Le Dinh Luong is a Vietnamese HRD who advocated on behalf of victims of the 2016 Formosa factory pollution incident, which resulted in the loss of livelihood and sometimes life of thousands of Vietnamese fishermen and farmers. In August, he was found guilty of "carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration” and sentenced to 20 years in prison, with an extra 5 years of house arrest afterward.
The European Union is currently developing Guidelines on the Right to Water. Human rights defenders protecting their communities’ access to water around the world face lethal risks for their work, and their expertise must be central to the EU’s proposed Guidelines.
A guest blog by Afro-Brazilian HRD Heloisa Helena Costa Berto, from correspondence to Front Line Defenders Americas Protection Coordinator (published at request of the HRD, translated from Portuguese)
Good morning, I know you have nothing to do with this, but I have to express myself. I need to make a complaint about how public bodies treat people who thinks differently. I am looking for rights, not only mine, but for a community, defending and denouncing injustices.
Palestinian HRDs Endure Israeli Military Assault on Land Day
The Israeli military is nearly 24 hours into a violent assault on tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and human rights defenders demanding the return of their land in Gaza. Twenty-four hours or 70 years, depending on how you're counting.
Niober había estado planeando y esperando este viaje desde hacía meses. Después de viajar durante un día y medio desde la provincia de Guantánamo, llegó al aeropuerto internacional de La Habana con bastante antelación. Pero justo antes del último control de seguridad, se le acercó un funcionario del Ministerio del Interior, le apartó discretamente y le dijo que no podía embarcar.
El funcionario no le dio ninguna explicación, pero Niober no se sorprendió: a situaciones como esta se enfrentan comunmente los/as defensores/as de derechos humanos en Cuba.
Mariam Diallo Dramé has been an activist since her childhood. When she was just 13, she created the Children’s Parliament of Mali to protect children’s rights. Today, she is the president of Association Femmes Leadership et Développement Durables (AFLeD) and she continues to advocate for women and children’s rights to health, education, and leadership opportunities.
Well-being is apparently dangerous in Turkey. When my friend Ozlem Dalkiran attended a training workshop on holistic security she was asked to draw something which represented what she was worried about. It is the sort of well meaning flipchart & post-it note psycho-babble which messes with my stress levels, but Ozlem gamely drew a map of Turkey with icons representing people fleeing war in Iraq & Syria in the East and friends in prison in Istanbul.
