Join us for a discussion with LGBTQIA+ human rights defenders from Guatemala, Honduras, and Indonesia on the current challenges they face and ways the international community might support their work & commitment.
PBI-Mexico has posted: “#CALL | Are you interested in the international accompaniment of people defending #Human Rights? Be a part of our field team! We receive applications until June 3, 2024. See the call: here”
Christopher Castillo, General Coordinator of ARCAH, is leading the movement in Honduras against so-called Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). These zones, which operate as independent territories, not subject to Honduran law, threaten to envelop vast swathes of Honduras; up to 35 percent of the country could be made into such zones.
For several years, a small coalition of groups - including Peace Brigades International - had been planning to host Jani Silva, perhaps the most threatened woman in Colombia’s Amazon rainforest.
Jani has been an outspoken environmental defender for years, challenging the expansion of oil operations and other threats to the Amazon Pearl, a biodiverse rainforest region along the Colombia-Ecuador border. She has received innumerable death threats of different varieties, and seen several of her fellow defenders killed for their activism as recently as late 2023.
PBI-Honduras has posted: “The Corruption Sentencing Court has just convicted 3 of the 6 former public officials accused in the ‘Fraud on Gualcarque’ case. We are observing the @COPINHHONDURAS [Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations in Honduras] sit-in, which requested a conviction for the 6 accused people.”
Photo: PBI-USA visits the encampment at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville), May 2, 2024.
Encampments are being organized on campuses across the United States, Canada, the U.K., and other countries in response to the Israeli military assault in which at least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed and 77,816 more injured.
The encampments have highlighted divestment as a demand.
Photo: Nour Naser Abu al-Nour of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights was killed by an Israeli airstrike on her family home in Rafah on February 20. The airstrike also killed seven members of her family including her two-year-old daughter Kenzi Jumaa.
PBI-Guatemala has posted:
“Last Friday [April 26], #PBI accompanied Famdegua [the Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala] to the hearing of revocation of alternative measures of Jacobo Salán Sánchez and Malfred Pérez Lorenzo, both accused in the #MilitaryDiaryCase, for which they should return to pre-trial detention.
Malfred Pérez Lorenzo’s lawyer did not show up at the hearing, nor did Jacobo Salán Sánchez and his lawyer.
Video: PBI-Colombia at the Peace Community on March 27, just days after the murder of two community members.
PBI-Colombia has posted on social media: “Urgent. After the murder of two members of @cdpsanjose [the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó], new attacks occur on the territory of the Community. Guarantees, research results and progress in the commitments made by the State are urgently needed.”