Impunity happens in the absence of the Rule of Law. As a result of impunity, those suspected of criminal acts are not prosecuted or punished and victims are left without effective remedy or compensation for their injuries or loss. At the same time, they – and society – are denied access to the truth about the violations suffered.
March 2, 2018
More than 60 international organizations, backed by members of European Parliament, demand justice in the case of Berta Cáceres, echoing the requests of COPINH (Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) for guarantees of non-repetion and defense of human rights in the reigion.
From 1999-2011, Peace Brigades International provided protective accompaniment and participatory peace education to human rights defenders in Papua, Aceh, Flores, West Timor and Jakarta. A report about our past work can be read here: Our Work in Indonesia 1999-2011.
During Nepal’s civil conflict between 1996 and 2006, more than 13,000 people were killed and thousands were forcibly disappeared. Both Maoist insurgents and government forces committed human rights and humanitarian law violations including extrajudicial execution, torture, displacement, arbitrary arrests and detention. None of those responsible have yet been held to account.
February 23, 2018
Rosalinda Dionicio is a leader of the United Peoples’ Network of the Ocotlán Valley in Defense of Territory. Since 2009, the organization has been demanding the closure of the San José mine, owned by a subsidiary of the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines, which they say has caused environmental destruction and water shortages in their communities. Rosalinda is a survivor of a 2012 attack by gunmen in which her colleague Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez was assassinated--one of many serious human rights violations suffered by the organization.
In 2009/10 PBI assessed the protection needs of human rights defenders across Africa to identify countries where PBI’s methodology of international protective presence may be appropriate. The research pointed to a clear demand from defenders in Kenya. In 2011/12 we undertook an in-depth assessment to determine whether we could establish a field project in Kenya. We went to Kenya to talk to human rights defenders, to find out what their protection needs were, and whether protective accompaniment would be effective in the country.
Since the coup d’état took place in Honduras on 28 June 2009, PBI has followed with growing concern the serious deterioration of the space in which organizations, communities and human rights defenders can defend human rights in the country.
January 25, 2018
An indigenous community from the region of La Montaña (state of Guerrero) have been waging a legal battle since 2011 to prevent their lands from being conceded to mining companies. The indigenous Me’phaa community lives in San Miguel del Progreso, or Júba Wajiín in their indigenous language. In the last seven years, they have obtained two legal protection mechanisms that have rendered a mining project practically null and void.
