Nepal’s foreign minister visits Canada, international delegation of lawyers call for strengthened transitional justice

Photo: Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, meets with Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, in Ottawa in September 2024. The Kathmandu, Nepal-based Himalayan Times reports: “Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Arzu Rana Deuba and her Canadian counterpart, Melanie Joly had a bilateral meeting Read more…

PBI-Canada hosts webinar on UN COP and Binding Treaty processes and the protection of environmental defenders

On October 24, Peace Brigades International-Canada held a webinar focused on the United Nations COP16 biodiversity conference in Colombia, the upcoming negotiations in Geneva on the UN Binding Treaty on business and human rights, and the crucial protection needs of environmental defenders. Target 22 of the framework being negotiated at Read more…

PBI-Mexico accompanied lawyer María Eugenia Gabriel Ruiz interviewed by El Pais, speaks about avocados and mining

Photo: “María Eugenia Gabriel Ruiz, indigenous Purépecha activist from Michoacán, in Madrid Río on 26 September.” Photo by Mario Bermudo. María Eugenia Gabriel Ruiz is an Indigenous Purhépecha lawyer and member of the Human Rights Solidarity Network (Red Solidaria DH), an organization accompanied by the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project. El Read more…

PBI-Colombia welcomes new brigade members, PBI-Honduras seeks new applicants with November 9 deadline

Photo: (from left to right) Ita from Mexico, Mar, Michael and Celia from the Spanish State, Valeria from Mexico. Yesterday, PBI-Colombia welcomed five new volunteers. The project noted: “From PBI-Colombia we receive with great enthusiasm the new brigade members, who from the Urabá-Bogotá and Barrancabermeja teams will accompany Colombian human Read more…

“As a collective, we want to turn our pain into rights” – Yanette Bautista of the “Nydia Erika Bautista” Foundation

Today, October 23, the National Day of Recognition of Women Searchers of Victims of Forced Disappearance is commemorated in Colombia. On this day, Amnesty International has amplified the voice of Yanette Bautista, whose sister Nydia was forcibly disappeared in 1987. A key excerpt from Yanette’s testimony in Rolling Stone magazine Read more…

PBI-Canada calls on Minister Ng to support environmental defenders criminalized for protesting Canadian mining company

Photo from November 2023 by EFE from Observatory of Mining Conflicts in Latin America (OCMAL) website. Peace Brigades International-Canada is one of 122 organizations to have signed a letter to Mary Ng, the Canadian Minister of International Commerce and Economic Development, to withdraw her support for First Quantum Minerals. Photo: Read more…

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Peaceful Resistance of the Poqomán People in Chinautla in struggle against sand mines

PBI-Guatemala has posted: “On Tuesday [October 15], #PBIacompanies the women at the #Chinautla Poqomam Village Peaceful Resistance. At their meeting, they updated us about their upcoming activities and expressed their concerns regarding the safety situation of the community and defenders. They also shared with us their struggle for the recovery Read more…

PBI-Colombia accompanies CAHUCOPANA as communities analyze and evaluate their self-protection measures

The Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia (Cahucopana) has posted: “Resistance and denunciation, when the bullets sound, our voices more! On the 15th of October, Cahucopana Nordeste and social organizations Guardias campesinas [Peasant Guard] @Gacena, #AMATNASB, (ancestral and traditional agro-mining association of Northeast Antioquia and South Read more…

Can the UN COP16 conference in Colombia help save the lives of frontline environmental defenders?

Webinar speakers: Michel Forst, Yannick Wild, Berenice Celeita, Javier Garate. In his opening message today to the United Nations COP16 biodiversity conference in Colombia, UN Secretary General António Guterres said: “Our task at this COP is to move from words to deeds.” Those words, to be further negotiated at COP16, Read more…

PBI-Mexico condemns the murder of Indigenous Maya Tzotzil Padre Marcelo Pérez Pérez

PBI-Mexico has posted: “We are deeply shocked by the murder of Father Marcelo. We condemn his murder, call for a thorough investigation into this crime, and recall the Mexican State’s obligation to protect human rights defenders.” In July 2022, PBI-Mexico joined with other organizations to “urge the federal government to Read more…