“How do you want to hold yourself?” With this question, Mahtab Hussain asked young men in the UK to stand in front of his camera. Selections from the resulting portrait series “You get me” can be found in our recently published annual report. At our launch event, the artist came in person to provide further insight into the genesis of the series, some of which now bedecks the walls of the ECCHR cafeteria (see photo). The direct gaze into the camera, for example, held by all the young men in the photos, is inspired by portraits of rulers from the Tudor era. Who is permitted to have such a self-confident stance? Who is denied this, and on what grounds? These are questions that touch on the core of our work: the right to have rights.
Born in Birmingham, Mahtab Hussain experienced as a teenager just how severely this right is called into question by racist attributions. While he naturally saw himself as part of British culture and society, full participation was repeatedly denied him, due to the assumed religion or culture of his Pakistani ancestors. This racism still afflicts the lives of members of the Hussain family after five generations, as is the case for so many others. For at least as long, in all countries, those in power have used racism as one of several levers to reduce universal rights to privileges. Such relativization of rights is not only practiced by autocrats, but increasingly also by democratically elected governments. This tendency is currently on display, for example, in the illegal automatic returns of people seeking protection at Germany's external borders. Or in an open letter to the European Court of Human Rights, in which nine EU heads of state seek to authorize themselves with the power to exclude certain people from the scope of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in certain circumstances. All in all, a timely moment to pose the question: “What stance do you want to take?”
Read our 2024 Annual Report
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