This month we bring you news from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru.  Amnesty has two Urgent Actions on individuals in Venezuela and opposes a proposal that could force the closure of NGOs in that country. We report on the plight of indigenous Amazonian communities in Brazil and Ecuador and the continued spate of police killings in Brazil. There’s been a new prison massacre in Ecuador. A new report on aggressions against Colombian human rights defenders and community leaders takes the government to task. The first round of the Colombian presidential election resulted in a surprise.

REGIONAL 

In a Newsweek article highlighting Amnesty’s report “Unequal and Lethal”, Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s Secretary General, and Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director, have called for a post-Covid economic recovery that is rights based, inclusive and fair, and addresses the region’s structural inequality.

VENEZUELA 

Amnesty has issued two new Urgent Actions.

Carlos Debiais, a photographer, was filming in Falcón state when he was questioned by security personnel of the state-owned oil company and detained on 12 November last year by military counterintelligence officers.  After his detention, his fate and whereabouts were unknown on several occasions.   A release warrant was issued in his name on 12 April, but prison authorities are refusing to release him.  You can take action here.

On 16 May, human rights defenders Marino Alvarado and Alfredo Infante received notification of a defamation lawsuit filed against them by the governor of Carabobo state. The lawsuit comes as a response to a report published in March by the NGOs Provea and Centro Gumilla, which exposes possible extrajudicial executions in Carabobo state and the governor’s failure to enforce accountability.  Amnesty is calling for the lawsuit to be dropped and, more widely, for a safe working environment for human rights defenders.  You can take action here.

500 civil society organizations, including Amnesty, and 250 activists have signed a public statement rejecting a proposed International Cooperation Law, currently under debate in the National Assembly, which could criminalize NGOs, or at least seriously hinder the work of human rights organisations in the country.  If passed, the bill could be used to justify the control, persecution or suspension of these organizations and leave them without access to external financing.

COLOMBIA

The Colombian NGO Programa Somos Defensores (We are defenders programme PSD) has published its annual report on aggressions against human rights defenders (HRDs) and social leaders in Colombia in 2021, including the killings of 139. While the perpetrators of 82 killings are unknown, of the remainder perpetrators of 21 killings were identified as ex-paramilitaries, 18 as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) dissidents, 9 as the ELN (National Liberation Army), 5 as state security forces and 4 as others. The two groups who suffered most losses were communal/community leaders and indigenous leaders. [Read more…]

Welcome to the latest newsletter. The next meeting  is on Thursday 7th July 2022 7.30pm  at Moordown Community Centre. There is no meeting in June as the first Thursday happens to be a Bank Holiday. However, there are two events coming up that you may wish to attend. AmnesTea We are planning our fourth AmnesTea, our first post lockdown.  This will be on Sunday the 19th June 2022, 3pm to 5pm. Our secretary, Lucy Freeman has offered to host this event again at her home in Southbourne.What is an AmnestyTea? Well you, and any friend come along – possibly bringing cake  – and drink tea (or coffee, or whatever your favourite beverage) We will also have a book stall. So basically bring along (1) people (2) cake (3) books to donate (4) cash to spend.. June 19th also happens to be Fathers Day, so celebrate in style! On a more serious note its at the start of Refugee Week. The theme for 2022 is ‘healing’. With the Nationality and Borders Bill now passed, the desperate situation with people crossing the Channel, the treatment of people seeking asylum in the UK including the appalling deal to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda and the war in Ukraine, now is a really important time to show support for refugees. We aim to have some action you can participate in at the AmnesTea. Please respond to this newsletter if you would like to attend and want more details. [Read more…]

This month we bring you news from Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. A recent military operation in Colombia seems to have gone wrong, a reminder of the ‘false negatives’ extra judicial killings of the past being investigated by the JEP transitional justice court, where we report on new developments.  We review the appalling record on human rights and the environment under the present government in Brazil and the possible excessive use of force by the police in Peru, where six demonstrators have died during protests against the increased cost of food, fuel and fertilizers. We look at the challenges faced by the new office of the International Criminal Court in Venezuela and the main candidates for the forthcoming presidential elections in Colombia and Brazil.

REGIONAL

On 27 April, Amnesty published a new report on the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean.  The report Unequal and Lethal explains the factors behind the region’s disproportionate death toll and calls on governments across the region urgently to ramp up spending on the right to social protection and health in order to tackle the region’s “obscene socio-economic inequality that has proven fatal during the COVID pandemic”. [Read more…]

The war unleashed by Putin’s army against Ukraine has led to the largest displacement of people within Europe since the second world war. For once the EU has agreed to implement the TPD (temporary protection directive) which allows refugees from Ukraine to find refuge within the EU without bureaucratic obstacles and with permission to work and re-build their lives. But not all refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine are given the same generous help.  Amina Gerikhanov had fled with her little son from Chechnya to Ukraine, now driven to flee the war she is threatened with deportation to Russia from Romania. Please take Action.

In particular people in Poland and Moldavia have been exemplary in their generosity and welcome towards Ukrainian refugees. But at Poland’s other border with Belarus refugees including women with small children fleeing equally brutal wars and violence in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are still forced back into the swampy forests at the border with Belarus, violently pushed from both sides of the border. Those who did succeed in not being pushed back are languishing in overcrowded detention centers. In one detention center 20-24 people were squashed into rooms measuring only 8 square meter. Nearly 2000 people including hundreds of children are detained in Polish detention centers. Please read Amnesty’s latest report:-

POLAND: CRUELTY NOT COMPASSION, AT EUROPE’S OTHER BORDERS

Polish people, mostly women, who are bringing food and aid into the forest to help refugees survive are being criminalised. Women like Weronika Klemby who has been arrested and is threatened with 3 month imprisonment : ”My fault is that I didn’t want to let people die who are not welcome in Poland by the authorities. Giving people in the forest warm soup, that is all “

In Italy court proceedings against the crew of the Iuventa are starting on 21. May. Over 14000 people were rescued by the Iuventa from drowning in the Mediterranean until the ship was seized by the Italian authorities and the crew arrested.

Court proceedings also started against the El Hiblu 3 in Malta, whose only crime was to use their language skills and help to negotiate the rescue of more than 100 people.

And shockingly the UK government is planning to send people seeking asylum in the UK to Rwanda. This is the most shocking assault by our government on the Right to Asylum which is already thoroughly undermined by the Nationality and Borders Bill. Please take action and lobby your MP.

AI must remain alert, call out and fight any measures that reflect systemic racism entrenched in Europe’s migration policies. While working to ensure that the welcoming attitude towards people fleeing the war in Ukraine is viable and long-lasting, we also must ensure that this doesn’t further entrench a two-tier system for refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe.

Turkey

Sadly, April was not a good month for Human Rights in Turkey

Aggravated life sentence for Osman Kavala a devastating blow for human rights 

On 25 April, civil society leader Osman Kavala, who had been imprisoned on pretrial detention since November 2017, was convicted for “attempting to overthrow the government” and sentenced to aggravated life in prison; his seven co-defendants each received a sentence of 18 years, allegedly for aiding Osman Kavala and were immediately remanded in prison.

Responding to the conviction, Nils Muižnieks, Amnesty International’s Europe Director, said:

“Today, we have witnessed a travesty of justice of spectacular proportions. This verdict deals a devastating blow not only to Osman Kavala, his co-defendants and their families, but to everyone who believes in justice and human rights activism in Turkey and beyond.

 “The court’s decision defies all logic. The prosecuting authorities have repeatedly failed to provide any evidence that substantiates the baseless charges of attempting to overthrow the government. This unjust verdict shows that the Gezi trial was only an attempt to silence independent voices.                               

“This politically motivated charade has already seen Osman Kavala arbitrarily imprisoned for more than four-and-a-half years over his civil society activism. We continue to call for Osman Kavala’s and his co-defendants’ immediate release as they appeal these draconian verdicts.”

[Read more…]

This month, we update you on developments in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, and Venezuela.

The UN Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders has denounced the killing of indigenous human rights defenders in Colombia. It is believed the killings were carried out by a non-state actor, believed to be a dissident FARC. Meanwhile, Amnesty International has published its 2021 Annual Report on Colombia, analyzing the slow implementation of the peace process and the situation of indigenous, gender, and LGBT+ rights, attacks on human rights defenders.

In Brazil, the number of civilians killed because of police intervention in Rio de Janeiro has more than quadrupled between 2013 and 2019. Amnesty International has submitted a report to Brazil’s Universal Periodic Review, which will take place in November. According to Amnesty International’s latest Annual Report, Peru has recorded the world’s highest number of COVID-19 per million people.

In Argentina, health professional Miranda Ruiz, who guaranteed access to legal abortion in the city of Tartagal in Argentina’s province of Salta, is being investigated by the criminal prosecutor despite abortion being legalized a year ago. During the 49th session of the Human Rights Council, Amnesty International expressed its concern regarding the human rights situation in Venezuela.

You can now access and download the Amnesty International Annual report 2021/2022.

Find out more.

 

 

COLOMBIA

The UN rapporteur for human rights defenders has denounced the killings of indigenous Nasa human rights defenders by a non-State actor, believed to be dissident FARC. This follows the killing of four Nasa indigenous Guardians by the same non-State armed group in the last week of January.  “It is extremely worrying and shocking that children are direct victims of these attacks.” Non-State armed groups continue to recruit children, abducting a 14-year-old Nasa boy.

Spain’s leading newspaper El País reports that the Colombian government’s claim to have ‘neutralised’, i.e. killed, 11 members of dissident FARC in a town near the border with Ecuador has been contested by locals and the Defender of the People. They claim that these were mainly local civilian leaders and their families. This raises the spectre of a return to ‘false positives’, when the army killed innocent civilians and then claimed they were armed guerrillas.

Peace Brigades International explores recent investigations by the transitional justice system (JEP), set up under the Peace Accords, into human rights abuses against environmental rights defenders in Magdelena Medio region. Local communities have long opposed extractive industries which have damaged the environment and provided them with no monetary benefits.

Amnesty International’s 2021 Annual Report on Colombia analyses: the slow implementation of the Peace process; the military’s profiling of 57 journalists as part of its campaign ‘truth in a sea of lies’ and the attacks on 402 press workers; excessive use of force by the police; arbitrary detention and torture; the situation of indigenous, gender and LGBT+ rights; attacks on human rights defenders; forced displacement and confinement of 100,000 people in the year; impunity; and refugee and migrants’ rights.  [Read more…]