45% of attacks against human rights activists are perpetrated by the police, state authorities or the military
200 Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) were murdered in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras between 2012 and 2023, according to the report released this week in Tegucigalpa by the activist network Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders.
“Data that hurts us, networks that save us. Ten years of attacks”, 119 pages that report 200 murders of women activists and 228 attempted murders in the last decade. The report also records more than 35 thousand attacks against defenders and organizations in four Central American countries and Mexico.
In dialogue with RFI, Ana Clara, a member of the initiative that made this record, explained that they were able to show that the State and its institutions are the main aggressors against the defenders.
“45% of attacks are perpetrated either by the police, state authorities or the military,” he said.
At the same time, the activist specified that a large number of perpetrators are “unknown”, some of them being unknown virtual users, which demonstrates the “growth of digital attacks.”
The report also reports on attacks perpetrated by people linked to extractive or mining companies with harassment, smear campaigns, threats and psychological and verbal violence that leads to the criminalization of women who denounce these megaprojects.
«The second right in which we identify the most attacks on defenders is the defense of land and territory. We documented more than 4,500 attacks in this regard and, many times, large companies are behind them,” said Ana Clara.
In that sense, he pointed out that there is an alliance between companies with organized crime and States to protect economic interests and prevent human rights activists from continuing to defend their communities.
This research is not only limited to reporting on attacks against women defenders in Central America and Mexico, but also seeks to develop a strategy to protect women against such widespread violence, which even leads to their physical disappearance.
«We do not record only to alarm, but also to report, advocate with this data and protect ourselves. There are particular attacks that are experienced due to the fact of being women. So, our way of protecting ourselves is together, through the construction of networks,” he expressed.
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