Philippines
Father Nery Lito Satur, who had been deputized as an official forest guard, was murdered and two other priests received death threats (1991).
Henry Domoldol, a tribal leader and head of a community association trying to keep the forest under tribal management, was murdered (1991).
Fourteen members of Haribon, the country's largest environmental organization, were arrested and interrogated by the national police because of their efforts to combat illegal logging (1991).
In more recent years, it is believed that twenty-three environmental activists have been killed in the Philippines.
Elpidio "Jojo" de la Victoria*, a government official fighting illegal fishing in the Visayan Sea, was murdered. Both he and Tony Oposa*, an internationally-reocgnized environmental lawyer with whom he had been working on this and other environmental issues, had recently received death threats and learned that a $20,000 bounty had been placed on their heads (2006).
Ma. Josefina Montes, a leader of an anti-mining group in Eastern Samar, was sued for libel by a mining company (2006).
Eighty-five opponents of a mine in Sibuyan were charged with "grave coercion" in connection with a protest where an environmental councilor was slain, allegedly by mining company security forces (2007).
Josie Guillao, a peasant and mother of three who leads opposition to a mine, was charged criminally with "grave slander" in Nueva Vizcaya (2007).
Frances Quimpo*, director of the Center for Environmental Concerns, was sued along with the organization's Board of Trustees, for publicizing environmental harm from a mining project on Rapu Rapu (2007).
Libel charges were filed against Fathers Florio Falcon and Erwin Rommel Torres, two Catholic priests who had led a campaign against pollution from a paper plant (2007).
Dr. Romeo Quijano* successfully defended a defamation case brought against him for his reporting on the pesticide poisoning of villagers by a banana plantation.
Russia
Piotr Kozhevnikov, a government water inspector, was placed in a psychiatric ward as punishment for trying to publicize illegal government dumping of oil and sludge (1986).
Goldman prize winner Aleksandr Nikitin, a former submarine captain who blew the whistle on illegal nuclear waste dumping from mothballed Soviet nuclear submarines, was acquitted of treason (2000).
Grigory Pasko, an environmental journalist who reported on dumping of radioactive waste by the Russian fleet in the Sea of Japan, was convicted of treason and sentenced to four years' imprisonment (2001).
Professor Yury Bandazhevsky was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment because of his scientific work examining the effects of the radioactive fallout of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster (2001).
South Africa
Richard Spoor*, a lawyer for indigenous communities affected by mining, was sued for defamation by a mining company, which also lodged a complaint against him with the Law Society for unprofessional conduct (2006).
Sudan
Seven opponents of the Kajbar dam, including two journalists and two lawyers, were arrested and later released (2007).
Four were killed and nineteen injured when police fired on protesters at the Merowe dam, the largest dam under construction in Africa (2007).
Tanzania
Tundu Lissu and Rugemeleza Nshala, two Tanzanian attorneys working with the Lawyer's Environmental Action Team, were charged with sedition for speaking out on alleged human rights abuses against small scale miners in Bulyanhulu (2002).
Venezuela
Members of the Pemon indigenous community, protesting against the construction of a nearby electrical network, were subjected to acts of intimidation and received death threats. Soldiers beat Juan Ramon Lezama, a member of the community, until he fell unconscious (2000).
Vietnam
Illegal loggers assaulted forest officials Dinh Van Chi and Dinh Van Anh as they were recording the seizure of a load of wood. Anh was beaten until he lost consciousness, and was then dumped in a nearby field (2008).
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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.