Clea Skopeliti reports in the Independent of 27 January 2021 that an 11-year-old environmental and children’s rights activist in Colombia has received death threats after he urged the government to improve children’s access to remote education during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Francisco Vera was sent a death threat from an anonymous Twitter account in mid-January after posting a video calling on the government to better internet connection for pupils learning from home during the coronavirus crisis. The child activist has since been awarded with a letter of congratulations from the UN for his work, personally delivered by a UN representative who also expressed solidarity with the 11-year-old for the intimidation he has faced.
Francisco’s mother, Ana María Manzanare was the first to noticed the threatening messages. Ms Manzanare told Columbian newspaper El Tiempo: “I was the one who noticed that message because I checked all of Francisco’s networks. He had already received many ridicules, criticism and insults for his activism in defence of life and the environment, but he had never been threatened with death.”
Colombian President Ivan Duque condemned the threats of violence, and ordered the police to “find those bandits” who threatened Francisco. Police say the investigation is ongoing.
This blog has always had a keen eye out for reprisals against human rights defenders as I believe strongly that this issue is one of the most crucial facing the human rights movement. See e.g. https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/zero-tolerance-for-states-that-take-reprisals-against-hrds-lets-up-the-ante/. Now it turns out that Florian Irminger, Head of Advocacy at the Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF), received a death threat during the 31st session of the UN Human Rights Council (in March). Evidence strongly suggests that a diplomat working for the Russian Federation in Geneva and attending the Human Rights Council made this threat [see confirmation in link at the end of this piece]. Read the rest of this entry »
(Human rights activist Ou Virak talks to the media outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court last year. Vireak Mai)
A vicious backlash on social media (including death threats) has started against human rights activist Ou Virak in reaction to his call for opposition leaderSam Rainsy to stop inciting discrimination against the Vietnamese. Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, has been attacked on his Facebook page in comments ranging from disappointment to outright vulgar abuse. In a statement released on Wednesday, Virak clarified that Rainsy singled out the Vietnamese in speeches, inciting discrimination against them. Virak said the virulent reaction against him reaffirmed his concerns about using anti-Vietnamese sentiment as a campaign platform in the first place. David Boyle in the Phom Penh Post reports on 19 December 2013 more on how thin and important the line is between opposition and human rights defenders.
The OMCT and the FIDH, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, made an intervention under agenda item 9: “Situation of human rights defenders” at the at the 54th session of African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights [ACHPR] on 5 November.
Human rights defenders were attacked, received threats or were slandered in the DRC, Senegal and Tunisia. In some cases they were even killed, as in the DRC and in Cameroon, in a climate of impunity. Defenders, and in particular defenders of economic, social and cultural rights, also continued to be subjected to arbitrary arrests and judicial harassment in Angola, Cameroon,the DRC, Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia. Obstacles to freedom of association were also recorded, as for instance in Angola, Egypt and Rwanda. A summary is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
Human Rights Watch issues a video and press release concerning a series of death threats made over the last four months to two lawyers who represent clients accused of homosexual conduct. Human Rights Watch on 13 February 2013 sent an open letter to President Paul Biya. Read the rest of this entry »
On 24 January 2013, human rights defender Martha Díaz was targeted again with a death threat.
On 24 January, a package in a manila envelope was delivered to the residence of Martha Díaz, which contained a mass card and note with letters cut from a newspaper. The letters stated: “You are dead, you are a collaborator of the guerilla, we are not joking, one of you is going to die”[translated from Spanish]. On 22 January, the human rights defender had already received a pamphlet sent by a group who identified themselves as “Los Rastrojos”.
Martha Díaz is Director of AFUSODO, an organisation of relatives of victims of extrajudicial executions and a member organisation of MOVICE (National Movement of the Victims of State Crimes). Since its creation, AFUSADO has received some 27 threats. Front Line Defenders issued an urgent appeal https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/20842 on death threats received by Martha Díaz on 14 November 2012, and has issued previous appeals on threats against human rights organisations in the Cauca and Valle del Cauca departments.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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