On 10 September 2020, Yury Korzun, a miner from Belarusian city of Salihorsk chained himself to a piece of equipment 300 meters below the surface. Belarusians commented it happened because “another person has handcuffed himself to the presidential chair”.
Atziri Elizabeth Ávila López is a woman human rights defender and journalist from Oaxaca, Mexico working with Observatorio Ciudadano Nacional del Feminicidio (OCNF) (The National Citizen’s Observatory on Femicide), a citizen’s network made up of 43 organisations. The work of OCNF is aimed at contributing to the guaranteed rights of women to a life free of violence. As well as her work with OCNF, Atziri is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in Mexico.
In mid-February 2020, as the coronavirus outbreak led to cities and counties across China imposing strict lockdown, a mother surnamed Wang and her two young children, with luggage in tow, walked for almost five hours in an attempt to return to their hometown in a neighbouring county after she was beaten by her abusive ex-husband.
In the coming weeks, Pablo López Alavéz, an activist from a tiny village in southern Mexico, will learn his fate. The decision from a federal court may affect the fate of a part of the forest in the mountains of Oaxaca that he calls home. And some people hope it will also affect the future of land and environment defenders across Mexico.
“If you drive 40 miles inland from Recife you go back in time 150 years.” Those were the words of a human rights defender from the Pastoral Land Commission in Pernambuco, Brazil, as he tried to explain the lawless brutality with which landowners managed their sugar cane plantations. The reach of the state is weak and the level of corruption and abuse of power is high.
Le Guatemala attire une grande variété de visiteurs : des routards, des "éco-touristes", des aficionados du chocolat et du café, et même des fans de Star Wars qui viennent explorer les temples Maya qui apparaisent dans le tout premier film.
Si vous tapez "Livingston, Guatemala" sur Google, vous verrez apparaitre sur votre écran de magnifiques photos de plages immaculées, des rivières, des cascades et une ville colorée où se mélangent les cultures africaines et autochtones, offrant une expérience unique en Amérique centrale.
Santiago Maldonado a disparu alors qu'il manifestait pour le droit à la terre. Pas pour ses propres droits, car il est né dans une famille prospère dans la province de Buenos Aires. Il y a deux ans, le 1er août 2017, il manifestait pour les droits du peuple Mapuche à jouir d'un lopin de terre en Patagonie.
Sitting in Minsk following a few days of meetings with human rights defenders and others in Belarus led me to reflect on where Europe stands with Eastern Europe. Recent criticism of Tánaiste Simon Coveney promoting trade with Russia in spite of sanctions is only one symptom of a broader weakness and lack of strategy at EU level.
Over the past 11 years I’ve led workshops for human rights defenders at risk in Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and East and Central Europe. Many of the HRDs trained at those workshops on Risk Analysis and Protection Planning reported stigmatisation, online abuse, threats and attacks. But earlier this year I received a call for help from a much closer source.
