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Environmental Human Rights: News & Updates

RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Honduras, 7/20/2020
July 20, 2020
We sent letters to officials in Honduras regarding the kidnapping on July 18 of four Garífuna leaders from the community of Triunfo de la Cruz, Atlántida Department. One of the four is Albert Sneider Centeno, president of the Community Board of Triunfo de la Cruz. They were kidnapped from their homes in the early morning by heavily armed men who were wearing bullet-proof vests and uniforms of the Policía Militar (Military Police) and the Dirección de Investigación Policial (DPI, Police Investigations Directorate). Others victims of the kidnapping include Milthon Joel Martínez Suany and Aparicio Mejía. We demand an immediate search to find the Garífuna leaders alive. We demand a thorough investigation process that will lead to the capture and prosecution of the kidnappers. We further demand that the State of Honduras cease all acts of violence and harassment against the Garífuna communities.
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News Article
One Step Forward! 94 Congresspersons Push for Peace in Colombia
July 7, 2020

McGovern (D-MA) and Pocan (D-WI) 94 members of congress through a dear colleague letter urging Trump administration to push for peace in Colombia!

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RRN Case Update
RRN Case Update: Spring 2020 - urgent human rights cases
July 1, 2020
April, May and June RRN case summaries at a glance
On behalf of our 190 Rapid Response Network members, IRTF volunteers write and send six letters each month to government officials in southern Mexico, Colombia, and Central America (with copies to officials in the US). Who is being targeted? indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders, labor organizers, LGBTI rights defenders, women’s rights defenders, journalists, environmental defenders, campesinos, and others.
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Honduras 6/24/2020
June 24, 2020
We are writing to express our concern about attacks on civil liberties against members of the Comité Ambientalista de Azacualpa (Azacualpa Environmental Committee) in Azacualpa, municipality of La Unión, Copán Department.
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia, 5/26/2020
May 26, 2020
Because she is an outspoken defender of the environment and territorial rights in Putumayo (Amazon Basin), Jani Rita Silva has been subjected to intimidation, surveillance and death threats. In March, the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (CIPJ) reported that an anonymous informant told them of a plan to assassinate her. After an investigative visit to the Amazon Pearl Peasant Reserve Zone earlier this month (May 2020), representatives of CIJP reported that the military is conducting illegal surveillance on the environmental defender (as well as against staff of CIJP). Jani Rita Silva is the legal representative of the Association for the Integral and Sustainable Development of the Amazon Pearl (ADISPA). As such, she has denounced the oil extraction operations of the multinational company Amerisur, whose partners include Houston-based Occidental Petroleum.
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia, 5/1/2020
May 1, 2020
We are deeply concerned about attacks on rural community leaders in Cauca Department. This is part of a wave of violence that continues to impact many regions of Colombia. Since January 1 more than 60 social leaders have been assassinated across the country. In a period of just one week, these four social leaders were assassinated in Cauca: Teodomiro Sotelo Anacona, Andrés Andrelio Cacimanca Burbano, Mario Chilhueso, and Hugo de Jesús Giraldo López. We urge the president and attorney general of Colombia to: 1- carry out transparent and thorough investigations into the assassinations listed above, publish the results, and bring the perpetrators to justice; 2- provide protection measures to members of the organizations listed above, in strict accordance with the wishes of their local leaders; 3- demilitarize the rural areas of Cauca because of the military’s complicity in the armed violence, forced displacement, and targeting of rural social leaders.
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News Article
Combating Climate Change in El Salvador
April 22, 2020

As Pope Francis wrote five years in Laudato Si’ (#139), the range of these issues, from deforestation to migration and overcrowded cities, suggests that “we are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis, which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”

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Event
El Salvador: Water Rights in the Time of COVID-19
April 18, 2020

How can you wash your hands with no access to clean water? You can’t. After decades of right-wing attacks on essential public services, like health care and water, many people in El Salvador do not have the access they need to protect their health in this critical time, much less easily carry on daily cooking and cleaning tasks. Join our friends at CRLN for an online conversation with water defense activist and national labor union leader Marielos de Leon to learn how organizers in El Salvador are advancing the struggle for water rights for all–-and the important role that international solidarity can play today.

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RRN Case Update
RRN Case Update: Winter 2020 - urgent human rights cases
April 1, 2020
January, February, and March RRN case summaries at a glance
On behalf of our 190 Rapid Response Network members, IRTF volunteers write and send six letters each month to government officials in southern Mexico, Colombia, and Central America (with copies to officials in the US). Who is being targeted? indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders, labor organizers, LGBTI rights defenders, women’s rights defenders, journalists, environmental defenders, and others. By signing our names to these crucial letters, human rights crimes are brought to light, perpetrators are brought to justice and lives are spared. Our solidarity is more important than ever. Together, our voices do make a difference.
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News Article
Collective Work for Mother Earth // La Lucha Colectiva por la Madre Tierra
March 27, 2020

IRTF full-time volunteer Quin Galvin participated in a recent Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective to Colombia to learn from social leaders in the movement for environmental justice. This delegation brought about the realization that our work as environmental actors goes beyond the individual-actions approach that dominates our understanding of "how to be environmentally conscious," and how participating in collective work towards environmental justice is the only way towards collective liberation. Traducción en Español aqui también.

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