At least 331 human rights defenders promoting social, environmental, racial and gender justice in 25 countries were murdered in 2020, and more were beaten, detained and criminalized for their work, analysis shows.
Latin America, the world’s most dangerous continent for protecting the environment, land and human rights, was responsible for more than three-quarters of all killings of human rights defenders in 2020. In Colombia, where activists are routinely targeted by armed groups despite a peace deal 177 such deaths were recorded in 2016, more than half of the global total. The Philippines was the second deadliest country with 25 homicides, followed by Honduras, Mexico, Afghanistan, Brazil and Guatemala.
While the majority (69%) of the dead worked towards environmental, land or indigenous rights, activists were also targeted by simply providing Covid-19 aid to their communities, according to a report released Thursday. published by the advocacy group. Front Line Defenders (FLD).
In a year when many countries implemented lockdown measures to help stop the spread of the pandemic, human rights defenders provided much-needed support by providing personal protective equipment, medicines and food to sick and elderly people, filling the gaps left by their governments . Despite this help – or perhaps because of it – they faced a variety of reprisals, ranging from arrest and intimidation to physical assault and murder, FLD’s chief of protection Ed O’Donovan said.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed many failures in many societies – most notably systemic inequalities and the failure of the government to provide effective services to its citizens, which is sometimes on purpose,” O’Donovan said.
Much of this can be traced back to corruption and undemocratic systems in which transparency and accountability are anathema to the interests of the ruling elites, both political and economic. Human rights defenders and civil society fill those gaps – even though they were still targeted – by providing services and an alternative vision for societies. “
O’Donovan said it was no surprise that activists who deal with impunity and justice issues in America suffered the second highest rate of violations against them, after those who deal with indigenous, land and environmental rights.
Twenty human rights defenders working to fight corruption were also killed in 2020 – the highest number ever documented by FLD.
The report also found that:
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Indigenous activists made up nearly a third of the total of 331 human rights defenders murdered worldwide, although indigenous peoples make up only about 6% of the world’s population.
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A significant number of those killed worked to halt extractive industry projects. Among them was South African environmentalist Fikile Ntshangase, who was shot after resisting the expansion of a coal mine near her home.
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13% of all recorded deaths were women
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Six transgender human rights defenders were murdered in 2020, all in America
While Covid-19 stalled some of the momentum from protest movements that began in 2019, human rights defenders helped remobilize and in some countries initiated movements during the latter half of 2020, the report said. In Poland, activists fought for reproductive rights; in Bulgaria they countered the corruption of the political elite; protests about systemic racism erupted in the US; in Hong Kong, activists took to the streets to fight the introduction of an “Orwellian” national security law.
That fewer countries were responsible for a higher number of human rights defender deaths in 2020 than in 2019 – 331 murders in 25 countries last year compared to 304 murders in 31 countries in 2019 – proves that impunity prevails when it comes to crimes against activists, even amid widespread lockdowns and a global pandemic, O’Donovan said.
“Human rights defenders are always at risk and the lack of accountability and prosecution for their killings leaves virtually no cost to the perpetrators,” said O’Donovan, adding that a handful of countries – including Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru – have been responsible for significant increases in killings. in 2020.
“In Peru, the number of murders has increased from one in 2018 to eight in 2020; 75% of the deaths in 2020 were indigenous, with all working on land or indigenous issues, meaning most, if not all, were in more remote areas and compete with corporate and government actors who control land and sought natural resources. said O’Donovan.
“In Colombia, armed groups enforce their own Covid-19 checkpoints and patrols in areas they control, exposing human rights defenders to greater risks.”
The report comes the same week that Amnesty International accused the UK government of failing to fulfill their pledge to protect human rights workers abroad. It said health workers, lawyers, journalists and rights activists around the world were struggling to gain support from British embassies.
The FLD has taken special note of both China and India’s “efforts to reduce and reformulate normative human rights standards” on the world stage. The report also underlined the ongoing persecution of the Muslim-majority Uyghur population, which has led to mass arbitrary detention and surveillance, forced labor, forced sterilization of Uyghur women and the death of at least one Uyghur human rights defender, Tursun Kaliolla, a former official who served in December 2020 died while detained in Xinjiang.
FLD Deputy Director Olive Moore said the figures for 2020 showed an “unscrupulous” trend of violence against activists, and called for human rights defenders to be included in governments’ post-Covid planning and Cop26 climate talks that are planned for November this year.
“Although 2020 was a difficult year for everyone, it was especially a challenge for human rights defenders, who stood up to take on unprecedented challenges. They faced increasing attacks, economic uncertainty and the impact of disease and death on their communities, but tried to fill the voids left by the government’s inadequate response to the pandemic, ”said Moore.
“It is unscrupulous that they are being attacked, as described in this report.”