Dear Friend, Today is International Human Rights Day. It’s a day when, around the world, we recommit to making human rights a reality for everyone. We also make space in our busy lives to acknowledge our indebtedness to those who have taken on significant risks in their daily struggle to win the rights to food, to organize, and in some cases simply to exist. As part of today, we are reflecting on some of our friends from the front lines that we’ve lost in the past 12 months. (Content warning: anti-LGBT violence) - Martín Abad Pandy was president of his community council and a tireless advocate for Garifuna human rights, and Víctor Martínez was a member of the Garifuna community. Víctor and Garifuna community leader and OFRANEH member Martín lost their lives in March to targeted assassination by hitmen in Corozal, Honduras.
- Lindolfo Kosmaski was a teacher, former municipal council candidate, and LGBT+ activist in the Landless Workers Movement (MST). In May, his body was found tied up, shot twice, and burned on a rural road in Brazil only days after receiving a death threat — just one reflection of the rising number of anti-LGBT+ hate crimes in Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
- Omar Moreno, a Colombian peasant leader, was murdered in Narino department in January, and his body remains missing. Omar left three young children. He was a member of the Independent Rural Workers Unions of Meta Department (SINTRAGRIM), the National Agricultural Union Federation (FENSUAGRO), and La Via Campesina International.
- Salah Ajarma was the president and a co-founder of the Lajee Center in the Aida Refugee Camp in Palestine. As Nidal Al-Azza, a Grassroots board member and another Lajee Center co-founder remarked in a tribute video, Salah “did not just build the football fields and the garden and the walls [of the center]. He built a whole generation in this camp and in the region in general.” He sadly passed away in April.
The struggle for a better world is a long and difficult one, sometimes marked by heartbreak. But solidarity is powerful. It can not only unite us, but sustain us through the heartbreak. It can also provide the critical resources we need to win. For this Human Rights Day, would you join us in honoring those we’ve lost by donating to our New Visions, Continuing Resistance end-of-year fund? |
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We grieve for those human rights leaders who have been lost to political violence. On this day, we at Grassroots International recommit to accompany their communities in their grief, in their ongoing work building resistance and resilience in the face of incredible repression and violence, and in their efforts to imagine and create a better world for all of us. Your and my continued support can have a profound impact on the struggles to come. In gratitude, |
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Chung-Wha Hong
Executive Director |
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