Human Rights Defenders
Indigenous Colombians travel to Cali to demand respect for their human rights and dignity/ Martha Isabel Calle
Why is this happening?
Greater demand and competition for natural resources has led to an increase in land grabbing, resource exploitation and attempts to privatize community managed assets. Activists and journalists responding to these issues have suffered unlawful detention, threats, harassment and break-ins. Murders and disappearances are also alarmingly common. The Global Witness report A Hidden Crisis says that there was one death per week on average in the decade to 2012 . The perpetrators of these abuses regularly operate on behalf of national governments or transnational companies.
Information on these abuses is too sparse to say whether or not this trend is worsening. Reporting mechanisms have become more sophisticated and rights awareness has grown in much of the world, but understanding what is happening is still problematic. The scale of this issue is largely invisible as global monitoring remains very difficult: the relatively small numbers of incidents reported in Africa and Central Asia, for instance, is telling. Local, municipal, regional and even national governments have rewritten laws to give legitimacy to their heinous rights violations, providing legal cover for rights abuses.
Friends of the Earth member groups are continuing their work on this issue. Please check back regularly to see how you can spread the word and offer support.
Friends of the Earth Groups and Human Rights
- Condeming the intimidation of FoE Guatemala
- Land grabbing: Trampling human rights in Uganda
- Denouncing the brutal murder of two fishermen from Rio de Janeiro
- Grave situation of community leaders and academics in Colombia
- Paraguay: Miguel Correa has been released
- Anti-nuclear activists detained under suspicious circumstances in Belarus
- Friends of the Earth International Observer Mission to Palestine
- FoEI Chair Nnimmo Bassey To Be Awarded 2012 Rafto Prize for Human Rights
