Global Witness | Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

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Berta Caceres, human rights defender, assassinated today in Honduras

March 3, 2016

A sad day for Honduras and all human rights defenders: today, 3 March 2016, Berta Cáceres was murdered by as yet unknown assailants who broke into her home in the city of La Esperanza in the early hours of the morning. One week prior to her assassination, the defender had denounced the killing of 4 leaders of her community as well as threats against her and other human rights defenders, at a press conference.

BertaCaceres_Credit_GoldmanPrize

Berta Cáceres was one of the most prominent human rights defenders in Honduras and a Lenca indigenous woman who, for the past 20 years, had been defending the territory and rights of the Lenca people. In 1993, she co-founded the Consejo Civico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras – COPINH (http://www.copinh.org/) (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras), which led fierce campaigns against illegal logging and mega-projects for their detrimental effects on the rights of indigenous peoples in the country. She faced off – and often won – against illegal loggers, plantation owners, multinational corporations, and dam projects that would cut off food and water supplies to indigenous communities. (e.g. https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/berta-caceres-in-honduras-continues-to-be-harassed-in-spite-of-court-order).

The human rights defender was a finalist for the 2014 Front Line Defenders Award [https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/es/programme/fld-award] and in 2015 she received the Goldman Environmental Prize. She had been a beneficiary of precautionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) since 2009. Her harassment was followed closely by Front Line and others.

Other human rights defenders (including members of COPINH) have been targeted in the past. The killing of human rights defenders and impunity for the perpetrators have been documented by many organizations. In this blog alone:

https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/assassination-of-human-rights-defenders-proceed-in-honduras-venezuela-peru-colombia-and-the-philippines/

https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/02/27/alarming-criminalisation-of-human-rights-defenders-in-latin-america/

“the most dangerous place to be an environmental activist was actually Honduras, according to Global Witness” [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/killings-of-environmental-human-rights-defenders-up-again-compared-to-last-year/]

Honduras: Berta Caceres, human rights defender & indigenous leader who opposed Agua Zarca dam, assassinated | Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

Posted in awards, Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 3 Comments »
Tags: assassination, Berta Cáceres, COPINH, Front Line (NGO), Global Witness, Goldman Environmental Prize, Honduras, indigenous groups, judicial harassment, killing, land rights defender, woman human rights defender

Killings of environmental human rights defenders up again compared to last year!

April 24, 2015

Jeremy Hance – writing in Mongabay on 20 April, under the title “Killings of environmental activists jumped by 20 percent last year“ confirms again the terrible truth that it is in the countryside, away from monitors, and in disputes over land issues that the most gruesome repression takes place and the leader is..Brazil! [for last year’s report see: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/environment-deadly-for-human-rights-defenders-says-global-witness/]

Soy field in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

The assassination, murder, and extrajudicial killing of environmental activists rose by 20 percent last year, according to a new grim report by Global Witness. The organization documented 116 killings in 2014 across 17 countries with the highest number in Brazil, which saw 29 environmental and land defenders killed. Still, the report is a major understatement of the problem as data across much of Africa, China, the Middle East, and Central Asia remains scarce to non-existent.

“Across the world environmental defenders are being shot dead in broad daylight, kidnapped, threatened, or tried as terrorists for standing in the way of so-called ‘development’,” said Billy Kyte, a campaigner with Global Witness. “The true authors of these crimes—a powerful nexus of corporate and state interests—are escaping unpunished. Urgent action is needed to protect citizens and bring perpetrators to justice.”

Most of the deaths last year—116 of them—were related to disputes over land. But mining was linked to 25 deaths, and hydroelectric dams and agribusiness to 14 each. Indigenous people also remain among the most targeted.

“In 2014, 47 indigenous people were killed defending their natural resources, 40 percent of the total deaths of environmental and land defenders,” reads Global Witness’s new report, entitled How Many More?. This year’s report follows a landmark document last year that tracked environmental activist killing—all 908 of them—over a dozen years.

Environmental activist killings by sector. Image courtesy of Global Witness.

Human rights defenders are stigmatized (as ‘anti-development’) and criminalized in order to silence their opposition.

While Brazil had the highest number of environmental activist murders in 2014, the most dangerous place to be an environmental activist was actually Honduras, according to Global Witness. During the last five years (2010-2014), Honduras lost 101 activists, giving it the highest rate of environmental activist killings per capita.

“A UN Human Rights Council resolution addressing the heightened risk posed to environmental and land defenders would be a start,” Kyte said. “But, in the end, governments themselves have to take responsibility and ensure impartial, exhaustive investigations into killings of these activists. And they have to bring perpetrators to account. Many targeted assassinations of activists are being passed off as ‘common’ murders and are going unnoticed.”

Environmental activist killings by country. Those in red were indigenous people. Image courtesy of Global Witness.

Killings of environmental activists jumped by 20 percent last year.

Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: annual report, Billy Kyte, Brazil, environmental activists, extrajudicial killings, Global Witness, Honduras, How Many More?, Human Rights Defenders, impunity, indigenous minorities, indigenous peoples, Jeremy Hance, land rights, Mongabay, statistics, stigmatization

Environment deadly for human rights defenders says Global Witness

April 16, 2014

The Wisconsin Gazette of 15 April 2014 carries a good summary of a major report by Global Witness that shows that killings of human rights defenders protecting environmental and land rights increased sharply in the last decade due to the intensification of competition for natural resources. The report “Deadly Environment” highlights a severe shortage of information or monitoring of the problem.

“It has never been more important to protect the environment, and it has never been more deadly,” said Oliver Courtney of Global Witness. “There can be few starker or more obvious symptoms of the global environmental crisis than a dramatic upturn in killings of ordinary people defending rights to their land or environment. Yet this rapidly worsening problem is going largely unnoticed, and those responsible almost always get away with it. We hope our findings will act as the wake-up call that national governments and the international community clearly need.”

Key findings in “Deadly Environment”:

• At least 908 people were killed in 35 countries protecting rights to land and the environment between 2002 and 2013, with the death rate rising in the last four years to an average of two activists a week. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: Brazil, corporate accountability, environmental issues, Global Witness, harassment, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, indigenous groups, killings, land rights, Mining, Philippines, threats, Wisconsin Gazette

Ford Foundation Grants $6 Million to Seven Organizations to Reshape the Global Human Rights Movement

September 24, 2013

On 18 September the Ford Foundation announced $6.25 million in grants to seven leading human rights organizations that will strengthen and diversify the global human rights movement. The 7 grants focus on human rights organizations that operate in numerous countries and international forums, underscoring the foundation’s long commitment to supporting collaboration. Combined with a five-year, $50 million initiative announced last year to support human rights organizations based outside Europe and the United States, Ford is spurring innovative thinking about the way the global human rights system functions and its capacity to address 21st century issues such as economic and social inequality.

“The human rights movement has arguably been the most effective and wide-reaching social movement of our time,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. “But the movement faces a notably different set of challenges today than it did even 15 years ago, along with a new set of opportunities for advancing human rights in today’s world. The grants we make today will enable these institutions to more actively adapt, diversify and retool the way the movement works for all of us.”

The seven grants announced today will support: Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Africa, Amnesty International, Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, Civil society, Crisis Action, economic and social rights, equality, FIDH, Ford Foundation, funding, Global Witness, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations, media, non-governmental, Non-governmental organization, Social and Cultural Rights, strategy, the Association for Women's Rights in Development, The International Network for Economic, United States, Witness (human rights group)

Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards