". www.concernedhistorians.org. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
  31. ^ "Holocaust Scholar Sues Group That Said He 'Slandered' Poland". New York Times. 16 November 2018.
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