Menneskeretsforkæmpere er jaget vildt i Latinamerika – særligt i spørgsmål om jord og ressourcer, ligestilling og seksuelle minoriteter er der voldsomme overgreb, der stort set aldrig fører til retsforfølgelse, konkluderer Amnesty International i ny rapport fredag.
LONDON, December 7, 2012: Human rights defenders across the Americas are facing escalating levels of intimidation, harassment (chikane) and attacks at the hands of state security forces, paramilitary groups and organized crime, Amnesty International said in a new report Friday.
The report, titled “Transforming pain into hope: Human rights defenders in the Americas”, is based on around 300 cases of intimidation, harassment, attacks and killings of human rights defenders in more than a dozen countries primarily between January 2010 and September 2012.
“Human rights defenders are systematically harassed, attacked and subjected to unfounded criminal charges in almost every country in the Americas to prevent them from speaking out for the rights of the most marginalized,” said Nancy Tapias-Torrado, Americas Researcher on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders at Amnesty International.
Throughout the Americas, human rights defenders have been publicly condemned as “illegal”, “illegitimate”, “unscrupulous”(skrupelløse) or even “immoral”.
They have been accused of being criminals, corrupt, liars, troublemakers or subversives (undergravende elementer); of defending criminals; and of supporting guerrilla groups. Such public criticisms have been voiced by government officials as well as non-state actors.
“Men and women who work to protect human rights are also targeted as they are seen by powerful political and economic interests as an obstacle to major development projects,” said Tapias-Torrado.
Those particularly targeted include people working on issues related to land and natural resources; the rights of women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, abuses (overgreb) against migrants as well as those working to ensure justice for human rights abuses, plus journalists, bloggers and trade unionists.
Of the almost 300 cases analyzed by Amnesty International, those directly responsible were convicted in only four cases.
Almost half of the cases documented by Amnesty International took place in the context of disputes over land, in countries including Brazil, Colombia and Honduras.
Several were related to large-scale development projects led by private companies.
In countries including Cuba and Mexico, human rights defenders have suffered judicial harassment, have been detained on the basis of flawed (svage) evidence or have had spurious (forfalskede) charges hanging over them for years because arrest warrants are issued then not acted on.
Indigenous human rights defenders José Ramón Aniceto Gómez and Pascual Agustín Cruz, from Puebla, Mexico, were released from prison on 28 November 2012, after the country’s Supreme Court of Justice overturned their unfair conviction.
They were sentenced, in 12 July 2010, to seven years in prison, accused of stealing a car.
Man kan læse mere og downloade rapporten på
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/americas-human-rights-defenders-increasingly-targeted-and-attacked-2012-12-07
Begynd fra: “The case was brought…”
