"If you don't speak, you won't be heard," Helmut Schmidt once said. He was wrong. Because who is allowed to speak at all and who is listened to is a question of privilege. And all over the world, authoritarian regimes are silencing the very people who raise their voices. Journalists and human rights activists are defamed, threatened, obstructed in their work or killed. Fundamental rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, which were enshrined unanimously by the UN General Assembly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, are under threat. The situation of media professionals has deteriorated worldwide - including in Germany.
Fortunately, there are courageous people who are standing up to these threats. One of them is the Turkish human rights activist Hatice Cengiz. Her fiancé, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018. The US intelligence agency CIA came to the conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) personally ordered the murder. However, no one has yet been brought to justice. In April 2022, Turkey transferred the trial to Saudi Arabia, effectively ending the proceedings. Since the murder, Hatice Cengiz has dedicated her life to the fight for press freedom, human rights and justice. For this reason, she will give the Helmut Schmidt Lecture 2022 on 10 November under the title "Speaking up!".
We could always learn from her commitment. The year 2022 has given us a particularly topical reason to do so. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, governments in Europe and the USA have been endeavouring to secure their energy supply without Russian imports. Politicians such as US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have taken this opportunity to meet again with MBS, who was politically isolated following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
In its coalition agreement, the German government announced that it would shape Germany's foreign policy based on values. It states: In the "systemic competition with authoritarian-ruled states", human rights form the compass. This threatens to take a back seat in the face of energy interests. But values and interests are not mutually exclusive; and attacks on human rights are among the main causes of wars and instability worldwide, which also affect German security interests. So now is the time to listen to those who are raising their voices - like Hatice Cengiz.