The organization, financed by the European Union in order to identify threatened lawyers, to determine the ways and means to come to their assistance, to intervening if need be for their defence and to establish each year an annual report, explained to the Hirondelle Agency François Cantier, the president of the association.
This association based in Toulouse (South-Western France) already organized assistance missions in Rwanda, Burundi, Peru, Colombia, Kosovo, Nigeria, Libya, Syria, China and Cambodia.
Of several hundreds of registered members, approximately a hundred lawyers have taken part in the missions organized by LWOB. "The internationalization of justice, criminal in particular, must answer an internationalization of defence", explained Cantier, a defence lawyer before the ICTR of Tharcisse Renzaho, former Governor of Kigali whose verdict is expected at the beginning of next year.
ASF-France was created in 1998, six years after the founding association LWOB Belgium. Ten other national associations exist elsewhere, notably in Mali where the two organizations cooperate for the creation of a legal aid system.
PB/MM/GF
© Hirondelle News Agency