The UN defines environmental human rights defenders as “individuals and groups who, in their personal or professional capacity and in a peaceful manner, strive to protect and promote human rights relating to the environment, including water, air, land, flora and fauna”.
“For their tireless work in empowering communities and protecting ecosystems, environmental defenders are killed in startling numbers. Murder is not the only way environmental defenders are persecuted; for every 1 killed, there are 20 to 100 others harassed, unlawfully and lawfully arrested, and sued for defamation, amongst other intimidations” – John Knox, former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment.
The United Nations has recognized the threats to environmental defenders and called for their protection. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) builds on this work to support environmental defenders through its Defenders Policy, through which we:
Denounce the attacks, torture, intimidation and murders of environmental defenders;
Advocate with states and non-state actors, including business, for better protection of environmental rights and the people standing up for these rights;
Support the responsible management of natural resources;
Request government and companies’ accountability for the different events where environmental defenders have been affected / murdered.
Forst, in his report, puts it like this: “states must address the root causes of mobilisation” not the mobilisation itself. Indeed, tackling protesters and not oil producers is the democratic equivalent of rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
On 7 March 2024, the ISHR report that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights examined the Escazú Agreement’s role in safeguarding environmental defenders, a landmark move for climate justice and human rights
The Advisory Opinion, which has already garnered a record number of interventions – over 250, a record in the history of the court – will mark a rare instance in which the Court will analyse a treaty that is not part of the Inter-American System, but of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean: the ‘Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean’, also known as the ‘Escazú Agreement‘. For more on this, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/escazu-agreement/
In order to support the protection of environmental defenders, ISHR filed an intervention on environmental defenders, in collaboration with CIEL, FARN, and other international, regional and national organisations and human rights experts.
The obligation to effectively protect EHRDs
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has already recognised that States are obliged to protecthuman rights defenders, arising from the general obligations to protect the rights to life and integrity of the person, among others. However, the Court has yet to expressly establish whether protecting environmental defenders is an obligation that also derives from environmental commitments made by States, as these stakeholders are an indispensable partner in the fight against climate change.
This is an opportunity for the Court to recognise that, in order to guarantee the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, States must protect environmental defenders, as violating their rights also violates the rights they are defending.
The Court is also called to elaborate upon the specific protection needs of Indigenous, women and youth defenders. These groups face particular forms of attacks which must be addressed with cultural and gender perspectives, taking into account not only the particularities of the attacks they suffer, but also of their needs and desires.
In the case of Indigenous groups, the existing jurisprudence of the Court on recognising collective rights, along with the language used in article 9 of the Escazú Agreement – which establishes that ‘persons, groups and organisations’ can defend human rights – provides an opportunity to firmly establish the existence of a collective right to defend human rights, as well as the State’s obligation to set up and adapt their protection measures and mechanisms to ensure that collective protection is available when needed.
Environmental defenders and ‘access rights’
While the express mention of environmental defenders in the Escazú Agreement is extremely important, it is not its main focus. The treaty contains several obligations for States to guarantee access to information, to decision-making spaces and to justice in environmental matters.
These ‘access rights’ are applicable to all persons, but the Inter-American Court must reaffirm and elaborate upon its own jurisprudence related to their applicability for environmental defenders, which states that: ‘defenders cannot properly defend environmental rights if they cannot exercise their own rights of access to information, freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful association, guarantees of non-discrimination and participation in decision-making‘.
This is also an opportunity for the Court to clearly assert that private actors are also under the obligation to respect these rights, which includes conducting meaningful consultations and ensuring the free, prior and informed consent of communities affected by their projects.
The extent of the Advisory Opinion
Latin America is the region with the most and the oldest laws and protection mechanisms regarding human rights defenders, so it was only logical that it would be the first region to adopt the first treaty that expressly protects them.
The Inter-American Court has also been a pioneer in this regard. It was the first regional human rights court to deal with human rights defenders’ cases and order structural reforms to better protect them.
These successes must be celebrated, but there is still work to be done. The coming years will see an increase in three areas, all linked with one another: climate crisis, the amount of environmental defenders, and the risks faced by defenders.
The Court must seize this opportunity and set an example for countries in the region and beyond on how to properly defend the rights of those that defend our rights.
In a landmark paper, the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention warns that the continued State efforts to repress and criminalise environmental protests, including direct action and civil disobedience, are a threat to fundamental freedoms and democracy itself.
The world is currently facing a triple planetary crisis and despite this alarming and unprecedented situation, States are failing to meaningfully address it. In response to this, environmental human right defenders (EHRDs), Indigenous Peoples, peasants movements and civil society from around the world have exercised their right to peacefully protest and participate in demonstrations to pressure their governments into taking concrete actions.
Some of these demonstrations have taken the form of civil disobedience which has been disproportionately repressed by governments and law enforcement officials.
On 28 February 2024 Michel Forst, the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, published a position paper highlighting a trend towards the repression and criminalisation of defenders engaging in environmental protests and civil disobedience in Europe, as well as an alarming toughening of stances against them in political discourse and the law enforcement and judicial practices. [The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters – known as the Aarhus Convention – was adopted in 1998. It aims to protect every person’s right to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being.] See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/aarhus-convention/]
Forst also points to legislative attempts to ban specific organisations – citing France’s Soulèvements de la Terre, Spain’s Futuro Vegetal, or Letze Generation in Germany and Austria. These moves come alongside new or updated laws – including the UK’s ‘2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act’ and Italy’s 2024 ‘eco vandalism’ law -, which the paper says have virtually prohibited certain kinds of protests.
The Special Rapporteur flags how politicians demonise environmental movements engaging in civil disobedience, while national or pan-European intelligence services no longer hesitate to label peaceful groups or individuals as potential or genuine terrorist threats.
The paper also recognises that European States have been disproportionately and increasingly used criminal, administrative and civil measures against environmental human rights defenders recurring to civil disobedience. This includes excessive and disproportionate use of force against them and extensive investigation and surveillance measures.
Other takeaways include the use of social media by State and non-state actors that have contributed to creating negative narratives against EHRDs and the challenges that defenders and activists face to access to justice.
While civil disobedience tactics have been recently used in protests related to climate justice, they have been constantly used to advocate for other legitimate causes including international solidarity, where States have also criminalised such moves.
This paper also comes shortly after the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Right Defenders and it is a good reminder that civil disobedience is and should be recognised as a legitimate form of exercising the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
States must stop criminalising human right defenders exercising these rights and focus on addressing the root causes of their mobilisation.
Since its adoption, the U.N. established in 2000 a Special Rapporteur to report on the situation of HRDs, and more than 60 countries now have laws, policies, or protection mechanisms to protect HRDs.
Some countries, including the United States, sometimes sanction those who target HRDs with financial penalties and visa bans. Mechanisms like these are important, but they can be slow and used selectively, says Michael Breen of Human Rights First in Just Security of 9 December 2023.
Perpetrators often feel so protected from legal accountability that they openly threaten and attack HRDs. In 2022, more than 400 defenders were killed for their human rights work. This year the number killed is likely to be higher…In our work with HRDs, they often recommend public exposure of those who target them as one step that can be taken for their protection.
Breen states that It is on a reputational level that perpetrators can be most vulnerable and provides several examples.
“We are working with HRDs to create a more international approach of social accountability. We will share research on the social circles in which their attackers move, or that they want to join. We will be compiling lists of who has received awards from where, engaging with institutions about publicly rescinding awards, and otherwise publicly causing embarrassment to perpetrators.This is largely new territory for human rights NGOs, and we will work closely with HRDs in assessing any additional risks produced by socially targeting their attackers.“
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On 11 December 2023 Global Witness published a blog post: “Land and environmental defenders protect our planet – but they cannot halt climate change without access to justice“
“For more than a decade, we’ve been documenting and celebrating the hard-fought wins of land and environmental defenders worldwide. Together, their efforts not only help to prevent environmental destruction and human rights harms by companies, but also help to protect the environment from the worst effects of climate change.”
“Defenders globally continue to face reprisals after speaking out to protect the environment. At least 1,910 land and environmental defenders around the world have been killed since 2012, with 177 cases in 2022 alone. Of these killings last year, 88% occurred in Latin America – a region consistently found to be the most dangerous place in the world for activists.”
“Impunity is consistently named as a key driver behind attacks on defenders by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, whose office has repeatedly noted how failures to properly prosecute perpetrators have fueled further attacks. This is no coincidence. Every perpetrator who walks free sends a fatal message to defenders and activists worldwide.”
“The future of our planet depends on the continued stewardship of Indigenous people over their ancestral land, with Indigenous practices cited as protecting 80% of the world’s biodiversity. We simply cannot meet the 1.5°C limit and prevent devastating consequences on human life without the efforts of environmental defenders.”
On 10 November 2023 the Caucasian Knot reported that the ECtHR had found a violation of the rights of Krasnodar activist Nikitin. Alexander Konstantinovich Nikitin is a Russian former submarine officer and nuclear safety inspector turned environmentalist. In 1996 he was accused of espionage for revealing the perils of decaying nuclear submarines, and in 2000 he became the first Russian to be completely acquitted of a charge of treason in the Soviet or post-Soviet era. Nikitin is still engaged in environmental and human rights issues in Russia. He is the head of Bellona Foundation’s Saint Petersburg branch, and is engaged in environmental and nuclear safety projects, as well as in human rights cases. He is a widely recognised HRD, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/D519B52C-D0C3-4B3B-B8F6-798A34B1BF04
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has awarded compensation of EUR 5000 to Alexei Nikitin, a Krasnodar activist. Nikitin was detained at an action against increasing prices for public transport in 2018 and at a rally in support of Alexei Navalny* in 2021.
Navalny’s offices are recognized as extremist organizations and banned in Russia. Alexei Navalny is a founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (known as FBK), an NCO that is included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of NCOs performing functions of a foreign agent. The NCO is also recognized by a court as extremist and banned in the territory of Russia.
Human Rights Watch’ submission discusses the risks climate activists have faced in Australia, India, and Uganda. It focuses on examples of activists under age 32, as requested by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders.
Australia
Following increased climate protest activity in New South Wales (NSW), the government in March 2022 established a new police unit known as the Strike Force Guard. The unit is designed to “prevent, investigate and disrupt unauthorized protests across the state.” On April 1, the state parliament introduced new laws and penalties specifically targeting protests that blocked roads and ports. Protesters can now be fined up to AU$22,000 (US$15,250) and be jailed for up to two years for protesting without permission on public roads, rail lines, tunnels, bridges, and industrial estates.
In 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed three climate protesters who had been arrested and charged under the new laws. These cases indicate that climate protesters are being targeted for disproportionate punishment.
Violet (Deanna) Coco, a 31-year-old activist, took part in a climate protest on April 13, 2022, that stopped traffic in one lane on the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Coco climbed on the roof of a parked truck and stood holding a lit emergency flare. After approximately 25 minutes, NSW police forcibly removed her and the other protesters from the road. Coco was charged with disrupting vehicles, interfering with the safe operation of a bridge, possessing a bright light distress signal in a public place, failing to comply with police direction, and resisting or hindering a police officer. She was also charged under explosives regulations for holding the emergency flare; with an incitement offense for “encouraging the commission of a crime” by livestreaming the protest on Facebook; and for uploading a video of a climate protest she took the previous week, and with disrupting traffic during three previous protests.
Coco pleaded guilty to two charges – blocking traffic and failing to comply with police direction – and not guilty to the other charges. She was released on AU$10,000 (US$6,940) bail, but the magistrate ordered her not to leave her apartment for any purpose except for emergency medical assistance or to attend court. She was also ordered not to associate with any other Fireproof Australia member. Coco spent 21 days under what amounted to house arrest. On May 5, 2022, a magistrate amended her bail and, while she was allowed to leave her property, the authorities imposed a curfew banning her from leaving her address before 10 a.m. and after 3 p.m.
In March 2023, Coco was issued with a 12-month conditional release order after a district court judge heard she had been initially imprisoned on false information provided by the New South Wales police.
In August 2022, the state of Victoria followed New South Wales with harsh new measures targeting environmental protesters at logging sites with up to 12 months in jail or $21,000 in fines. In Tasmania, environmental activists now face fines of $13,000 or two years in prison, while nongovernmental organizations that have been found to “support members of the community to protest” face fines of over $45,000.
On May 18, 2023, the South Australia government introduced harsh new anti-protest measures in the South Australian lower house in the morning and then rushed them through after lunch with bipartisan support after just 20 minutes of debate and no public consultation. The bill would increase the punishment for “public obstruction” 60-fold, from $750 to $50,000 or three months in jail, with activists also potentially facing orders to pay for police and other emergency services responding to a protest or action. On May 30, the laws were passed after a 14-hour debate in the South Australian upper house.
India
In February 2021, Indian authorities arrested Ravi who was sent to police custody for five days. Indian authorities also issued arrest warrants against Nikita Jacob, a lawyer, and Shantanu Muluk, an activist, who were granted pre-arrest bail. The authorities alleged Ravi was the “key conspirator” in editing and sharing an online toolkit shared by the Swedish Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg on social media, including Twitter, aimed at providing information to those seeking to peacefully support ongoing farmers protests. In granting bail to Ravi, the Delhi court said the evidence on record was “scanty and sketchy,” and that citizens cannot be jailed simply because they disagreed with government policies. It added: “The offense of sedition cannot be invoked to minister to the wounded vanity of governments.”
The Indian government has enforced Information Technology Rules that allow for greater governmental control over online content, threaten to weaken encryption, and seriously undermine media freedoms, rights to privacy, and freedom of expression online. These rules put youth and other human rights defenders and journalists at further risk of being targeted by the authorities for their online content.
Uganda
Young people from across Uganda have faced reprisals for fighting for climate justice. On September 25, 2020, Ugandan police arrested and detained for eight hours eight youth climate activists while participating in the global climate strike in Kampala. The police told them election campaigns were not allowed, although the activists repeatedly explained that they were an environmental—not a political—movement. The activists, only two of whom were above the age of 18, were detained in a room for eight hours, questioned, and then allowed to leave.
Human Rights Watch published a report that documented a range of restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and assembly related to oil development, including the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) by the government. Civil society organizations and environmental defenders regularly report being harassed and intimidated, unlawfully detained, or arbitrarily arrested. Human Rights Watch interviewed 31 people in Uganda between March and October 2023, including 21 environmental defenders, and several of whom were under 32 years old.
Many student climate activists protesting EACOP have been arrested and charged with various offences in Kampala since 2021. These protests have been largely peaceful and usually small in scale. Since 2021, there have been at least 22 arrests, largely of students, at anti-EACOP protests in Kampala. Nine students were arrested in October 2022 after demonstrating support for the European Parliament resolution on EACOP and charged with “common nuisance.” Their case was finally dismissed on November 6, 2023, after more than 15 court appearances. Another four protesters were arrested on December 9, 2022, as they marched to the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to demand a re-evaluation of the environmental damage caused by EACOP. One of the detainees was kept at an unknown location until the morning of December 12 when all four were released.
Another protesting student was arrested in Kampala on June 27, 2023, after trying to deliver a petition to the Speaker of the House of Uganda’s parliament. He told Human Rights Watch he was taken to an unlawful place of detention known as a “safe house” with his hands tied behind his back, questioned by plain-clothed security officials about who was providing the funding for the protests, before he was knocked to the floor. He said he awoke two days later in the hospital with serious injuries. On July 11, 2023, five individuals were arrested after protesting EACOP in downtown Kampala.
On September 15, 2023, four student protesters were arrested after a “Fridays for Future” and “StopEACOP” joint protest at the Ugandan parliament as part of the “Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels,” a global mobilization and day of action. They were released on bond five days later and have been charged with “common nuisance.” Their next hearing is scheduled for November 27, 2023. One of the students described to Human Rights Watch being held in a room inside parliament and beaten by uniformed parliamentary security officials and others in civilian clothes with “batons, gun butts, and using their boots to step on our heads” before being taken to Kampala’s Central Police Station (CPS). At the CPS he described plainclothes intelligence officers asking: “Who are your leaders? Among us, who is your leader? How many are you? Who are your leaders in different universities? Who is managing your social media accounts?” They then described being beaten further in CPS cells by other prisoners, one of whom said, “We have order from above to discipline you. You need to stop working on EACOP.”
Human Rights Watch encourages the Special Rapporteur to call on governments to:
Promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect, and protect the work of climate activists, in line with their human rights obligations.
Publicly condemn assault, threats, harassment, intimidation, and arbitrary arrests of activists, and direct security and other government officials to stop arresting, harassing, or threatening activists for protesting or on false accusations.
End arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of human rights defenders, anti-EACOP activists, and peaceful protesters.
Respect and protect the rights of all human rights defenders and civil society organizations to exercise freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, in accordance with international human rights norms.
Where applicable, ratify and implement regional human rights agreements to ensure public participation in environmental decision-making and to protect environmental defenders.
The Environmental Rights Agreement Coalition called on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to develop an environmental rights agreement to increase public participation and protect environmental rights defenders. The Environmental Rights Agreement (ERA) Coalition organised, on 21 October 2023, a side event on the margins of the 77th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission).
Participants shared information on the movement for an environmental rights legal framework for Africa, lessons learned and generated wider support for the ERA movement. Joseph Burke, Head of Universal Rights Group Africa noted some progress in the protection of the environment globally such as the African Leaders Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action, Paris Agreement and the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (ESCAZU Agreement). However, environmental rights defenders continue to face significant barriers to the conduct of their activities. According to Global Witness, one environmental defender was killed every two days in 2022 while the rest were subjected to violence, harassment and criminalisation. In its statement before the African Commission, ISHR reiterated this worrisome trend on the African continent.
Rights of Indigenous communities not recognised
Two panellists reviewed national trends in Kenya and Tanzania on the protection of environmental rights and public participation. In Kenya, Emily Kinama, Research and Litigation Associate at Katiba Institute stated that there do not exist laws which cater for environmental rights in Kenya. Civil society organisations have used public interest litigation to challenge laws that criminalise environmental and land rights defenders but the impact of these actions has, at times, been marginal because of strategic lawsuits against public participation. ‘Indigenous peoples’ rights are not recognised despite the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ judgment in the Ogiek case reiterating the obligations of Kenya to promote and protect their rights. This judgement has not been implemented by Kenya, six years after it was handed down’, said Kinama. She concluded by stating that ‘Kenya should continue to recognise their rights and pass laws and processes following the historical injustice stage and ensure the participation of Indigenous population in the protection of the environment given that Indigenous peoples have been protecting it since time immemorial’.
The relevance of inclusive participation
In her presentation, Miriam Tikoine, from the Maasai Women Development Organization, highlighted the necessity to involve the Maasai, and other pastoral communities in environmental and climate change debates, and to raise their awareness on environmental matters for them to understand the importance of protecting the environment.
Farmers should be trained on how to face climate change issues and adapt their farming practices; youth, traditional leaders and women should understand carbon credit-related concerns so that they can take action. If everyone is not involved, climate change and environmental concerns will remain a matter of just a few.
Litigating environmental rights
The African Commision’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and Focal Point on Reprisals, Commissioner Remy Lumbu, called on States to strengthen human and environmental rights education, transparency and accountability in extractive industries to prevent leonine contracts which only benefit powerful businesses and sacrifice the interests and rights of present and future generations. Environmental rights defenders raise their voices against such contracts and stand against State and business’ practices which endanger the planet. Commissioner Lumbu said that this role played by environmental defenders has been recognised by the African Commission which has established this mechanism to remind States of their obligations, send urgent appeal letters or publish press releases when environmental defenders are in danger. These efforts must be honed by increased litigation activism, before national and African human rights bodies, on the part of NGOs.
We have not had enough communications on environmental rights concerns. NGOs must start challenging behaviours of States before the African Commission or the Court. If 40 NGOs decide to work on one case each, we will have 40 environmental rights-related cases before the African Commission in one year.
The need for an environmental rights instrument
The Coalition called the Special Rapporteur, and the African Commission as a whole, to champion a process geared towards the development and the adoption of an environmental rights instrument.
The impact of businesses has crossed on people leading them into poverty. As civil society organisations, we have realised we need to protect our resources and planet and those who put their lives at risk. Environmental rights defenders are at the forefront but have been victims of several human rights violations including arbitrary killings. With the massive onslaught of business in Africa, our resources and individuals protecting them must be protected by a tailor-made legal instrument as other regions have done.
The Christian Science Monitor of 30 October 2023, tells the story of attorney Dennis Muñoz who seeks to uphold human rights in El Salvador, despite increasingly difficult and dangerous odds.
Víctor Peña/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Mr. Muñoz found a way to channel his deep-seated desire for justice by becoming a lawyer in 2005. But he doesn’t work with just anyone – he goes for the tough cases of human rights abuses. He has defended multiple women who suffered miscarriages but were accused of murder in a nation where abortion is banned without exception. He has fought arbitrary arrests of environmentalists, activists, and average citizens. He could be called a defender of lost causes.
There’s no shortage of demand for Mr. Muñoz’s work in El Salvador, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world. And these days the risks of his work are almost as high as the demand for it.
In March 2022, a monthlong “state of exception” was enacted in response to extreme gang violence. The order suspended basic constitutional rights for those arrested under it. Securing a court warrant before searching private communications was no longer required, for example, and arrestees were barred from their right to a defense attorney and their right to see a judge within 72 hours.
But what started as an emergency measure has become ordinary practice. The state of exception has been extended every month for more than a year and a half now, with no end in sight. Violence has declined dramatically, but critics say the order’s extreme powers are seeping far beyond the gang-related arrests they were meant to address. Even those detained outside of the state-of- exception category are having their rights suspended.
That’s the group Mr. Muñoz focuses on. While he has taken a few state-of-exception cases, he primarily works on human rights violations, with the added burden now of his clients getting caught in the emergency order’s crosshairs. Despite death threats and intimidation, he’s not slowing down. Instead, fellow lawyers doing similarly risky work ask him to be on call if – or, perhaps more likely, when – they themselves are arrested.
… Despite quashing constitutional rights, the move has been overwhelmingly popular for providing a long-elusive sense of calm.
“A tired society, fed up with a lack of answers to the chronic problem of violence, is willing to accept short-term answers,” says Verónica Reyna, director of human rights for the Passionist Social Service, a nongovernmental organization focused on local violence prevention and support of human rights.
Gustavo Villatoro, minister of justice and public security, acknowledges that the state of exception is affecting more than gang members. Over 7,000 innocent people have been arrested, Mr. Villatoro said in August, noting that some degree of error is inevitable. But the consequences of those errors can be grave. Even if a case has nothing to do with gang activity, lawyers can be blocked from visiting their clients in detention, and court hearings can be suspended. Over 71,000 Salvadorans have been arrested under state-of-exception rules. With 6 million people in El Salvador, close to 2% of the adult population is currently behind bars. And many of them, even those not under the emergency order, lack access to a lawyer and may be tried en masse.
Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, tweeted in May that in El Salvador, “public defenders reportedly have 3-4 minutes to present the cases of 400 to 500 detainees.” She warned that “fair trial rights must not be trampled in the name of public safety.”
In the last week of July, Salvadoran lawmakers eliminated a previous two-year limit on pretrial detentions and passed reforms to allow mass trials that could bring together 1,000 individuals in a single appearance before a judge.
“Maybe they won’t let us be lawyers anymore,” says Mr. Muñoz, “at least not private attorneys with independent criteria.”
“The reforms have disrupted the whole system and have turned innocence into an exception,” says Ursula Indacochea, program director at the Due Process of Law Foundation, based in Washington. “Presumption of innocence is disappearing because the roles have shifted. The state no longer has to prove I’m guilty, but now I’m guilty and have to prove I’m innocent,” Ms. Indacochea said in a Sept. 7 radio interview in El Salvador.
Of the 35,000 authorized lawyers registered in El Salvador, Mr. Muñoz stands out for almost exclusively taking cases of human rights violations.
“Things aren’t easy right now,” he says, describing the justice system as “made to convict.” The government is “criminalizing the job of lawyers,” he adds.
Yet Mr. Muñoz looked anything but cautious at a press conference in early July, where he was the only person wearing a suit at the San Salvador offices of the Christian Committee for Displaced People in El Salvador, a wartime human rights organization. He headed to the podium in the ample room, sparsely decorated with pictures of St. Óscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador murdered by right-wing death squads in 1980.
Mr. Muñoz discussed openly a forbidden topic. Five environmentalists were arrested in January over the alleged 1989 murder of a Salvadoran woman during the war. The case was under a court-issued gag order.
“It’s very serious that environmentalists are being unjustly accused, bending [what are considered] the rules of due process anywhere in the world,” Mr. Muñoz said, staring into the cameras.
His clients in this case are former guerrilla members, and two of the accused are part of the Association of Economic and Social Development Santa Marta, known as ADES. One of the country’s oldest environmental organizations, ADES was key in achieving the total ban on mining here in 2017. In a country where almost the entirety of war crimes remain unresolved and defendants in active cases are rarely imprisoned, the arrest of these men was an outlier, apparently due to their vocal criticism of the government. The U.N. called for the activists’ immediate release.
“Dare I say there are crimes being committed against these environmentalists,” Mr. Muñoz said before the media. “It’s nefarious that things like this happen in a country that calls itself democratic but really has a criminal injustice system in place.”
Víctor Peña/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
By late August, Mr. Muñoz had successfully convinced a judge to grant an order for his clients’ release. “It’s a crumb of justice, but we shouldn’t celebrate until there’s a dismissal of proceedings,” he said at a later press conference.
It’s hard to reconcile this image of seeming fearlessness with Mr. Muñoz’s request when the Monitor approached him for an interview: Could the piece leave out his last name? The question reflects a sense of fear that has built up over many years of doing this work.
Mr. Muñoz downplays receiving death threats, normalizing the culture of violence he’s lived under for most of his professional life. “They say they wish that I was extorted or killed because of the people I’ve defended,” he says about the social media threats. He thinks he’s been able to stay off the political radar by censoring his opinions. “I issue legal and technical opinions,” he explains. “Other colleagues have entered the political arena and expose themselves more to attacks.”
On 20 October 2023 Front Line Defenders wrote that between 2 October 2023 and 16 October 2023, human rights defender Javier Medardo Feijoo Villa received several death threats via phone calls and voice messages towards both him and his family. The unidentified perpetrators claimed that they were keeping the human rights defender under surveillance, and maintained that they had access to his data and aware of all his moves within the community.l
Javier Medardo Feijoo Villa is the president of the Estero Piedras community, located in the coastal area of the Molleturo on Azuay province. This community is also part of the San Felipe de Molleturo Commune, an ancestral territory that has been of great importance to the region, given that it has fought to defend against attempts by transnational mining companies to dispossess the people in the region of their land and water sources. He is also president of the North Zone Road Committee, which represents 15 communities in the region. As a community leader, the human rights defender has sought support from the competent authorities to stop criminal acts and illicit activities, mainly assaults and robberies caused by criminal groups that threaten the area. Javier has played an important role in the defence of water, nature and the territories belonging to the communities who he represents.
Since 2 October 2023, human rights defender Javier Medardo Feijoo Villa has been the target of several death threats. Over the course of two weeks, he has received calls and voice messages threatening to kill him and his family. The callers claimed to be keeping the human rights defender under surveillance, and maintained that they had access to his data, as well as all his moves. The level of violence articulated in these threats increased over the weeks, causing the human rights defender to stop responding to messages or calls altogether, and provoking him to block the numbers of those who called him. The threats continued up until 16 October 2023. The human rights defender has been filing relevant complaints with the Prosecutor’s Office about the recent threats and has requested that the Police Commander of Zone 6 take the necessary measures protect him and his family.
Violence against human rights defenders working on indigenous, land and environmental rights has been on the rise in Ecuador; human rights defenders Andrés Durazno and Alba Bermeo were murdered in 2021 and 2022 respectively. Still to this day no one has been charged with their murder.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 