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Front Line Rwanda: Disappearances Arrests Threats Intimidation and Co-option of Human Rights Defenders 2001 - 2004

Over the past three years, Rwanda’s increasingly authoritarian government has arrested political opponents, stifled independent journalists, targeted human rights defenders, failed to thoroughly investigate disappearances, and narrowed the space for independent civil society. It has justified those actions as necessary to prevent ‘ethnic divisionism’ and a possible resurgence of genocide. Two months after the tenth commemoration of the genocide in April 2004, a Parliamentary Commission made accusations of genocidal ideology – a highly charged allegation in a country still recovering from the 1994 genocide that killed at least 800,000 people – against several civil society NGOs involved in promoting human rights in the judicial and rural sectors. While the main targets were LIPRODHOR (Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights or Ligue rwandaise pour la promotion et la défense des droits de l’Homme) and FOR (Forum of Rural Organisations or Forum des organisations rurales), the Commission also went after the only remaining independent newspaper, churches, schools, and even international development NGOs such as CARE and Trócaire.  Read More

Meeting to discuss situation of human rights defenders in Colombia with Vice President Francisco Santos, March 2004

Meeting to discuss situation of human rights defenders in Colombia with Vice President Francisco Santos

The Director of Front Line, Mary Lawlor, met with Vice President Francisco Santos, Tuesday 23rd March 2004, to raise the ongoing grave situation for human rights defenders in Colombia, including widespread death threats, assassination attempts, intimidation, harassment, “disappearances”, lawsuits, arbitrary detentions, torture and murder, as well as the gender specific risks faced by women human rights defenders in Colombian society. Vice President Santos has responsibility for human rights in the Colombian government.  Read More

Two Human Rights Defenders Killed in Colombia

At the beginning of February 2004, human rights defender María Lucero Henao and her son, 16 year old Yamid Daniel were reportedly killed outside their home in Meta Department, south of Bogotá, in Colombia. The same week it was reported that Human Rights Defender José Mendivil Cárdenas was killed as he travelled in his car in Barranquilla, Atlantic Department, in the north of Colombia.

According to reports, Ms. Lucero Henao and her son were taken from their home and shot dead by armed men at 10.30pm on the night of February 6th. María Lucero Henao had been a victim of threats on two occasions and an attempted murder in the last three years. She and her family were one of ten families who remained on farmland in Puerta Esperanza after a paramilitary invasion in August 2001. She had been president of the Junta de Acción Comunal and a defender of the land rights of the inhabitants of Puerta Esperanza.  Read More

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