Photo: Human rights defenders block the headquarters of Leonardo s.p.a. in Brescia, Italy. Photo by Extinction Rebellion Italia.
The London, United Kingdom-based Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRC) has released a new report titled Navigating a global crossroads: Human rights defenders and business in 2025.
The BHRC report documents that in 2025 there were 790 attacks against human rights defenders raising concerns about business in 80 countries.
The report specifies that 53 defenders speaking out about business-related harms were killed in 2025.
The countries where the BHRC recorded the highest number of attacks against people speaking out about business-related risks and harms in 2025 were Brazil (68), the Philippines (53), Honduras (45), Mexico (41), Uganda (40), Indonesia (38), Argentina (34), India (32), Ecuador (31) and Panama (27).
The report also notes that defenders who experienced attacks in 2025 raised concerns about human rights risks or harms related to 160 companies headquartered in 37 countries. It further notes that 30 attacks were connected to companies headquartered in Canada in 2025.
The BHRC also found that three quarters of the attacks (75%) were against climate, land and/or environmental defenders.
Defenders raising concerns about weapons companies
The report highlights: “Forty-six attacks were against defenders raising concerns about arms and weapons companies and their complicity in conflict and genocide – a significant increase from only two attacks recorded per year in 2023 and in 2024.”
Their report further notes: “Protesters at arms fairs targeting companies selling weapons to Israel were detained in the United States, Turkey, Switzerland and France, whilst activists in New Zealand faced violence for protesting the militarisation of aerospace technology and its uses against civilian populations.”
CANSEC in Ottawa
The BHRC adds: “A journalist in Canada was forcefully restrained and arrested by police for covering protests against the CANSEC arms show, targeting companies linked to weapons sales to Israel and the war in Gaza.”
Photo: Handcuffed journalist Ramona Murphy being put into Ottawa Police Service van outside the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa, May 2025. Photo by Koozma J. Tarasoff.
The BHRC also lists the five projects and companies associated with the highest number of attacks in 2025 namely the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (linked to the French transnational TotalEnergies); the Grasberg Mine in Indonesia (linked to the US-based company Freeport-McMoRan); the Tegucigalpa-based agribusiness company Dinant in Honduras; the Cobre Panamá mine (linked to Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals) and the aerospace, defence and security company Leonardo in Italy.
With respect to Leonardo, the BHRC explains: “On 13 January 2025, 22 activists from Extinction Rebellion Italy, Last Generation, and Palestina Libera staged a peaceful protest outside Leonardo S.p.A. in Brescia, Italy. The demonstration targeted the company’s role as a major European defence contractor and its reported involvement in supplying military equipment used in the genocide in Gaza. Police detained all participants for approximately seven hours, after which they were released but charged with ‘seditious assembly’ and related offenses.”
The communication from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders and other special rapporteurs can be read here.
Leonardo is both a sponsor and an exhibitor at the upcoming CANSEC “defence, security and emerging technology event” in Ottawa on May 27-28, 2026.
For updates from the Shut Down CANSEC campaign, click here.
To read the full BHRC report, click here.
