Criminalization of land defenders for protesting against the Las Bambas mining project. Preliminary note about the penal process
As the business mega-projects multiply, the protests to prevent or denounce their negative impacts on human rights increase. One of the strategies used by companies and States to impede this reaction has been to criminalize defenders…One research objective was about the situation of the human rights defenders in Peru. In June 2018, it demonstrated how human rights defence is stigmatised, criminalised and repressed in the country. Near the beginning of the oral trial for the criminalisation of 19 land defenders, the Observatorio makes a call to the Peruvian authorities to refrain from using criminalisation of human rights defenders and, instead, to respond resolving the social claims by the affected communities by the Las Bambas mining project…