by Omar Martinez
on August 03, 2012
It was a beautiful day in Bogotá, Colombia. It had not rained at all and the sun was shining with no clouds. Taking in the beautiful sunshine and enjoying the chilly yet comfortable temperature, my colleagues and I sat in a beautiful park in downtown Bogotá and discussed our upcoming meeting with ASOTRECOL, the Association of Injured and Ex-Workers of GM Colmotores de Colombia. After a brief intro into their labor plight and subsequent firings, we hailed taxis and made our way to the U.S. Embassy.
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by Omar Martinez
on June 25, 2012
Granito: How to Nail a Dictator will be nationally broadcasted on June 28, 2012 by PBS as part of the Documentaries with a Point of View (POV) program.
In a stunning milestone for justice in Central America, a Guatemalan court recently charged former dictator Efrain Rios Montt with genocide for his brutal war against the country's Mayan people in the 1980s -- and Pamela Yates' 1983 documentary, When the Mountains Tremble, provided key evidence for bringing the indictment. Granito: How to Nail a Dictator tells the extraordinary story of how a film, aiding a new generation of human rights activists, became a granito -- a tiny grain of sand -- that helped tip the scales of justice.
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by Omar Martinez
on August 02, 2012
As part of their Documentaries with a Point of View (POV) program, PBS will be broadcasting Sin País nationally on August 9, 2012.
Sin País (Without Country) attempts to get beyond the partisan politics and mainstream media’s ‘talking point’ approach to immigration issues by exploring one family’s complex and emotional journey involving deportation.
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by Emily Chow
on June 08, 2012
By: Lisa Haugaard, Executive Director 6/8/2012
Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and 93 other members of the Congress sent a letter on March 12th, 2012 to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing grave concern about human rights violations in Honduras, particularly the murder of 45 people associated with small farmer associations in Bajo Aguán.
"This is a wake up call for the Lobo Administration," said Lisa Haugaard, Executive Director of the Latin America Working Group. "Forty-five campesino leaders in a small area of Honduras have been murdered. Human rights defenders of all stripes -- campesino leaders, lawyers, LGBT community members, women defenders, journalists, opposition activists -- are being threatened and killed. And not only is the Honduran government failing to do enough to protect them and prosecute those who endanger them, but in too many cases, police or military agents are involved directly or are collaborating with those who commit abuses. We need to see greater effort to protect the rule of law in Honduras."
LAWGEF provided information for the letter and worked with an energetic network of activists across the country, with leadership from the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, to encourage the amazing number of signers.
Honduras was singled out for a visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, who following her visit, asserted that: "The 2009 coup d'état aggravated institutional weaknesses, increased the vulnerability of human rights defenders and provoked a major polarisation in society. Due to the exposed nature of their activities, human rights defenders continue to suffer extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, death threats, attacks, harassment and stigmatisation." She went on to say, "I have observed that certain categories of human rights defenders are at particular risk, including journalists, staff of the National Human Rights Commission, lawyers, prosecutors and judges, as well as defenders working on the rights of women, children, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex community, the indigenous and Afro-Honduran communities as well as those working on environmental and land rights issues."
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by Ella Kirchner
on August 01, 2012
"The war on drugs in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala has become a war on women," say Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams and Rigoberta Menchú. Women in these countries are at an increased risk of gender-based violence, including murder, rape, forced disappearances, and arbitrary detention. Violence is on the rise in all three countries, due to many factors, including the war on drugs. The vast majority of violent crimes are not investigated or prosecuted in these countries, which has created an atmosphere of impunity for the perpetrators. More than 95 percent of crimes against women in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala go unpunished. This lack of justice discourages victims from reporting crimes when doing so is unlikely to result in convictions. In addition, victims may be targeted if they attempt to bring charges or to call attention to the problem. In particular, women human rights defenders, journalists, indigenous activists or women who are otherwise advocating for change in their communities are targeted.
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by Kate Doyle
on June 06, 2012
In a surprise move, the Guatemalan government has announced the effective closing of the “Peace Archives,” one of the most active and important institutions created in the wake of the 1996 peace accords to promote peace, truth and reconciliation. According to Guatemalan press accounts, the Secretary of Peace Antonio Arenales Forno stated that by June 29 the government would “cancel [labor] contracts for which I see no justification and end the functions of an office that I find makes no sense.”
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