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South America Newsletter June 2022
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
killed in full view of her family and neighbours by FARC dissidents 31 December 2021
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…]
Group Newsletter May 2022
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South America Newsletter May 2022
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…]
Europe Newsletter May 2022
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.”
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