Was a Canadian military/security consultant company complicit in the 2016 assassination of Indigenous Lenca land defender Berta Céceres? Did they financially benefit? What was their role in broader intimidation efforts against Indigenous land defenders?
The reopening of the Fenix nickel mine in Izabel (northeastern Guatemala) is moving ahead despite pushback from the affected indigenous communities who were not informed prior, defying the Inter-American court of Human Rights who ruled that the continuation or modification of the Fenix mining project must be supported by prior, free, informed, and culturally appropriate consultation with the Maya Q'echi' community. In addition to violating the local community's rights, the mining project has significant environmental impacts that poullte water, air, and soil quality.
On June 4th, the community of Copal AA La Esperanza invited NISGUA to participate in their annual Mother Earth Festival—a day to celebrate the soil, water and forest that sutain their livelihoods and to explicitly reject the corporate interests that exploit them.
One week after the Colombian elections, Community Peacemaker Teams met with local leadership in El Guayabo to collectively reflect on emerging risks, evaluate past strategies, and adapt their approach to defending their territory. Despite the exhausting challenges of ongoing resistance, the community drew strength from their shared experience, international support, and mutual care, reaffirming that their collective organization is what keeps hope and resilience alive.
In the weeks leading up to the 17th anniversary of the 2009 coup in Honduras, dozens of social movements and grassroots organizations are coordinating press conferences, collecting signatures, blocking roads, and demonstrating in front of the Supreme Court. All of these actions aim to denounce a series of laws that promote and prioritize large-scale private investment in the agribusiness, tourism, and energy sectors, which they claim are returning Honduras to the narco-dictatorship that followed the coup (2009-2022). The resistance of these movements is directly linked to the intensification of US intervention in Honduras.
Please join us for an evening of discussion and reflection on Cooperative Culture!
The world we live in greatly favors domination culture. We see this culture in our work places, in our government, in our schools, and even in some of our houses of worship. We are constantly presented with organizational structures that divide, and alienate us. Ways of living and working that focus on control, authority, and management.
Mega-projects like hydroelectric dams are promoted to international financiers as progress to help poor countries. But peak behind the curtain and we see the investor-profit motives of private actors, both foreign and domestic.
The International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 (commonly known as ILO 169) is a binding international convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, adopted in 1989, which guarantees their rights and requires prior consultation for measures affecting their territories, such as the construction of hydroelectric dams or large-scale mechanized mining. In the Western Highlands of Guatemala (Huehuetenango Department), Indigenous communities have been organizing resistance to the Pojom I and Pojom II dam projects. Although both were already under construction (in violation of ILO 169), in August 2025 the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Energy and Mines to complete a consultation process within 12 months while allowing construction to continue. Communities have challenged that ruling before the Constitutional Court, arguing that a consultation after the continued construction cannot satisfy the requirement that it be “prior.”
As is common, defenders of land rights have been criminalized in this case. Rigoberto Juárez and Ermitaño López were arrested in 2015 for their peaceful role in opposing the hydroelectric projects. After being declared not guilty of serious charges in 2016 and released, an Appeals Court in 2021 reversed the ruling and significantly increased their sentences (to 8 and 24 years). After the Constitutional Court confirmed these sentences in February 2026, IRTF has joined with Indigenous rights organizations to review their convictions and address the documented procedural violations that led to their sentencing.
A shocking government report has revealed a 38% surge in cancer deaths and toxic arsenic poisoning in Guatemalan communities surrounding a controversial silver mine. Yet, despite these damning health findings and overwhelming rejection by indigenous Xinka communities, corporate giants are aggressively pushing to restart operations.
Human rights groups around the world are calling for an investigation into the death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera, Indigenous leader and Yatama political party leader.
After speaking out against the government of Nicaragua before the United Nations, Brooklyn Rivera was subjected to enforced disappearance and imprisoned in September 2023. Since that time there had been no confirmation of his imprisonment, and his family was barred from seeing him. But just a few days before he died on May 30, 2026, the Ministry of the Interior confirmed Rivera’s detention and published photos of him intubated in a hospital. The government attributed his death to a COVID infection, but human rights groups demand an independent investigation.
In IRTF’s letter to Co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosa Murillo, we urge (1) an independent, transparent and thorough investigation on what happened exactly to Brooklyn Rivera, (2) an account of the specific conditions of his detention, including whether he had access to adequate medical care, and the exact sequence of events that led to his death, and (3) release of all arbitrarily detained persons and assurance that detention centers fully comply with international human rights standards
Detainees in Newark's detention center, Delaney Hall, are subject to work grueling jobs for only 1 dollar a day, if they are even paid at all. Despite the many demands for change, the GEO group refuses to take any action to improve the work conditions in Delaney Hall. This mistreatment has led to a labor and hunger strike of 300 migrants within the detention center. With the strike in effect, the guards have imposed both physical and mental torture to those imprisoned. When these conditions were revealed to the public through a letter by the migrants, a group of protesters gathered around Delaney Hall; they are still continuing their efforts to have the workers' conditions improved.
