This article by The Guardian illustrates how the act of protesting is despite the societal scepcism that often dominates its image a very powerful thing to indulge in and that historically proves to reshape the political landscape.
Thank you to all who gathered with IRTF on November 9 for our annual commemoration event to mark the 45th anniversary of the sacrifice of four US women missioners in El Salvador. In response to that horrific tragedy, people of faith and conscience in Cleveland founded IRTF as a way to carry forward their legacy—taking action in solidarity with oppressed and marginalized communities as they struggle for peace, dignity, and justice.
IRTF board and staff wishes to thank all the volunteers who helped us set up, decorate, run the event and pack up at the end of the night, Pilgrim Church for hosting us, the kitchen staff at Guanaquitas pupsería for preparing our dinner, Megan Wilson-Reitz for coordinating our social hour (and the many kitchen volunteers!), Salim and Lucía for coordinating our raffle/auction, Pastor Jay for running the tech, and all who participated in the service and speaker program.
To our 46 co-sponsors: Thank you for your financial support that helps us continue calling people into solidarity with oppressed peoples in Central America and Colombia. We are deeply appreciative of your affirmation of our mission and ongoing commitment to this important work.
The Trump administration has further dismantled legal protections for Honduran women fleeing gender-based violence. Recent U.S. immigration rulings have invalidated key “particular social group” (PSG) categories—such as “Honduran women unable to leave a relationship”—that previously allowed women to claim asylum based on gender persecution. These changes, effectively bar many victims of domestic and sexual violence from receiving asylum. The rulings ignore the deep links between private violence, organized crime, and state complicity in Honduras, which has the highest femicide rate in Latin America.
The Córdoba Controversial Social Foundation-Cordoberxia coordinates the Human Rights Platform of the Colombian Caribbean, covering several departments in the Caribbean zone of Colombia. One of its leaders is Nestor Moreno Ríos. In addition to his work with Cordoberxia, Nestor is also active in several other human rights organizations, including Southern Córdoba Human Rights Network and Observatory of Human Rights of Southern Córdoba (OBDEHSUC). Moreover, Nestor directs the Sociopolitical Think Tank of Córdoba and the Corporación Córdoba Diversa, a nonprofit that works on civil rights and inclusion of the sexual diversity community in his home city of Montería.
When he went to his gym for his 6am morning work out on August 5, a gunman entered and tried to shoot him. Thankfully, the gun jammed after repeated tries, which allowed Nestor just enough time to find refuge and call for help. The rapid action of the police avoided a tragedy.
We urge authorities in Colombia to consult with Nestor Moreno Ríos to devise protection measures, in strict accordance with his wishes.
Members of the LGBTIQ+ community are among the most vulnerable of all populations in the Americas. Often they must migrate due to persecution, further increasing their vulnerability because of the marginalization migrants frequently endure, especially if they are Black, Indigenous, or otherwise non-White.
States’ responses to LGBTIQ+ migrants are vastly deficient throughout the hemisphere, including in the United States. They constitute a growing human rights crisis and a major lost opportunity for progress and prosperity.
In a press release on the rights of transgender persons issued March 31, 2024, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) reminded the member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) that recognition of gender identity is essential to all civil, political and human rights. The IACHR expressed its disposition to work with member nations and civil society to promote and guarantee the human rights of persons who are trans, non-binary, or otherwise of the sexual diversity community.
In Colombia, trans people were given the right to change their gender on all identification documents starting in 2015. In October 2019, Bogotá elected their first woman and lesbian mayor. Various elected representatives across national, departmental, and local levels now come from the LGBTI+ community. Increased visibility in TV shows and media coverage has grown more consistent.
Despite the advances, hatred and violence against LGBTI+ persons (especially transgender persons) persists. In 2024, the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman reported a 30% increase (compared to the previous year) in cases of bias-based violence against transgender women, transgender men, and non-binary people. And so far this year, at least 24 LGBTI+ have been killed.
Three of those hate killings have happened in just one town, Bello, a suburb of Medellin. In a horrific act of violence on April 4, assailants abducted Sara Millerey González, a 32-year-old trans activist, beat her, broke her arms and legs and threw her into the Playa Rica River and left her to die. The incident gained national attention because onlookers recorded her screaming from the water and posted videos on social media. When rescuers finally retrieved her and took her to an emergency clinic, she was suffering from a punctured lung and hypothermia. She died from a heart attack the following day, with her mother at her bedside. “I knelt down and hugged her and told her that I loved her very much. I told her she was going to be with God, because no one in heaven was going to humiliate or discriminate against her for being her.”
You can read the RRN (Rapid Response Network) letter that IRTF sent to officials in Colombia about this horrific assassination at https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn/2025-05-06-000000.
To add your name as a signer on urgent human rights letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/RRN/join-RRN .
Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources
Danger to social leaders is real in Oaxaca, the state with the fifth highest number of attacks on human rights defenders and journalists. Sandra Domínguez, an Indigenous Zapotec activist who had denounced Oaxacan government leaders, was disappeared a few months ago.
On February 27, while she was away at an intergenerational human rights workshop, the home of Zapotec defender Silvia Pérez Yescas was burgaled and her computer equipment stolen. She had already been forcibly displaced from her home for more than a year because she fears physical assault should she return. As the founder of Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources (CIARENA, AC), she and others with CIARENA decided to close the office temporarily out of safety concerns.
We are urging that top officials in Oaxaca request that the National Mechanism for Women Human Rights Defenders strengthen protection measures and guarantee the safety of the members of CIARENA.
It’s been an election like no other: polarizing, ugly, passionately contested. The results suggest a realignment of U.S. politics and a rightward shift in national policies and priorities. Yet most our greatest concerns were invisible during the campaigns.
Join Cleveland Peace Action for a panel and audience discussion, in-person and on Zoom, of the election and its implications for our work. They will address Palestine, the growing risk of nuclear war, the iron grip of the military-industrial complex, climate change, Latin America and immigration, and party politics.
register here for the online version: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMscO2pqTMvGdLzi1Afgi0RwdSyNiHeQb5y#/registration
