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Event
Ohio Fair Trade Teach-In & Expo 2025
October 4, 2025

Initiated in 2009, this in-person event at John Carroll University will bring together hundreds of fair trade supporters, advocates, retailers, and vendors from across the state.  Each year the Ohio Fair Trade Teach-In & Expo continues to build energy around the already vibrant Ohio fair trade movement. In addition to the Global Marketplace of fair trade vendors, we’ll host educational presentations and our Fair Trade Around the World program for kids. 

 

WHAT:     Ohio Fair Trade Teach-In & Expo 2025

WHERE:  John Carroll University, Dolan Science Center; University Heights (Cleveland), OH 44118

WHEN:    Saturday, October 4, 2025

TIME:      9am-2pm (attendees are welcome to come and go)

Register for the event (or list your organization as a co-sponsor) by clicking here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/2025-ohio-fair-trade-expo-tickets-and-sponsorship

See and share the Facebook event here:

Thank you to our financial co-sponsors (list in formation): Beyond Borders, Church of the Gesu, Disciples Christian Church, Ignatian Solidarity Network, The Market Path

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Event
Stay Safe & Stay Informed - Migration Detention Resources
September 11, 2025 to September 30, 2025

Do you and your neighbors and co-workers know what to do if visited, questioned, or arrested by ICE? Do you know you can call the Ohio Immigration Hotline 419-777-HELP (4357) ? There’s also the Ohio National Lawyers Guild Hotline: (614) 654-6477

You can stay up-to-date every day on ICE activities, trends in apprehensions and detentions by following Austin Kocher on Substack https://substack.com/@austinkocher/posts

In northeast Ohio, you can reach out to irtf@irtfcleveland.org for educational resources and trainings for your workplace, congregation, or community group.

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Event
Take Action - Support Local Migrant Initiatives
September 11, 2025 to September 30, 2025

Consider your position in your community. What can you contribute to undocumented community members or migrant organizations?

Do you know any legal, mental health, social work professionals?

What about school employees?

We need EVERYONE to consider how they can mobilize support for vulnerable migrant families.

If you yourself don’t hold a professional position that is needed, consider this: Could serve as a first-call, point person for someone who is detained? Reach out to them to initiate a supportive conversation.  Are you positioned to do child pick-up and safeguarding? Well-connected with community orgs or professionally situated to help with legal, medical or other needs?

See the attached flyer for more resources and ways to get involved.

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News Article
Environmental Human Rights: Global Witness Releases Annual Report on Environmental Defenders
September 17, 2025

“Year after year, land and environmental defenders – those protecting our forests, rivers, and lands across the world – continue to be met with unspeakable violence. They are being hunted, harassed, and killed – not for breaking laws, but for defending life itself.

- Laura Furones (Global Witness lead author)

Global Witness documented 117 defender killings last year (82%) in Latin America, with 48 in Colombia, which had the most killings globally for the third year in a row. This is followed by Guatemala, where 20 defenders were killed in 2024 – up from four in 2023.

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News Article
El Salvador: Activists Take to San Salvador Streets on Independence Day
September 17, 2025

On El Salvador’s Independence Day, about 1,500 activists marched in San Salvador demanding the release of political prisoners and denouncing arbitrary arrests under President Bukele’s gang crackdown. The event highlighted tensions between the government’s tough security policies and human rights concerns that affect daily life for locals and visitors alike.

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RRN Letter
El Salvador, 9/16/2025
September 16, 2025

Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans still lack access to potable water in their homes and many more go days without water due to existing scarcity and contamination of rivers, lakes, and streams—all of which would be exacerbated by renewed mining operations, now allowable due to the government’s repeal of its ban on large-scale metallic mining in December 2024. Since that time, the government has increased its use of the penal system to persecute those who peacefully exercise their right to organize for environmental protections of the nation’s drinking water.

Since December 2024, Catholic and Protestant churches and faith-based civic organizations have been mobilizing their opposition to the repeal. In March 2025, the archbishop of San Salvador presented petitions signed by 150,000 people urging repeal of the December 2024 law. In May, the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church in El Salvador reiterated its opposition to metallic mining in a pastoral letter, emphasizing that access to water is a fundamental human right and a shared inheritance entrusted to all people by God.

We echo the popular social movement in El Salvdaor—backed by church leaders—and urge that the government:

(1) reinstate the ban on metallic mining

(2) heed the call of church leaders and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor to  end the persecution and criminalization of those defending the right to clean water

(3) drop all criminal charges against water defenders and human rights lawyer

  
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RRN Letter
Guatemala, 9/15/2025
September 15, 2025

During the 2023 presidential election season, grassroots organizations called for a National Strike in Guatemala. Indigenous leaders played a major role in organizing protests to protect voters’ rights and demand the resignation of Attorney General Consuelo Porras (sanctioned by the US for her corruption). The Kaqchikel authority of Sololá was one of the first to organize, participating in a protest in front of the Public Ministry (MP) that would create a domino effect throughout the country.

On August 23, 2025, Esteban Toc Tzoy, the former deputy mayor of the Kaqchikel Indigenous Municipality of Sololá, was arrested while driving to a medical appointment. His arrest follows that of fellow Indigenous leaders Héctor Cháclan and Luis Pacheco from the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán, who were arrested in April and remain in pretrial detention on similar charges (cf our letter of 04 MAY 2025). Indigenous authorities believe Toc Tzoy’s arrest and criminalization is an act of retaliation for having filed a legal complaint demanding Porras’ resignation. After an initial hearing on September 5, Toc Tzoy was granted conditional release (placed under house arrest), yet he remains unjustly indicted for terrorism among other crimes.

 The use of anti-terrorism laws to criminalize Indigenous leaders for protesting injustice has become a common tactic employed by Guatemala’s Public Ministry. We are urging that authorities follow the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee relating to the use of terrorism charges, and guarantee due process and integrity in Toc Tzoy’s case.

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RRN Letter
Honduras, 9/14/2025
September 14, 2025

The United Nations has documented a crisis of press freedom in Honduras, noting systematic attacks on journalists as a means of obstructing accountability and weakening democracy. The case of Jorge Posadas is emblematic of this broader crisis for journalists who continue their vital work under threat.

Based in Santa Rosa de Copán, Copán Department, Jorge Posadas has been reporting on corruption allegations and environmental destruction linked to Aníbal Erazo Alvarado, mayor of Santa Rosa de Copán. In recent weeks, he has been victim to escalating threats, surveillance, and harassment. He has reported being followed by unidentified vehicles observed near his home and workplace. In a news article published on September 1, Jorge Posadas stated: “I am very worried about my life and that of my family because strange vehicles are following us.”

We remind authorities in Honduras of their obligation to address the entrenched impunity surrounding attacks on journalists.

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RRN Letter
9/13/2025
September 13, 2025
 
Trans women are under attack in Colombia. Particularly in the Urabá region up near the Caribbean coast, LGBTQ+ organizations report a structural pattern of systematic violence against trans women, who face differentiated risks marked by social exclusion, stigmatization, poverty, and the lack of institutional guarantees for the full exercise of their rights. The human rights organization Caribe Afirmativo has recorded 50 cases thus far in 2025.
 
Although poor trans women are most likely to suffer attacks, those who hold prestigious social positions are not immune to the violence. Fernanda Domicó was a trans woman and chief of the fire department in Dabeiba, a city of 22,000 in Antioquia Department. She left home at 9pm on Thursday, July 24. The following morning, her body was discovered on the banks of a creek on a farm outside of town. There were several stab wounds to the head and face. 
The mayor highlighted her legacy and lamented that her death “leaves a great void.” The governor of Antioquia offered a reward of $20 million pesos for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for Fernanda Domicó's murder.
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News Article
Migrant Justice: BIA Decision Strips Immigration Judges of Bond Authority, All but Guaranteeing Mandatory Detention for Undocumented Immigrants
September 12, 2025

The BIA is the appellate body that reviews immigration judge decisions, and when it designates a decision as precedential, like Yajure Hurtado [ a migrant from Venezuela who entered the US in November 2022],  its reasoning is binding on all immigration judges unless a federal court says otherwise. This means that in immigration courts across the country, thousands of detained immigrants who were eligible for a bond hearing last week now have no recourse to be released during their immigration court proceedings unless they file—and win—a federal lawsuit.

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