Solidarity with Human Rights Defenders!

At the beginning of a new year, I would like to pay a sincere tribute to all human beings that with her/his struggle for his/her rights and against oppression,  discrimination, exploration, and violence of all types, daily remind us of the cruelties that we – human beings – are able to commit, individually and collectively. They also recall us of our collective and individual responsibility of promoting and practicing a culture of human rights and establishing and putting in place the effective collective mechanisms need for the regulation of abuses of economic, political, patriarchal, religious, military, and police power, or of any other type.

I remember in special, the Guaranis Kaiowás, and their struggle to recover their traditional territories in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil; the child-brides of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and many other countries, who in their struggle against the imposition of sexual services, forced domestic labour, and adolescent pregnancies,  fight against malnutrition and demand that all women are fully recognized how as  human beings; the small scale family farmers of Mubende, in Uganda, who were violently evicted from their land more than 10 years ago, and  still struggle to recover their lands from a German corporation; and the more than 40 peasants of Bajo Aguán, Honduras, murdered in the last 18 months, in retaliation to their struggle for the regularization of their lands.

These are only a few examples of the thousands of communities and peoples which with their struggle inspire and help us to maintain the hope that we – together – can build a better and more just world for all, if we all join this human stream and object to any form of violation of human dignity.

All our solidarity to these and all other defenders of human rights and of human dignity overall!

Flavio Valente
Secretary General, FIAN International