Alejandro Cerezo, a human rights defender who is a member of the Cerezo Committee Mexico and coordinator of Urgent Action for Human Rights Defenders (ACUDDEH), was on his way to Paraguay to attend a conference on protective mechanisms for defenders on October 1, when, during a layover in Panama City, he was interrogated and deported.
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, in an August 31 press conference in Guatemala City, announced the non-renewal of the mandate of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). The UN-backed body has been helping Guatemala’s courts fight corruption for the past eleven years.
While the number of homocides has dropped in Honduras, the number of human rights defenders killed, according to UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst, has increased dramatically over the past few years. In the months before the November 2017 presidential election, the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) in Honduras documented violence, intimidation and threats targeting human rights defenders.
During the week of June 18, 2018, PBI-USA hosted an advocacy speaking tour with leading human rights defenders from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. In Central America and Mexico, indigenous and environmental rights defenders are extremely vulnerable. At best, governments in the region fail to adequately protect defenders. At worst, government forces are complicit in the attacks against them.
May 24, 2018
In 2017, PBI’s community of activists provided effective protection and support to more than one thousand women, men and LGBTI defenders, despite the challenging context and huge risk those working to change the world continued to face. Click on the report below to read more about our work in 2017 and some of the ways we made space for peace and supported (women) human rights defenders in 2017.
May 14, 2018
May 9, 2018
March 8, 2018
PBI celebrates the incredible and vital work done by Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) in Honduras, Mexico and Kenya, despite their continuing struggle against oppression and human rights abuses.
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.