HRD killing
Wednesday 18.5.2022 Honduras - Latest Developments -
Honduras: Lenca and Garífuna leaders killed within two days
On 30th April 2022, human rights defender and Lenca Indigenous leader Justo Benítez Sánchez was shot and killed at his home in the San Isidro community, Santa Bárbara department. He was a renowned leader who defended land and water rights and had a key role in the resistance against a mining project that would affect the Gualcarque River. Separately, on 1st May 2022, Garífuna leader Alonso Salgado was killed in an attack at the house of another Garífuna leader, Zury Quintanilla, in Rio Tinto. Read more
Tuesday 17.5.2022 Colombia - Latest Developments -
Colombia: attacks on HRDs and journalists amid increasing violence
According to data from the Observatory of Human Rights, Conflict and Peace of the Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz (Institute for Development and Peace Studies - INDEPAZ), 59 social leaders and human rights defenders were killed between the beginning of 2022 and 19th April 2022. Read more
Tuesday 26.4.2022 Brazil - Latest Developments -
Brazil: shocking violence on HRDs and journalists continues
On 10th February 2022, nine-year-old Jonatas de Oliveira dos Santos was shot and killed in an attack in Engenho Roncadorzinho, a community in the town of Barreiros, Pernambuco state. According to the local police, the boy was killed in retaliation against his father, Geovane da Silva Santos, a community leader and president of the local smallholder farmers’ association. Read more
Tuesday 12.4.2022 Peru - Latest Developments -
Peru: protests over price rises and violence against human rights defenders
On 3rd December 2021, Indigenous Asháninka leader Lucio Pascual Yumanga was found dead with gunshot wounds in the Puerto Bermúdez district, Pasco department. Rising fuel, fertilizer and food costs led transport workers to call for a strike in late March 2022, in protests that soon spread throughout Peru. Read more | Read in Spanish
Wednesday 30.3.2022 Ecuador - Latest Developments -
Ecuador: Amnesty granted to 268 rights defenders and protesters
On 11th March 2022, the National Assembly approved a bill granting amnesty to 268 people who faced prosecution for their defence of land, Indigenous and environmental rights, and for their involvement in 2019 protests. The bill was approved by the plenary of the National Assembly with 99 favourable votes out of the 125 parliamentarians in attendance. Read more | Read in Spanish
Thursday 10.3.2022 Kazakhstan - Latest Developments -
On the Watchlist: Widespread violations reported during ‘’Bloody January’’
At the beginning of January 2022, thousands of people across Kazakhstan took to the streets in peaceful protests to call for social and political change. The protests turned bloody as the authorities used force to put an end to them, and some parts of the crowd resorted to violence . The circumstances under which the protests evolved into unrest, riots and clashes between protesters and security forces, as well as the role of different actors in these developments, have yet to be fully clarified. However, there are serious concerns about the manner in which the authorities responded to the crisis, in particular their failure to make a distinction between non-peaceful and peaceful protest participants, both of whom were indiscriminately branded ‘’terrorists’’; arbitrary mass detentions of protesters; reports of the excessive use of force, including the use of lethal force against peaceful protesters and passers-by; widespread allegations of torture and ill-treatment, due process violations and disappearances of detained protesters; as well as the prosecution of people for merely peacefully exercising their freedoms of peaceful assembly, association and expression. These events, which constitute the most serious crisis experienced by Kazakhstan during its 30 years of independence, seriously affected civic space in the country. Due to a rapid decline in civic freedoms, Kazakhstan is currently featured on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist. Read more
Thursday 3.3.2022 Pakistan - Latest Developments -
Pakistani journalists, activists remain at risk while new restrictions against online dissent passed
In recent months, the government the has enacted amendments to the cybercrime law which threatens to stifle online dissent while journalists have been harassed, criminalised and even allegedly tortured. Further, a new law to protect journalists has imposed new censorship mechanisms. A social media activist was assassinated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while human rights defender Idris Khattak has been convicted and sentenced after an unfair trial. The judicial harassment of human rights activist Muhamad Ismail has continued, and the authorities have continued to target leaders of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), while enforced disappearances have affected hundreds of families. Read more
Wednesday 2.3.2022 Colombia - Latest Developments -
Colombia: surveillance of civil society and detention of protest leaders
2022 began with astounding violence in the north-eastern department of Arauca along the Colombia-Venezuela border. Over 60 homicides were recorded in the region in January 2022, attributed to the escalating dispute over narcotrafficking routes between armed groups ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional) and dissidents of the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). Read more
Friday 25.2.2022 Burundi - Latest Developments -
President Ndayishimiye pledges to release political prisoners
On 29th December 2021, President Ndayishimiye promised to release political prisoners, in line with the presidential practice of granting amnesty to inmates at the end of every year; the National Congress for Freedom (CNL), Burundi’s main opposition party, accused the government of being responsible for enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests of some of its activists; police officers arrest and detain Bonesha FM journalist Venant Niyomwungere; Read more | Read in French
Thursday 3.2.2022 Philippines - Latest Developments -
Journalists and activists remain at risk in the Philippines as election looms
Ahead of the upcoming elections in May 2022, media groups and journalists are facing libel allegations for reporting on corruption, while a journalist who reported on the ‘drug war’ was killed. A women and child rights advocate has been arrested and detained, and cyber attacks on news websites have been linked to the army. In more positive news, police have charged two people in the ‘Bloody Sunday’ killings, the human rights defenders bill has been approved by the House of Representatives and human rights defender Teresita Naul was released.
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