Posts Tagged ‘land rights defender’
June 2, 2016
On its 35th Anniversary, Peace Brigades International is holding a conference to celebrate human rights defenders’ contributions to democracy and the rule of law, discuss their protection needs, and explore good practice and obstacles to enabling environments. Keynote speakers include the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Michel Forst, human rights defenders from Latin America, Nepal and Kenya, UK government officials, NGOs, legal experts & donors There will be four panels:
1: Rule of Law: Uses and Abuses of the Law in relation to Human Rights Defenders
2: Access to Justice: Human Rights Defenders’ Fight for Justice
3: Business and Human Rights: Challenges and Developments
4: Strategies for Confronting Repressive Environments for Land and Environmental Rights Defenders
On Friday 17 June 2016, from 09:00 to 18:00 (BST) – at Canada House ,Trafalgar Square, London
For more information, tickets follow the link below:
Source: Building Enabling Environments for Human Rights Defenders at Risk Tickets, Fri, 17 Jun 2016 at 09:00 | Eventbrite
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: anniversary, Business and human rights, enabling environment, judicial harassment, land rights defender, legal restrictions, Michel Forst, PBI, Peace Brigades International, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
May 10, 2016
Pakistan remains one to the worst places for human rights defenders as they are threatened by both religious extremists and powerful economic interests, while the State is either unwilling or too weak to stop this trend. A recent example is that of human rights defender Khurram Zaki who was killed on 7 May 2016 by four unidentified gunmen who opened fire at a restaurant in Karachi, killing him and wounding two others. That government efforts to find the killers are unlikely to yield result is shown in the follow-up in the case of human rights defender Perveen Rehman, who was killed on 13 March 2013 (see below). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in AHRC, AI, films, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Abdul Aziz, Among the Believers (film), Besieged in Quetta, blasphemy laws, impunity, Khurram Zaki, land rights defender, Pakistan, Perveen Rehman, Rashid Rehman, religious extremism, Sabeen Mahmud, Sindh, Zeenat Shahzadi
April 21, 2016
Pedro Tzicá (or Sica) is a K’iche’ Guatemalan human rights defender working on human and environmental rights, as well access to justice and the right to development of indigenous peoples. Tzicá spoke to ISHR about his work, including organising community consultations to defend the indigenous peoples’ rights to land and natural resources in the face of mega-projects. The profile appeared in the ISHR Monitor of 7 March 2016. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, ISHR | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Business and human rights, Council of the Cunén Communities (CCC), environmental issues, Guatemala, Human rights defender, indigenous peoples, ISHR, land rights defender, Pedro Sica, Pedro Tzicá, profiles, resource extraction, social economic and cultural rights
April 19, 2016
Six environmental activists from around the world received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize at a ceremony in San Francisco on 18 April 2016. This prize does not always go to human rights defenders in the traditional sense of the word, but several well-known ones are among the recipients such as the recently killed Berta Carceres [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/exceptional-response-from-ngo-world-on-killing-of-berta-caceres/]. This year’s winners are: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Berta Carceres, Cambodia, Destiny Watford, digest of human rights awards, Edward Loure, environmental activists, Goldman Environmental Award, Goldman Environmental Prize, human rights award, Human Rights Defenders, land rights defender, Leng Ouch, Luis Jorge Rivera-Herrera, Maxima Acuna, Peru, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, Tanzania, USA, Zuzana Caputova
March 22, 2016
Arutchelvan Subramaniams, known as Arul, is a grassroots human rights defender from Malaysia. He works primarily for the protection of economic, social and cultural rights – including housing rights for the urban poor, the rights of farmers, plantation and industrial workers, as well as the rights of indigenous communities. The ISHR published this profile on 21 March 2016. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, ISHR | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Arul, Arutchelvan Subramaniams, ESC rights, indigenous minorities, ISHR, judicial harassment, land rights defender, local community, Malaysia, profiles, social economic and cultural rights, special rapporteurs
March 16, 2016
Bertha Cáceres, daughter of murdered Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres. Photograph: Liz Ford for the Guardian
This week, Bertha, who is studying for a masters degree in Latin American studies in Mexico, was in New York to speak at side events during the annual Commission on the Status of Women. Here she said “… I will talk about the situation in Honduras. This is not the first assassination, but one of a series of assassinations of human rights defenders … I don’t want another human rights defender to be assassinated”. Even while she spoke with the Guardian journalist a call came through from COPINH’s lawyer (the NGO her mother worked for) to say another member of the organisation had been shot dead ….
According to a statement by Front Line Defenders today, this human rights defender, Nelson Garcia, was returning home following a violent eviction conducted by the Public Order Military Police and the Cobras Special Force in the municipality of Río Lindo when he was intercepted by unidentified men who shot him in the face four times. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Agua Zarca, assassination, Berta Cáceres, COPINH, Development Cooperation, environmental issues, FMO, Front Line (NGO), Honduras, killing, land rights defender, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Netherlands, Nelson Garcia, the Guardian
March 16, 2016
reports on the use of fabricated charges against human rights defender Joel Ogata in Kenya. The story serves as a perfect illustration of how extractive industries (or the States on their behalf) keep human rights defenders tied up in court proceedings through judicial harassment and even manage to get them detained. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Front Line, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: environmental issues, fabricated charges, Front Line (NGO), Human rights defender, illegal detention, Joel Ogata, judicial harassment, Kenya, Kurawa Salt Mining Company, land rights defender, Malindi Rights Forum (MRF), profiles
March 16, 2016
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Agua Zarca, Berta Cáceres, dam, environmental issues, Finland, Guatemala, Honduras, Indigenous People, killings, land rights defender, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Netherlands, Panama, Peter Bosshard, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, woman human rights defender
March 7, 2016
A group of over 50 international organizations has written to the President of Honduras to express their shock over the recent killing of Berta Cáceres [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/berta-caceres-human-rights-defender-assassinated-today-in-honduras/], to demand an international investigation and the immediate protection of Gustavo Castro Soto, a Mexican activist, who witnessed her assassination. Here is the letter and signatories in full: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Human Rights Defenders | 8 Comments »
Tags: assassination, Berta Cáceres, Civil society, environmental activists, Gustavo Castro Soto, Honduras, indigenous groups, investigation, Juan Orlando Hernández, killing, land rights defender, Lenca Indigenous People, NGOs, woman human rights defender
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.
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
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 