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Brief Biography of Lawyer and Human Rights Advocate Rosemary Nelson

On Monday, March 15, 40-year old lawyer and human rights defender Rosemary Nelson was killed by a car bomb in Lurgan, Northern Ireland. The attack took place a short distance from her home, not far from the school attended by one of her three children.

A solicitor in private practice in the turbulent region for the last twelve years, Ms. Nelson was drawn into Northern Ireland's violent sectarian conflict as a lawyer and human rights defender. She sought basic due process for her clients and legal protections for the community she represented. Throughout the last decade, Rosemary Nelson frequently represented suspects detained for questioning about politically motivated offenses. Her clients were arrested under emergency laws and held in specially designed holding centers, and were often interviewed without access to an attorney.

One of a small number of solicitors brave enough to take up such sensitive cases, she was frequently the target of harassment, death threats and intimidation. Her life had been threatened by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) on a number of occasions, primarily via her clients. In his 1998 report, Param Cumaraswamy, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, paid special attention to these death threats and, in a televised interview, suggested that Ms. Nelson's life could be in particular danger. Cumaraswamy's report made numerous specific recommendations to the United Kingdom government concerning police threats against lawyers -- none of which, a year later, the government has implemented. At the time of Nelson's death, Cumaraswamy was in the process of updating his report to reflect recent developments.

In September 1998, Ms. Nelson was invited to testify before the U.S. Congress, at the House International Relations Committee's investigation into the human rights situation in Northern Ireland. In her testimony, she explained she had received "several death threats against myself and members of my family. I have also received threatening telephone calls and letters. Although I have tried to ignore these threats inevitably I have had to take account of the possible consequences for my family and for my staff."

Human rights groups around the world have expressed profound outrage and sadness at the killing.

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