Kadar Abdi Ibrahim is a human rights defender and journalist from Djibouti. He has drawn inspiration from iconic figures in the human rights movement in the hopes of building a genuine and lasting democracy in his country.
Kadar Abdi Ibrahim has also been the subject of acts of reprisals by his government for his engagement with international bodies. In 2018, days after returning from Geneva where he carried out advocacy work ahead of Djibouti’s Universal Periodic Review, intelligence service agents raided his house and confiscated his passport.
Human rights activist Gregori Vinter appears in court in Cherepovets, Russia, on January 17.
On 29 January 2024, Rafio Free Europe reported that Russian paleontologist and human rights defender Gregori Vinter, who was sentenced to three years in prison earlier this month on a charge of distributing “false” information about Russian armed forces involved in Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, has asked President Vladimir Putin to euthanize him “to avoid an excruciating death of diabetes.”
Vinter’s lawyer, Sergei Tikhonov, on January 28 called the letter written by his client before he was handed his sentence on January 18 “a gesture of despair.”
In the letter, Vinter says prisons could not supply the insulin he needs to treat his diabetes, while getting supplies from outside the institution would be impossible because he would have to visit doctors to get prescriptions, something that wouldn’t be allowed.
“My experience tells me that without my medicine my life in custody will be very short…. I will face a process of a long and cruel death…. Knowing that as an inmate I will face a mere excruciatingly painful death among the alien, cruel, and absolutely indifferent people of the prison, I ask you to allow a voluntary medical euthanasia for me,” Vinter’s letter to Putin says.
“Imprisonment for a person like me, a person who survived a stroke, a clinical death during COVID, an attempted murder in 2018, actually means an execution, a public execution accompanied with long-term suffering through a slow and painful death. This is not just 1937 [period of Josef Stalin’s great purge] — it is perverted pathological sadism that is known to the whole world as the Russian Federation’s Federal Penitentiary Service.”
Prison officials have not commented on Vinter’s letter and whether he would have regular access to the medical assistance he needs.
The 55-year-old Vinter is the leader of the For Human Rights group branch in his native city of Cherepovets. His human rights activities in recent years helped to reveal the mass beatings of inmates at a local prison and investigations of the penitentiary’s guards. He also made headlines in 2019 after he led several rallies protesting against the local government’s deforestation activities in the region around Cherepovets.
During the pandemic in 2020, Vinter was handed a parole-like two-year sentence over an online post about the transportation of convicts without medical masks and other COVID precautions.
Before the sentence was pronounced, Vinter spent time in a detention center where, he said, investigators tortured him with electricity and broke his leg.
Vinter later told journalists about what he endured in the detention center, which led to a public outcry and investigations of the center’s administration.
The case against Vinter was initiated in August 2022 after he posted materials on the Internet about alleged atrocities committed by Russian troops against civilians in Ukraine.
The Memorial human rights group has recognized Vinter as a political prisoner.
Meet Joey Siu, a Human Rights Foundation (HRF) Freedom Fellow and Hong Kong activist based in Washington, D.C. Siu played a vital role in Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, co-founding a student advocacy coalition and organizing city-wide demonstrations. After fleeing Hong Kong in 2020, Siu served as an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and a policy advisor to Hong Kong Watch. Siu is currently an Asia Pacific coordinator for the World Liberty Congress, an advisor to the Athenai Institute, and oversees the Hong Kong program at the National Democratic Institute.
In exile, Siu remains a dedicated advocate for Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and other communities oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Learn more about her activism in the exclusive interview below.
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your current projects.
A: I am a human rights activist from Hong Kong (HK). Back in 2019, when the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong first started, I was one of the student leaders who led many of the on-campus activities and city-wide protests and demonstrations. In 2019, I also co-founded a student coalition with other student activists in HK to solidify international advocacy efforts for HK. I was forced to flee HK in late 2020 and settled in Washington, D.C. Since then, my efforts have been focused on international advocacy for HK’s democratic freedoms overseas.
I am establishing a regional activist network for women advocates to connect, amplify, and empower one another and to elevate women leaders in this space. Beyond that, I am very active in the HK diaspora community and working to foster cross-movement solidarity with other communities under the repression of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Q: How do you feel about the bounty HK authorities placed on your head?
A: On Dec. 13, I woke up to the news that HK authorities issued an arrest warrant and a $1 million HK bounty on me. Ever since I fled, I knew this could happen given the Chinese and HK authorities’ efforts to silence dissent, not just from those in HK but from those in exile. But this bounty is like a death certification — I can really never go back. I was overwhelmed by the news and the actions I’ve had to take to step up my personal security.
I — and the 12 others with bounties on their heads — saw this coming. They issued the bounty to threaten us, to deter us from continuing our advocacy, to scare us, and to really intimidate us. But that will not work on me. I will not stop; I will continue my advocacy until I can return to HK.
Q: What tactics does the Chinese regime employ to suppress activists like yourself?
A: The overseas communities have lobbied for international attention on China and HK and all of the human rights atrocities committed by the CCP. That is why the CCP is trying so hard to silence us.
Over the past few years, the CCP and the HK authorities have stepped up their transnational repression. We’ve witnessed a wide variety of tactics employed by the CCP, from holding our loved ones back home as hostages to infiltrating our communities, setting up secret police stations all across the world, including in the United States, to coercing different stakeholders and industries to spy on their behalf.
These tactics have not been used just against Chinese and Hong Kongers but also against Uyghurs and Tibetans. And we’ve seen other authoritarian regimes copying the CCP’s tactics, including Russia, Iran, and Belarus. In fact, these regimes are working hand-in-hand to silence dissent overseas.
Q: Should democracies be paying more attention?
A: I want to stress that the impact of transnational repression extends beyond the activists. Beyond spying on dissidents overseas, tactics include economic coercion, brainwashing, and education through Confucius institutes in American universities and colleges. Those tactics impact every individual living in a democracy.
Democracies all across the world should pay attention to this and take concrete steps to combat transnational repression on their soil and in other democracies. Securing the safety and security of dissidents like me is an essential step to allowing us to have the freedom to continue speaking up and to continue confronting authoritarianism.
Q: How has the Freedom Fellowship supported you in your work?
A: The Fellowship allowed me to meet activists from communities I otherwise would not have been in touch with as actively or frequently. In my cohort, I met activists from Bolivia, Cuba, Myanmar, Morocco, Egypt, and more. I got to talk with them and learn the tactics they’ve used to overcome challenges and unite their communities. Fostering relationships and strategizing on campaigns together was the most valuable experience for me.
Building that cross-community solidarity is essential. We see dictators working together and it is of the utmost importance that we, human rights activists, are working together. Democratic backsliding is not an issue faced by one community alone; it is an issue faced by all communities under oppression.
Q: What have you recently been doing? What do you hope to achieve in 2024?
A: After the news about the HK bounty broke, I had several meetings with US congressional offices. I met with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Chairman Mike Gallagher of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Sen. Jennifer Sullivan. Hopefully, these meetings will lead to legislation to combat transnational repression, but we require a coordinated and bipartisan effort in Congress. I hope to see something like the Transnational Repression Policy Act advanced and adopted in this Congress.
With the ongoing reports of the bounty on me and other activists, Jimmy Lai’s case, and the upcoming sentencing of the 47 activists in HK, we can hopefully take advantage of the momentum. We can push the US government and other democracies to take action.
Additionally, during the 2023 Freedom Fellowship retreat, I came up with the idea of the regional women’s network. In the upcoming months, I want to turn this idea into something concrete—start inviting people to be founding members and board members, start the registration process, and establish a financial foundation and fundraising plan.
On 9 January 2024, Global Voices postedan interview with labour rights defender Prak Pheaktra. [This article by Klaing Kimhuoy was originally published by Prachatai, an independent news site in Thailand. An edited version has been republished by Global Voices under a partner content-sharing agreement.]
Despite threats from the Cambodian government, who claim he is damaging the country’s image, 39-year-old Prak Pheaktra, a Cambodian migrant worker-turned-advocate, is striving to help other Cambodian workers facing unfair treatment from their employers.
In 2000, Pheaktra, who is from Pusat province, came to Thailand to find work. His family was facing financial difficulties after the death of his mother, and his father could no longer afford to send him to school. Chasing the promise of better pay and less strenuous work, he decided to come to Thailand.
Pheaktra started out working as a construction worker in Don Mueang province, but he later faced exploitation and abuse from his employer. Once, his employer withheld wages and threatened legal action against him. Having experienced first-hand the unfair treatment and exploitation of migrant workers in Thailand, he became an advocate so he could help other workers get fair treatment in the workplace.
Pheaktra’s dedication led him to become a Khmer-Thai interpreter for the Ministry of Labour of Thailand in from 2018–2019, where he began studying Thai law. After completing his ministry contract, he joined the Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN) in 2019–2020 as a Complaints Receiving Officer.
Having worked with both government and civil society, he is now working as an independent advocate for migrant workers. He offers assistance to workers dealing with wage issues, pressure from employers, sexual harassment, and other threats — all pro bono. He also uses social media to educate workers on how to legally live and work in Thailand and warn them of exploitation by brokers. He works with NGOs as part of research projects, including one on child exploitation in Phuket and another on labour abuses faced by fishing boat workers.
However, his advocacy has attracted criticism and threats, including from Cambodian officials, who claim he could damage the Cambodian government’s public image. Last February 2023, when he assisted 10 Cambodian workers in Samut Prakan whose employer wasn’t paying them, he faced some questions from the chief of the Labour Attaché Office at the Cambodian Embassy. When he was in Rayong working on another case, he was asked if he knew that what he was doing could affect the public image of the Cambodian government and was threatened with having his passport revoked.
The chief of the Labour Attaché Office threatened to revoke my passport if I continued to engage in activities that negatively impact the public image of the Cambodian government. I said, you can block my passport if you think what I am doing is really wrong. I’m not afraid.
He has also faced threats from Thai officials, who he observed can be biased in favour of employers and accuse him of putting excessive trust in the workers. He gave an example of a particular case he worked on where an inaccurate resolution led to a worker being unfairly blamed.
He suggested the need for greater accuracy within the Ministry of Labour’s processes and expressed frustration at being accused of trusting workers too much. He’s urging a more balanced approach to better serve the rights and interests of migrant workers.
Despite the threats he faces, Phaektra persists. “I love what I’m doing right now, and I will continue to help Cambodian workers no matter what,” he said.
Those who have worked with Phaektra described him as kind and dedicated. Prum Somnang, a Cambodian worker at a plastic bag factory, was assisted by Phaektra after being abruptly dismissed by her Thai employer, citing lack of work. Somnang had worked there for ten years and was laid off along with 40 other workers. Her employer wanted to sue her, she said, because she started a protest against the layoff. At the same time, her visa was expiring in seven days, and she needed to find a new job within the week. Her friend advised her to seek help from Pheatra.
“He’s very kind. He helped me get money back from the employer and even assisted me in finding a new job before my visa expired,” Somnang said…
Pheaktra said that one key concern about the lives of migrant workers in Thailand is the risk of falling victim to scams orchestrated by middlemen or company representatives when filing documents. Pheaktra emphasized the need for workers to take charge of their documentation to prevent such scams.
Looking ahead, Pheaktra expressed a commitment to continue social work aimed at assisting migrant workers. Despite the presence of numerous NGOs and institutions offering help, some workers hesitate to seek assistance directly due to concerns about influential individuals associated with these organizations. Pheaktra sees himself as an advocate for migrant workers, standing by their side and addressing their problems.
On 3 January 2023 it was reported that a prominent Ugandan LGBTQ+ activist Steven Kabuye was stabbed by unknown assailants on a motorbike after receiving death threats. Steven Kabuye, 25, suffered knife wounds and was left for dead on the outskirts of the capital Kampala.
Human rights defenders have been warning about the risk of attacks on members of the LGBTQ+ community after Uganda last year adopted what is considered one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world.
Kabuye told detectives investigating the incident that he had been receiving death threats, according to a statement issued by police spokesperson Patrick Onyango.
Richard Lusimbo, head of the community action group Uganda Key Populations Consortium, said: “All our efforts at the moment [are to ensure] that he gets the medical attention he deserves and also the perpetrators of this heinous act are held responsible.”
Ugandan gay rights activist Hans Senfuma said in post on X that the attackers wanted to kill Kabuye. “Steven claims that these two guys’ intentions were to kill him, not robbing, and also claims that it seems they have been following him for several days,” Senfuma wrote.
Kabuye, who works with the Coloured Voices Media Foundation, which campaigns on behalf of LGBTQ+ youth, told investigators who visited his bedside that he had been receiving death threats since March 2023. He had returned to Uganda in December for Christmas after travelling abroad in June.
Himself a survivor of the harsh journey across the Mediterranean Sea, Moses Von Kallon SOS Méditerranée’s Aquarius vessel in 2018 – a journey during which his rescue ship was turned away from Italian and Maltese waters. He told ISHR about how he started his organisation after Aquarius Supervivientes after settling in Spain and how he has wrestled with everyday racism. ‘Immigration is not a disease,’ he said, as he shared his hopes for a future where justice and free movement would be guaranteed to those who are forced to leave their homelands to find safety. Learn more about Moses and other human rights activists and defenders like him: https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/
Anushani Alagarajah, human rights defender and executive director at the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research. Illustration: UN Women Sri Lanka/Dinuk Senapatiratne
Anushani Alagarajah is a human rights defender who has worked closely with conflict-affected communities in the North and East of Sri Lanka. She is the Executive Director at the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, a non-profit research think-tank that works on public policy issues in Sri Lanka. On the occasion of the International Day for Women Human Rights Defenders, Ms. Alagarajah spoke about her work in post-conflict Sri Lanka.
I don’t know if I ever consciously decided to become a human rights defender. But when I was seven, there was a gang rape of a girl from our school. Her classmates held a sit-in protest. I didn’t know what rape meant, but children living with conflict grow up fast. I wanted to protest too. If I see injustice, I want to speak up.
As a child, it was horrible to live in bunkers [during the conflict], to come out and see ashes. I’ve been in survival mode my entire life. Seeing what’s happening in other countries, I worry that children will spend their entire lives trying to make sense of it, trying to be okay.
Grief is not only for people, it’s also for a place you called home, that belonged to you. For me, it was always about the childhood I didn’t have. I will probably be grieving that for the rest of my life.
I left Sri Lanka in 2009 to study in Bangladesh. I never wanted to come back. But from the time I left, I knew I had to return. I came home every summer, to conduct workshops with orphanages and conflict-affected communities.
I couldn’t run away. Afterall, I am from this community.
I was displaced thrice. I couldn’t sleep peacefully knowing I could have done something, and I didn’t do it. I thought, “I can try to make things better.” So, I returned after finishing my studies in 2014. Since then, I have been living my purpose in the community.
Whether it is the economic crisis or a lack of opportunities, a lasting political solution requires the political will for change.
It’s difficult when you come from a history of violence, conflict and trauma. During the conflict, a range of violent acts were committed against women.
Women bear the brunt of any damage, and are also expected to be the ones to rebuild, protecting the family unit, community and culture. Yet, particularly in the global South, women are not afforded resources.
Patriarchy is the norm.
Men can take a job in different places, access resources, work with men, divorce, remarry. Women cannot. They must provide out of nothing. Even though they suffered tragic, unspeakable experiences, they are still shackled by stereotypical expectations.
My own work is considered unfitting. I’m expected to be a good woman and get married. We are very far from being inclusive.
In the early days, I would try to talk to older activists about mental health, saying “I’m not doing okay”. But as a human rights defender, you’re almost expected to be superhuman. I think being sensitive helps me do my job better because I look out for others.
For the last four years, when my office researches something difficult, we check in with everyone about how they feel. Whenever one of us needs support, the community will hold them, providing a safe space to be vulnerable or angry. It took a long time for me to find this community.
You cannot heal on your own.
With my colleagues, I run practical workshops to create the next generation of activists, training people in small communities and villages to advocate for their rights. We have participants pick an issue, ideate a solution and work with relevant stakeholders. For example, we have young participants who want to reclaim an occupied land in their village. They met the parliamentarian and the Divisional Secretary’s Office and are now drafting a lease. If they have the courage and knowledge to do that at 20 years old, there is so much we can do. I’m always looking for a few people to take our struggle forward.
Sometimes, it only takes one person.
A wise woman once told me: “You will not see the changes you work for in your lifetime.” This helps put things in perspective. We can only chip at the corners so that one day, hopefully, things will be different. Giving up is not an option. We can’t stop now.”
Cyrine Hammemi is a human rights defender and a project manager at the Association for the Promotion of the Right to Difference (ADD) in Tunisia. Her work focuses on the human rights of persons belonging to minority groups, through alerts on discriminatory situations and the violence they suffered.
Speaking to ISHR, Cyrine discussed her journey into activism and her vision for an inclusive future. She shared the personal triggers that led her to become an activist and emphasised her hopes for a world where every individual can fully enjoy their rights without discrimination based on identity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
On 1 December, 2023, at about 4 p.m., four or more unidentified men abducted Diallo, the secretary-general of the Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities (Collectif contre l’Impunité et la Stigmatisation des Communautés, CISC) in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou. Diallo had just left the government’s passport office after a meeting with officers to renew his passport. The CISC issued a statement the same day saying that men in civilian clothes pushed Diallo into a vehicle and drove off. His whereabouts remain unknown.
On December 2, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, raised serious concerns about Diallo’s abduction. In a December 3 statement, The People’s Coalition for the Sahel, an alliance of civil society organizations, said that “the abduction of a prominent activist in broad daylight […] demands an immediate government response,” and called on the military authorities to take action.
“Burkina Faso authorities should urgently and impartially investigate the abduction of Daouda Diallo and release him if he is in government custody,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “We are deeply concerned for Diallo’s safety and the safety of everyone working to improve respect for human rights in Burkina Faso.”
Since it took power in an October 2022 coup, Burkina Faso’s military junta has increasingly cracked down on peaceful dissent and the media, shrinking the civic space in the country. National and international journalists, as well as civil society members, face increasing harassment, threats, and arbitrary arrests. On December 2, the military authorities announced the suspension of “all distribution methods” of the French newspaper Le Monde daily, claiming an article published on Le Monde’s website on December 1 about a deadly attack by an Islamist armed group on a military base in Djibo, Sahel region, on November 26, was “biased.”
On 4 December the Martin Ennals Foundation and several other NGOs addressed an urgent letter to the Représentant Permanent de Burkina Faso at the UN in Geneva.
Brandon Lee and his daughter Jesse Jane at the People’s Counter Summit of the No To APEC Coalition, Nov. 11, 2023. Photo by Jia H. Jung
Jia Jung wrote on 20 November, 2023 about Chinese American Bay Area native Brandon Lee who gave the keynote speech at the No to APEC People’s Counter Summit, “People Over Profit and Plunder,” at San Francisco State University on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
Lee was living with his wife and daughter in the Philippines and working as a human rights advocate, land defender, and journalist for the Northern Dispatch when he was shot by Philippine armed forces on Aug. 6, 2019. He survived – as a quadriplegic who remains steadfast in his international activism. Lee said, inter alia:
In high school, I was voted most shyest. I always preferred to work behind the scenes behind the camera, never in front. I was working security during rallies or painting posters the day before.
…In 2003, I transferred to this campus and joined the League of Filipino students at San Francisco State University. That’s where I learned that our country, the United States, continues to dominate and stagnate the Philippine economy, politics, and culture.
Around this time, I also started volunteering for the Chinese Progressive Association. That’s where I learned about the conditions and struggles of immigrant Chinese workers, and tenants. It was at that time I met Pam Tau Lee, the founder of the Chinese Progressive Association.
She was one of my mentors. And that’s where I learned that in the late nineties, San Francisco had 20,000 garment workers. But in less than 10 years, many of the immigrant monolinguistic women workers lost their jobs, with 88% of the workers being offshored to countries with weaker labor protection. It was during these years that I learned how interconnected our struggles are, and I became an internationalist and an anti-imperialist.
In 2007, I went on a life changing exposure trip to the Philippines. I met Youth and Students who are now movement leaders. I joined with workers boycotting Nestlé on their picket line. Ka Fort [Diasdado Fortuna], the chair of their union, was killed in cold blood by state agents. Ka Fort was dearly, dearly loved by the Nestlé workers for his leadership in building the union and his ultimate sacrifice.
So workers also launched a public campaign – “there’s blood in your coffee” – to draw international attention against Nestlé. Nestlé believes that water is a corporate right and not a human right. In this same trip, we visited many sectors, including the most oppressed majority and largest class – the peasants – as well as the Igorot Indigenous people in the northern part of the Philippines.
The Igorots, who live on resource-rich lands, are considered squatters on their own land because the Philippine government considers any land with a slope of 18 degrees Philippine land. The Igorots have been fighting against foreign occupation and colonization for hundreds of years.
And until now, they have continued their fight against government neglect and development aggression, militarization, and for the recognition for the right to ancestral land and self-determination.
On that exposure trip, our group also attended the one-year death anniversary of Alyce Claver, the wife of Chandu [Constancio]Claver, who was the provincial chair of the progressive party, Bayan Muna, and the president of the Red Cross. Chandu and Alyce were driving their kids to school when a motorcycle pulled up and shot at their car. Alyce shielded her husband and was riddled with two dozen bullets. Chandu made it out alive and is now in Canada with his kids after filing for political asylum, but the family today continues to be traumatized.
During this trip, we joined a medical and fact-finding mission to a remotevillage, and thankfully, the military had pulled out. The Indigenous peasants taught us about how the soldiers had blindfoldedthem and pointed a gun to their nape. The soldiers accused the farmers of supporting the land defenders and the resistance fighters known as the New People’s Army. The Philippine militarypretended to have a fake medical mission, giving out expired medicine to the local Indigenous people.
This trip, 16 years ago, changed the direction of my life.
I believe that we are shaped by our experiences, and this exposure program gave me new direction. It fortified my commitment to serving the fight for the Philippine liberation from U.S. imperialism. And to this day, the stories and sacrifices of Alyce Claver, Ka Fort, and so many others continue to fuel my commitment.
Two years later in 2009, I decided to deepen my commitment and decided to do a three-month integration in a remote area deep in the mountains. When I returned, I learned about Melissa Roxas, who was also from the U.S. and was abducted by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. She was conducting a medical mission. After a week, her captors released her as long as she promised to shut up.
She didn’t, though – she didn’t shut up. As she was she was released, she told the world what happened. As a health worker, Melissa diagnosed the Philippines’ societal problems and saw the illness of neoliberal policies from living among the poor. Melissa was brave. Her journey back from the trauma perpetuated by the Philippine military would soon follow for me.
The year following, 2010, I went all in and decided to live and serve the Igorot Indigenous people. I married my girlfriend, who is an Indigenous Ifugao, and we had a daughter, Jesse Jane, who is here with us today. I lived nine years with Indigenous people in the northern part of the Philippines, and I learned how they defended their land rights and lives in the resource-rich area known as the Cordillera region.
I saw firsthand how neoliberal policies promoted by APEC, such as the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, liberalize the mining industry, allowing foreign mining companies to reap 100% profit from the plundering of Indigenous people’s lands, unbridled large-scale destructive mining, dams, energy and other foreign projects, masquerading as development projects, and destroy the environment and forcibly displace Indigenous people who have been living there for generations.
Now, 13 years later, I’m speaking in front of you, a survivor of state violence and war that is spread by APEC and neoliberalism. They say APEC will promote sustainability. The Indigenous community say no. They are robbed of their life, land, culture, and worse, their future. Despite decades of people’s resistance, the plunder the natural resources, of indigenous – of ancestral – domains, continues. The region is blanketed with 176 large-scale mining and more than 100 energy projects, such as hydropower and geothermal projects awarded to private corporations.
One such energy project is the Chevron geothermal power project, which covers a large area in Kalinga. If left unchallenged and unopposed, all these could mean the ethnocide of the Igorots and the massive destruction of the ecosystem in the Cordillera region…
Indigenous communities were militarized, bombed, and strafed with artillery shelling, but they did not cower and they did not back down. They remained steadfast. They took care of each other. And they continued to hold the line.
They say APEC is innovative and will solve our problems. Hell, no.
Because I protested alongside the Indigenous communities, and, as a journalist, wrote about the daily attacks they face, I was also threatened and harassed. I was placed under surveillance. Tailed. Followed. They watched our office. They took pictures of us at our office and homes, as well as the tricycle, jeep, and bus terminal. I was red-tagged and politically vilified as a terrorist. I experienced death threats in the form of the burial blanket for the dead. I was detained and had my bag illegally searched at a military checkpoint the week before members of the 54th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army shot me in front of my daughter in front of my home on August 6th, 2018.
They had visited me at my house and office looking for me. They said they wanted to partner with my organization, the Ifugao Peasant Movement, but we refused. I told them two names – William Bugatti and Ricardo Mayumi – on why we do not want to partner with them.
While their assassination attempt against me was unsuccessful, I am permanently scarred and paralyzed. I am now quadriplegic, unable to use my hands and legs. I am considered one of the lucky ones. But I live with trauma every day. [see also: SF human rights activist fights for his life after being shot in the Philippines]
I know firsthand that the backdoor trade deals handled by APEC will not benefit the people; they only benefit the corporations and imperialist countries like the United States. That is why the United States sends its military around the world, finance schools, support fascist governments – to open up industries.
In fact, I have no doubt that the bullets lodged in my body today are paid by our taxpayer dollars.
Although I am paralyzed physically, they have failed to shut me up.
Today, I am proud to be standing with you, metaphorically speaking, in fighting back against APEC. Against state and political repression. Against corporate greed and power. Against the wealthy elite. Against the plunder of our planet. Against foreign domination of our peoples.
The Indigenous communities are resilient also. Like millions of people in the Global South, they are fighting back. They continue to protest despite being attacked. They have successfully barricaded several mines, rejecting countless mining and dam projects.
They have been on the frontlines of fighting the WTO [World Trade Organization], dismantling the Chico Dam equipment during the late dictator Marcos, which launched a coordinated people’s response that brought the Indigenous people to the national liberation struggle.
They are also on the frontlines of fighting APEC; a fight has led thousands to take up armed struggle as an appropriate response to defending their land, which is their life.
One of their martyr freedom fighter, Arnold “Ka Mando” Jaramillo, favorite expression ispayt latta! It means fight to the end, or continue to fight, and it’s today emulated by the Cordillera mass movement. Payt latta.
I will continue to fight as long as I breathe. Take a look around – my story is just one of many. There are a thousand people here today, diverse and multigenerational, coming from across the world, each with their own journey, own experiences, and reason for being here. But what unites us all is our opposition to APEC and neoliberal policies. We have so much in common – so much we can unite and rage against. A common enemy – APEC – and the neoliberal policies that prioritize profit and plunder over people and planet.
We will not go gently into that night. Rage. Rage! We will fight!
We will fight for a better future for all. Let us continue to talk, to build and work together, now and after APEC. For now, are you ready? Are you ready to shut down APEC?
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 