There have been “few tangible improvements” in human rights in Colombia, says Amnesty International’s new report, which also points to legal loopholes that ensure impunity, as well as government attacks on court rulings.
The mood was festive as groups of students, grass root organizations and individuals gathered in the city’s main square. With chants of “Not even one vote for the PRI” and “Out Peña” the crowd started moving. They sung as they moved forward, many wearing black t-shirts with anti PRI slogans. There were cheers and clapping as those standing on the sidewalk showered their support. “Join us, join us,” the marchers chanted.
In the last century and a half since the Decreto sobre Extranjería, in both the United States and Mexico, migrants have been wanted, put to work, granted amnesty, hated, oppressed, expulsed, and just about everything in between. The only thing that has remained constant has been the migrants. They keep moving. And the trend, on behalf of both the U.S. and Mexican governments, has been to pass legislation, including those laws that purport to protect, that makes migrants vulnerable.
Few people would likely draw connections between a Canadian diplomat, Honduran public security reform, a retired Chilean General, and an extractive industry law proposal in Honduras. But Canada and Chile are jointly involved in both public security reform and proposed mining, oil and gas legislation in Honduras.
There is no end in sight to violence and repression in Honduras. There is also no end in sight to American and Canadian governments and business maintaining political, economic and military relations with the country’s military-backed regime. Since the June 2009 military coup, that ousted the country’s democratically-elected government, Honduras has been referred to as the ‘murder capital’ of the world, a ‘journalist killing’ capital of the Americas, an ‘LGBT killing capital’, a ‘prisoner killing capital’, and a ‘lawyer killing capital.’
Over 300 people from ten states in Mexico marched through the capital on Mother’s Day demanding an end to forced disappearances and calling on authorities to find their loved ones. With them marched brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents. All of them asking the same question; where are they? Their question is met with silence from the government.
A US military training center in the port city of Concón, in the central Chilean province of Valparaíso, will be used for exercises “clearly oriented toward the control and repression of the civilian population,” according to an open letter that more than 20 human rights organizations sent Chile’s Defense Minister Andrés Allamand on May 7. The US Southern Command is also planning to build an installation in Argentina, at the airport in Resistencia, capital of the northeastern province of Chaco.
The mountain road that winds its way out of the Colombian city of Medellin and into the mountains, forests and scattered communities of Santa Elena is lined with battered signs urging readers to care for the rivers and streams that give life to the region.
Intense activity is currently taking place on a global scale to demand the release of two indigenous men who have been jailed for their political beliefs and activism, and who have become emblematic figures for the struggle against injustice in prisons and against political repression. Although the prisoners are based in Chiapas, Mexico, activities are taking place in countries including South Africa, Brazil, France, England, Scotland, Spain, the United States, Switzerland, New Zealand and Argentina.
Lohana Berkins’ voice sailed over the victorious cheers of hundreds of transgender activists and supporters, and reverberated against the Argentine Congress building in downtown Buenos Aires on Wednesday evening. Inside, Congress had just voted to pass the Gender Identity Law that would allow Argentines to change their name and sex on their identifications without the ruling of a judge, approval from a psychiatrist, nor any obligatory surgery.
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