Human Rights Violations in Different Countries

Note: cases marked with an asterisk* indicate EDLC involvement in the case.

Argentina

Five environmentalists were sued for releasing a recording of a mining company's strategy to shift public opinion (2006).

Bolivia

Environmentalists were threatened for their work supporting local communities suffering the environmental impacts of mining. (2007).

Brazil

The destruction of the Amazon rainforest achieved worldwide prominence with the assassination of rubber tapper Chico Mendes (1988). 

Ademir Federicci and four other Kayapo indigenous activists were murdered and hundreds were jailed for their opposition to the Belo Monte dam on the Xingu river (2001). 

Those killed or threatened with death for their opposition to illegal logging in the Brazilian Amazon may well number in the hundreds, with the most prominent being Sister Dorothy Stang*, American nun murdered in Para (2005); Greenpeace activist Paulo Adario (2001); Br. Henry dês Rosiers, attorney and coordinator of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) (2007); Tarcísio Feitosa da Silva, director of CPT and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize; and Bishop Erwin Krautler (2008).

Journalist Lucio Flavio Pinto* has been the victim of physical attacks and dozens of defamation lawsuits for his reporting on environmental devastation and corruption in the Amazon (2005).

Burma

Ka Hsaw Wa, founder of EarthRights International and a Goldman Prize winner, was arrested, tortured, and forced to flee Burma (1988).

Chad

Parliament member Ngarléjy Yorongar le Moïban was sentenced to three years in prison due to his opposition to the Chad Cameroon pipeline (1998).

Chile

Carlos Baraona Bray*, a lawyer for the national forestry service and a critic of illegal logging practices in Chile's forests, was convicted of criminal defamation.

China

Environmental journalist Dai Qing was imprisoned for ten months for criticism of the giant Three Gorges dam (1989).

Colombia

Berito Kuwaru'wa, spokesman of the U'Wa people, was beaten and nearly killed for leading the opposition to oil development by Occidental Petroleum (1997).

Two dozen indigenous people were killed in course of their opposition to the Urra dam (1998).

Carlos Vargas, an oilfield environmental regulator and whistleblower, was assassinated (1998).

Dominica

Goldman prize winner Atherton Martin, leader of the opposition to a copper mine, received threats to his own and his family's lives (1998).

Ecuador

Hundreds of environmental defenders have been the victims of threats, physical attacks, and defamation lawsuits, as described in "World Rainforest Movement Bulletin 125" (December 2007).

El Salvador

Environmentalist and Goldman Prize winner Ricardo Navarro has received numerous death threats because of his work.

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Godofredo Garcia, leader of the anti-mining movement in Tambogrande, Peru, was shot to death by a killer whose crime remains unpunished.

The goal is…to take action immediately to stop the abuses suffered by environmentalists who are being beaten, harassed, detained, raped, tortured, and murdered.

- "Environmentalists Under Fire", a Joint Report of Amnesty International and the Sierra Club in 2000.