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The Front Line Defenders Workbook on Security has been inspired by the hundreds of HRDs from over 50 countries who have attended Front Line Defenders workshops on security and protection. These HRDs have been able to continue their work because they have taken steps to manage their security. They have assessed their situation in a systematic way and developed strategies and tactics which best suit their unique environment.

As the 2016 Annual Report documents, at least 156 human rights defenders were killed or died in detention in 2015. More than half of those killings, 87, took place in Latin America, with Colombia alone accounting for 54 killings. Outside the Americas one of the starkest figures was the total of 31 targeted killings of HRDs in the Philippines.

The purpose of this manual is to provide human rights defenders with additional knowledge and some tools that may be useful for improving their understanding of security and protection.

Global Analysis 2019 details the physical assaults, defamation campaigns, digital security threats, judicial harassment, and gendered attacks faced by HRDs and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) around the world. As recent events from Hong Kong to Baghdad have demonstrated, HRDs are at the forefront of social change and face significant threats and risks for doing so – whether demanding civil and political freedoms or protecting the environment and combating climate change.

Human rights defenders at risk often find it difficult to talk about their mental and emotional wellbeing, even when they are concerned about it. Cultures of human rights practice tend to emphasise self-sacrifice, heroism, and martyrdom. These norms inhibit defenders from expressing their anxieties and seeking help.

Global Analysis 2018 details the physical assaults, defamation campaigns, digital security threats, judicial harassment, and gendered attacks faced by HRDs and women human rights defenders (WHRDs). December 2018 marked the 20th Anniversary of the HRD Declaration and the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but HRDs around the world continue to face lethal threats from state, non-state, and corporate actors in their peaceful struggles for rights.

As human rights defenders around the world put their lives on the line to challenge dictators, destructive multi-national corporations, religious conservatives, and oppressive regimes, there pervades a well-resourced and coordinated strategy of defamation, criminalisation and violence depl