Human rights defenders
Defenders of territories and peoples' collective rights
16 October, 2013
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16 October, 2013
Human rights abuses against environmental and political activists and defenders of territories and peoples' collective rights are committed daily around the world.
The full extent and severity of these abuses have become more visible thanks to community resistance and international solidarity work that have amplified the voices of those most affected, the work of specialised groups, social organizations and specific UN mandates on the situation of human rights defenders.
The current political-economic system, with its ever greater demand on and competition for natural resources has led to an increase in land grabbing, resource exploitation and attempts to privatize and control the commons and community managed assets.
Communities, community leaders, activists and journalists resisting the loss of territory and livelihoods suffer unlawful detention, threats, harassment and raids of their offices and homes. Murders, disappearances and torture are alarmingly common.
“In 2016 we documented 200 killings across 24 countries. Almost 40% of those murdered were indigenous.”
Global Witness report ‘Defenders of the Earth’, July 2017
The perpetrators of these abuses regularly operate on behalf of national governments (as in the case of Israeli human rights abuses in Palestine) and/or transnational companies (TNCs), often with the support of State actors, including the police, military, (for example in Brazil in May 2017) paramilitary groups and hired individuals/groups (such as in the murder of Honduran activist Berta Cáceres in March 2016). Authorities at all levels, including national governments, have rewritten laws to give legitimacy to their collective and territorial rights violations, providing legal cover for rights abuses.
At the national, regional and international levels, Friends of the Earth International continues to strengthen solidarity work on this issue. We work to protect human rights defenders, defenders of territories and their communities. We work to strengthen their collective resistance to human and environmental rights violations.
We strive to respond rapidly in situations of violation or violence, according to the needs and wishes of the threatened community, with the aim of bringing perpetrators to justice. We fight alongside local groups and communities to prevent violence. We fight against corporate and State interests that promote these violations. This work is intimately linked to our international programme work, including our demand for an internationally legally binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.
We asked women and men from around the federation what you or I can do to help.
“Solidarity from the friends of the earth family is very important for community and people that are under threat for fighting for their rights and defending their territory. It shows that they are not alone. Giving communities a voice to be heard in the outside world is very important.”
Nur Hidayati, WALHI, Indonesia
“Presence and solidarity; The Honduran people need the presence of all of us. Putting pressure on governments, funds and finance for lawyers to enable them to carry out litigation and confront the State apparatus, which is very complicated. We have so much solidarity in the pursuit of justice for Berta, we now need people to put pressure on governments and to support legal strategies, which are also peaceful but of strong processes of resistance in confronting the State”
Gustavo Castro Soto, Friends of the Earth Mexico/Otros Mundos Chiapas
“We at the Legal Rights Centre/Friends of the Earth Philippines ask for your solidarity to help fight our repressive government. Its wanton disregard for human rights is very bothersome and we should be taking a stand against this as a federation. We would like you, Friends of the Earth groups and other allies to support communities who are affected by these human rights violations, who are fighting for their territories and self determination.”
Norly Grace Mercado, The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, Philippines
“Organisations are bound to come under crossfires in the trenches of advocacy. Ensure that you are in the frontline of the struggle. But remember you cannot do it all alone. You need allies, you need colleagues, you need friends. You need people to protest. If we move together, if we work together and show global solidarity, there is power in strength. People’s power matters a lot.”
Godwin Uyi Ojo, Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria
We asked women and men from around the federation what enables them to continue their work and fight from within such repressive contexts, risking their lives?
“I think anyone facing danger will be tempted at times to give up, but when you realise that the struggle is, as Mandela said, your life, it gets to a point where a decision has to be made and that decision has been made to keep on fighting, fighting, fighting until victory”
Godwin Uyi Ojo, Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth Nigeria
“Working on human rights in the Philippines is not an easy task. I wake up in the morning thinking about all the women and children who have sacrificed their lives just to pursue justice and peace. And that’s what inspires me. In the morning I wake up and think about what I can do. It might not be as big as they have done.. We have a quote in the Philippines and it says, ‘if it’s not now, then when, if it’s not us then who will act?’”
Norly Grace Mercado, The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center,Philippines
“Defenders continue actively resisting in a way that has been and continues to be successful. Therefore, their actions are met with criminalization and violence against the people, communities and groups. We face the huge challenge of changing resistance strategies and also building new local alternatives for a new life, different from the logic of capitalism”.
Gustavo Castro Soto, Friends of the Earth Mexico/Otros Mundos Chiapas
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