At least 331 human rights defenders promoting social, environmental, racial and gender justice in 25 countries were killed in 2020.
Latin America, the most dangerous continent in the world to protect environmental, land and human rights, accounted for more than three-quarters of all human rights defenders killed in 2020. In Colombia, where activists are regularly targeted by armed groups. despite a peace deal in 2016, 177 such deaths were recorded, more than half of the world total. The Philippines was the second deadliest country with 25 killings, followed by Honduras, Mexico, Afghanistan, Brazil and Guatemala.
While the majority (69%) of those killed were concerned about the rights of environmental, rural or indigenous peoples, activists also targeted that they merely provide Covid-19 relief to their communities, according to a report by the advocacy group has been published. Front Line Defenders (FLD).
In a year when many countries implemented lock-in measures to stem the spread of the pandemic, human rights defenders provided much-needed support by providing PPE, medicine and food to the sick and elderly and filling their gaps. Despite this help – or perhaps because of it – they have faced various retributions, ranging from arrest and harassment to physical violence and murder, said Ed O’Donovan, head of protection at FLD.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed many failures in many societies – especially systemic inequalities and the failure of the government to provide efficient services to its citizens, which are sometimes by design,” O’Donovan said.
” Much of this can be traced back to corruption and undemocratic systems in which transparency and accountability are the interests of the ruling elite, both politically and economically. Defenders of human rights and civil society have filled these gaps – despite the fact that they are still being targeted – providing services and an alternative vision for societies.
O’Donovan said it was no surprise that activists working on impunity and justice issues suffered the second largest number of violations against them in the Americas, after those working on indigenous, land and environmental rights.
Twenty human rights defenders working on anti-corruption were also killed in 2020 – the highest figure ever documented by FLD.
The report also found that:
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Indigenous activists make up nearly one-third of the total of 331 human rights defenders worldwide, although indigenous peoples make up only about 6% of the world population
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A significant number of murders worked to stop the exploitation of industrial projects. They included South African environmental activist Fikile Ntshangase, who was shot dead after opposing the expansion of a coal mine near her home.
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13% of all those admitted are women
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Six transgender human rights defenders killed in 2020, all in the United States
While Covid-19 has halted the momentum of protest movements that began in 2019, human rights activists have helped revitalize the latter half of 2020, and in some countries, the report said. In Poland, activists fought for reproductive rights; in Bulgaria they opposed the corruption of the political elite; in the US protests erupted over systemic racism; in Hong Kong, activists took to the streets to fight the introduction of an “Orwellian” national security law.
That fewer countries were responsible for a greater number of deaths among human rights defenders in 2020 than in 2019 – 331 murders in 25 countries last year compared to 304 murders in 31 countries in 2019 – proves that impunity is encountered when it comes to crimes against activists, even amid widespread closures and a global pandemic, O’Donovan said.
“Human rights defenders are always at risk and the lack of accountability and prosecution for their killings leaves virtually no offenders,” O’Donovan said, adding that a handful of countries – including Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru – were responsible for increase in murders in 2020.
“In Peru, murders increased from one in 2018 to eight in 2020; 75% of those killed in 2020 were indigenous, while all worked on land or indigenous affairs, meaning that most, if not all, were located in more remote areas, against the businessmen and state actors in control of wanted land and natural resources, ‘says O’Donovan.
“In Colombia, armed groups have enforced their own Covid-19 checkpoints and patrols in areas under their control, exposing human rights defenders to greater risk.”
The report comes in the same week that Amnesty International has accused the British government of not fulfilling its promise to protect human rights workers abroad. Health workers, lawyers, journalists and rights activists around the world are said to be struggling to gain support from British embassies.
The FLD made a special note of both China and India’s efforts to reduce and reformulate normative human rights standards’ on the world stage. The report also underscores China’s ongoing persecution of the Uighur Muslim population, which has led to mass arbitrary detention and surveillance, forced labor, forced sterilization of Uighur women and the death of at least one Uighur human rights defender, Tursun Kaliolla, a former civil servant. who died in December 2020 while in custody in Xinjiang.
FLD deputy director Olive Moore said the 2020 figures showed an ‘unscrupulous’ trend of violence against activists, and called for human rights defenders to be included in the government’s post-Covid planning, and during the Cop26 climate talks scheduled for November this year.
‘While 2020 has been a difficult year for all, it has been a particular challenge for human rights defenders, facing unprecedented challenges. “They have faced increasing attacks, economic insecurity and the effects of illness and death on their communities, yet have worked to fill their gaps through inadequate government responses to the pandemic,” Moore said.
“That they are being attacked, as set out in this report, is unscrupulous.”