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?
The World Press Freedom Index ranked Turkmenistan one of the five most repressive regimes globally in 2023. Martin Ennals Award Finalist Soltan Achilova is a 74 years-old photojournalist who captures the lives of ordinary people in Turkmenistan with her camera. Soltan’s pictures describing food insecurity, forced and illegal evictions, lack of adequate healthcare and the discrimination faced by people with disabilities, are an invaluable source of information on human rights violations endured by the people of Turkmenistan. In collaboration with the University of Geneva Human Rights Week this event will explore how independent journalism can push back on the denial of freedom of expression in the toughest authoritarian contexts.
A group of human rights organisations, including the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and FIDH (see Co-signatories), called on 27 October 2023 for the release of the human rights defender Nasta Loika after more than 396 days of her detention.
Nasta Loika is a prominent human rights defender, one of the founders of Human Constanta. For years, she has been promoting human rights education, raising awareness about the repressive “anti-extremist” legislation in Belarus, and protecting foreign citizens and stateless persons in Belarus. She was named Human Rights Defender of the Year 2022 by the Belarusian human rights community. Yet, in the eyes of the repressive Belarusian authorities, she is a criminal and earlier in October, the government put her on a “terrorist” list.
Since 6 September 2022, Nasta has served a total of six 15-day consecutive administrative sentences on trumped-up “petty hooliganism” charges. On 24 December 2022, she was charged with “incitement of racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord” under notorious Article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus and on 20 June sentenced to 7 years in prison. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/08/11/nasta-anastasia-loika-in-belarus-sentenced-to-7-years-in-a-penal-colony/]
She was tasered, threatened, and featured in a forced “confession” video as a form of digital degrading treatment which was spread across pro-government channels before she was even charged. Her home was searched two times. Her mother’s home was searched too. She spent 93 days in detention, repeatedly sentenced to “administrative arrests” while the authorities looked for a reason to bring criminal charges against her. The charge was ultimately found, and Nasta was accused of inciting hatred for preparing a human rights report in 2018 on the persecution of anarchists and leftists in Belarus. According to the prosecution, the group she was allegedly inciting hatred against was the police.
Belarusian state authorities continued to ignore both the letter of allegation sent by five Special Rapporteurs and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention following Human Constanta’s appeal to these mandates, as well as the decision on interim measures, adopted by the Human Rights Committee in Nasta’s case.
Her lawyers were repeatedly arrested, disbarred, forced out of the country, and intimidated – hardly a surprising occurrence given en masse persecution of independent lawyers and outlawing of human rights work in Belarus. Disbarment of human rights lawyers is one of the tools the authorities consistently employed to intimidate and persecute lawyers who represent human rights defenders, activists, democratic politicians, and survivors of torture and state-perpetrated human rights violations.
Any assistance to Nasta is punished as well: two people were arrested for 15 and 30 days for bringing her parcels with food and essentials. Now that she has been sentenced, she is only able to receive parcels from her 76-year-old mother, her only family member. Moreover, as she was designated a “terrorist,” it would be impossible to make monetary transfers as those would be characterized as “financing terrorism.”
Nasta also continues her human rights work from behind bars: she helped dozens of other women cellmates to file complaints related to their cases. She also drafted a concept of prison reform in Belarus. This is a powerful reminder that persecution and imprisonment cannot force human rights defenders to stop their work.
In fact, their voices can be amplified not just through letters, but through technology and social media. While the authoritarian government is set on silencing human rights defenders, the Human Constanta team used AI to create Nasta’s animated digital avatar to raise awareness about human rights violations and political persecution of human rights defenders, demand accountability, and support those in detention. The “Human Show” podcast called “Waiting for Nasta” featuring her colleagues and friends also reminds the world about her work and unjustified detention.
“A young girl came up to me [at an event in honor of a human rights award] and said: “Hello, my name is Nasta. I graduated from law school, I’ve entered law school, and I would really like to do human rights work, but I don’t know how. Maybe you could give me some advice?” […] I told her, yes, of course, come to our Committee. She came to the Committee a couple of days later and we hired her. That became her first human rights work.”
Excerpt from “Waiting for Nasta” podcast, episode 1
“And then I asked, “Do you know exactly what you’re doing? This may be the last chance [to flee Belarus].” And Nasta replied very calmly that she was aware of all the risks, that she understood the situation, and that it was not blind stubbornness. In my mind, Nasta lives her life as a person with very high values, who is ready to stand by them to the end.”
Excerpt from “Waiting for Nasta” podcast, episode 2
We call on the Belarusian authorities for Nasta Lojka’s immediate and unconditional release and condemn the physical and psychological torture Nasta was subjected to by state agents. Nasta Lojka’s arrest, torture, and imprisonment are retaliation by the Belarus government for her peaceful and legitimate human rights work.
We continue to call upon the international community to take measures to urge the Belarusian authorities to respect their obligations towards human rights defenders, by raising awareness in various fora, publicly condemning human rights violations, requesting visits to human rights defenders in detention, and inquiring with the Belarusian authorities about their health and detention conditions, demanding the release of imprisoned human rights defenders in bilateral and multilateral fora, exploring additional targeted measures against the individuals allegedly responsible for the torture, ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and harassment of human rights defenders, and keeping the situation of defenders in Belarus high on the political agenda.
We also call to utilize and explore available mechanisms for holding the Belarusian authorities account for human rights abuses against human rights defenders, inter alia, by means of extraterritorial and universal jurisdiction and inter-state complaints under relevant treaties, and through strengthening existing accountability mechanisms.
On 24 October 2023, human rights group Crew Against Torture reported that the Chechen Authorities had held Crew Against Torture member and Chechen human rights defender Magomed Alamov, and issued death threats. The authorities also threatened Magomed Alamov by threatening his family’s safety.
Magomed Alamov returned to the Chechen Republic after accompanying a young woman, who was a survivor of domestic, violence from Russia’s North Caucasus on 5 October 2023. Since his return, his colleagues have not been able to reach him.
Magomed Alamov is a human rights defender and lawyer of Chechen origin. Up until very recently, he has collaborated with the human rights group Crew Against Torture; an informal union of Russian lawyers who, individually, continue the work they used to do as a Russian-based human rights organisation “Committee Against Torture” (CAT). Following the listing of CAT as a foreign agent by Russian authorities on 10 June 2022, the organisation was forced to close its doors. Established in 2000, CAT was a prominent human rights organisation in Russia, investigating allegations of torture by state agents and representing victims of torture in the court system, including at the European Court of Human Rights. Human rights defenders who used to work with CAT were regularly subjected to defamation campaigns, physical attacks, detentions, and judicial persecution because of their peaceful human rights work.
On 5 October 2023, at the request of the human rights organisation ‘North Caucasus: SOS’, Magomed Alamov accompanied a survivor of domestic violence from Ingushetia to a safehouse. On 11 October 2023, the human rights defender started to receive phone calls from the General Administration for Combating Extremism (Centre E). The caller demanded that Magomed Alamov present himself for questioning in relation to his involvement in the alleged disappearance of the aforementioned survivor. In the absence of a subpoena, the human rights defender refused to present himself.
On 13 October, Chechen law enforcement officers unlawfully detained the human rights defender’s brother, at the Special Police Regiment #2, where the authorities threatened him, and demanded him to get in touch with Magomed Alamov and to convince the human rights defender to return to the Chechen Republic. Fearing for his brother’s life, Magomed Alamov travelled to the Chechen Republic; his colleagues from Crew against Torture are unsure about his current whereabouts.
On 23 October2023, the survivor of domestic violence got in touch with her relatives in the Chechen Republic, and reported that Magomed Alamov was present at their house during the call. She reported that the human rights defender addressed her and said “I am at your house, surrounded by your relatives. My life and the life of my family is in danger. They gave me a week for you to return home. If you are not home in a week – they will kill me.” On 23 October 2023 the Crew against Torture filed complaints to the Ministry of Interior and to the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation demanding protection for the human rights defender.
Front Line Defenders condemns the harassment and death threats against the human rigths defender and lawyer Magomed Alamov. The organisation believes he is being targeted for his peaceful and legitimate human rights work. Front Line Defenders reminds the Russian authorities that the Chechen Republic is a part of the Russian Federation, and calls upon them to end systemic harassment against human rights defenders in the North Caucasus. Front Line Defenders urges the Russian authorities to confirm the whereabouts of Magomed Alamov, and ensure his safety in the Chechen Republic, as well as elsewhere in the country.
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.”
Matiullah Wesa, a girls’ education advocate, reads to students in the open area in Spin Boldak district in the southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan on May 21, 2022. Siddiqullah Khan/AP
On 26 October 2023 AP reported that the Taliban have freed an Afghan activist who campaigned for the education of girls. Matiullah Wesa was arrested seven months ago and spent 215 days in prison, according to the group, Pen Path.
The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Rina Amiri,, has welcomed the release of Matiullah Wesa, the founder of the “Rah-e-Qalam” organization and an education activist, and has called for the freedom of all human rights defenders in Afghanistan. Richard Bennett, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of the United Nations, has requested the immediate and unconditional release of all individuals detained “arbitrarily for defending their rights and the rights of others.”
Ataullah Wesa, Matiullah’s brother, announced on his social media account that he had been released after 215 days. However, some human rights activists and well-known members of Afghan civil society remain in prison.
Amnesty International said that Wesa should never have been jailed for promoting girls’ rights to education.
“The Taliban de-facto authorities must release human rights defenders and women protesters Rasool Parsi, Neda Parwani, Zholia Parsi and Manizha Sediqi and all others who are unfairly kept behind bars for standing up for equality and denouncing repression,” the rights group tweeted.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 