New Report: Front Line Defenders Highlights Threats to Land, Environmental, and Indigenous Defenders
"Global Analysis 2024/25", May 2025
We must stand together. Not for a nation. Not for a religion. Not for a race. But for humanity. Because if we do not, who will?..
In 2024, the HRD Memorial documented the killings of 324 human rights defenders from 32 different countries... Colombia: 157, Mexico: 32, Guatemala: 29, Palestine: 22, Brazil: 15...
The overwhelming majority of cases Front Line Defenders documented, supported and monitored related to violations against HRDs working to defend the integrity of their land, territories or the environment.
In every region, governments and non-state actors turned to judicial systems to disrupt, tie up, stigmatize, bankrupt and imprison HRDs, regardless of the human rights they were defending...
Counter-terror legislation was abused by governments everywhere, as they equated human rights promotion with terrorism...
Foreign Agent Laws, which stigmatise or penalise organisations and individuals who receive funding from foreign entities, were drafted or introduced in a number of countries...
[Americas]
Indigenous peoples' rights defenders in Mexico continued to be routinely subjected to arbitrary arrest, lengthy pretrial detention and prison terms so severe that they could qualify as 'informal life imprisonment'...
The situation for LGBTIQ+ persons remained hostile in the region, with authorities introducing or passing anti-LGBTIQ+ legislation and criminalising HRDs working on LGBTIQ+ rights...
"A common trend across the region was the targeting of HRDs who exposed human rights violations, including corruption, through journalism or social media...
[Middle East and North Africa]
Palestinian HRDs in Gaza continued to carry out remarkable work, successfully keeping the world informed of the ongoing slaughter during the year despite the Israeli government's attempts to kill their message, and often also the messenger..
[Asia and Pacific]
In Afghanistan, the Taliban's policy of dehumanising women and girls accelerated. They were subjected to systematic violence and violations of their basic rights to freedom of movement, freedom of speech and association, participation in public life, and access to education, paid employment, and pensions for war widows....