Principles
Our principles are operational commitments — shaping every decision, every EU submission, and every engagement with the defenders we support.
Core principles
These principles emerge from deep engagement with the defender community and from an honest reckoning with how organisations can cause harm even with the best intentions.
The right to speak, dissent, organise, and challenge power is the foundation of all other rights. PHRD (Protect Human Rights Defenders) defends those who exercise it — at personal cost to themselves — and advocates for legal protections at the EU level.
Accountability for perpetrators and redress for victims are non-negotiable. PHRD works to ensure EU mechanisms — sanctions, judicial processes, parliamentary inquiries — are used to enforce this standard.
We create environments where defenders can act, organise, and heal — not merely 'safe' spaces, but brave ones where difficult truths are spoken, solidarity is real, and courage is met with support.
Every decision PHRD makes is guided by the needs, safety, and expressed agency of defenders themselves. We do not speak for them — we create conditions and EU-level pathways for them to speak.
We recognise that defenders carry profound trauma. Our work integrates trauma-informed approaches in all direct engagement — care that goes beyond the legal and political into the human.
A strict do-no-harm standard applies across all our work — in documentation, public communications, and EU advocacy — ensuring our actions never increase risk to those we support.
Oppression is rarely one-dimensional. Defenders face persecution at the intersection of disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, and more. PHRD is committed to protection that sees and responds to compounded vulnerability — not just the activist, but the whole person.
Privacy is not a technical preference — it is a human right, and for defenders it is a matter of survival. PHRD recognises the particular vulnerability of human rights defenders to surveillance and advocates for the universal adoption of post-quantum end-to-end encryption as core internet infrastructure. We oppose any measure that would weaken encryption — under any justification, including child safety.
Trauma-informed practice
Defenders carry burdens most people cannot imagine. Trauma-informed practice means we do not treat them as information sources to be extracted or cases to be managed. We design every process with this in mind — including how we handle information for EU submissions and how we support our own team.
Intersectionality
Persecution rarely strikes along a single axis. A defender who is also LGBTQ+, a person with disability, a racial or ethnic minority, or belongs to multiple marginalised groups faces compounded risks — from both state and non-state actors — and is often the least served by existing protection mechanisms.
PHRD takes an intersectional approach to all its work: in casework, in EU advocacy around non-discrimination frameworks, and in how we design support systems that actively reach those most overlooked. This is not an add-on — it is foundational to what it means to protect defenders meaningfully.
Brave spaces
Safety cannot always be guaranteed — and an environment built on that promise can paradoxically avoid the difficult conversations defenders most need to have.
Brave spaces are built on honesty, care, and solidarity — where difficulty is engaged with courage, disagreement is welcomed, and vulnerability is met with respect. This shapes how PHRD runs its programmes and engages with the defender community.
Safe spaces ask: will this hurt? Brave spaces ask: can we face this together?
— PHRD approach to community facilitation