This post is a summary of the chapter V with the title of, "Problems faced by human rights defenders in the hemisphere," of the report with the title above published at http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Defenders/defenderschap5.htm
A large number of human rights defenders in the Americas are victims of reprisals and undue restrictions as a result of their work of promoting and protecting the rights of persons who live in the hemisphere. This makes the work of protecting and defending human rights difficult, and in many cases risky. The Inter-American Commission on Human rights has verified the existence of a variety of practices that hinder the exercise of human rights defense. These practices are violations of the right to life, liberty and security, due process and a fair trial, freedom of expression, privacy, and judicial protection. The Commission considers it necessary to clarify that patterns have been established based on disturbing incidents that constitute violations of rights. Nonetheless, there are common characteristics that make it possible to determine and classify the patterns such as: who commits the violations, when they are committed, and the persons who are the victims of such conduct. The Commission wishes to emphasize that one of the most serious consequences of these patterns of violations targeting human rights defenders is that they send society as a whole an intimidating message putting it in a defenseless situation. These acts are aimed at causing generalized fear, and so, at discouraging all other human rights defenders, and intimidating and silencing the denunciations, claims, and grievances of the victims of human rights violations, spurring on impunity, and full realization of the rule of law and democracy. Both the Commission and the Inter-American Court have found that violations of the human rights defenders have a direct intimidating effect on the processes of vindicating rights or denouncing violations. This chilling effect is suffered by the victims of human rights violations, who under the effect of fear refuse to lodge complaints, will not meet with threatened human rights defenders, and stay away from the offices of organizations that have been threatened. Based on the information received, it has been observed that the violators seek to provoke generalized fear to avoid public denunciations. To this end, the vulnerability-exacerbating effects of such conduct extend persersely to society as a whole, with a much more detrimental impact on defenders. This effect, in addition, re-victimizes those who have been targets of violations, whose search for the truth, justice and reparation is impeded. In some states violations are systematic and interrelated, producing a general atmosphere of danger for the defense of human rights. This danger is all the greater if there is a serious lack of state protection and a failure to investigate the violations. On other occasions, The risk increases when grievances are put forth by defenders advocating the adoption of administrative measures or changes in state policy. In other cases, the violations appear to be acts of retaliation when a favorable result is obtained, such as demarcating indigenous territories, expropriating lands for campesino communities, awarding compensation to the victims of violations, or publishing truth commission reports. Human rights defenders are frequent victims of violations of the right to life such as extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances. Such violations are one of the most serious obstacles to the work of human rights promotion by society in general. In additional, the Commission has received, with concern, reports of assassinations of human rights defenders in several countries. Some of them had provided information to the Commission in recent years. In general, disappearances and executions are preceded by the lack of adequate protection for human rights defenders who report having been victims of persecution and threats. The Commission notes that the lack of adequate protection for defenders who report having been victims of persecution, surveillance, and threats, entails a lack of defenselessness that fosters attacks on their lives. The victims of homicides and disappearances are generally those who are most prominent for their work reporting human rights abuses, or for their leadership. In killing them, the assailants seek to make an "example" of the victims, bring a halt to reporting on violations, getting the human rights organizations to leave certain zones, and bringing about a drop in the number of complaints presented. According to the information received by the Commission, it is also common for human rights defenders or their family members to be followed constantly wherever they go, or to kept under surveillance at their offices, residents, and elsewhere. There are many methods used to follow these persons. In many cases, these methods are practically imperceptible; in other cases they are detected easily, since that is the assailant's intent: for the victim to know that he or she is being watched, and that his or her movements, as well as all the persons with whom he or she meets, are known. The Inter-American Commission has received several complaints describing attacks on life and personal integrity, threats, surveillance and intimidation of defenders, as well as raids of and attacks on the offices of their organizations. The Commission has indicated that surveillance activities of human rights defenders give rise to state responsibility for flagrant violations of the right to privacy. Another worrisome aspect is the use of legal actions against defenders, including actions that are pursued to harass and discredit them. In some cases, the states use criminal laws that restrict or limit the means used by defenders to carry out their activities.. In other cases, criminal proceedings are instituted without any evidence, for the purpose of harassing the human rights defenders, who must assume the psychological and economic burden of facing a criminal indictment. Apart from the problems plaguing the judicial systems in the Americas, which keep them from operating soundly, the Commission observes that there is, especially in those countries from which a larger number of complaints come, a lack of political will, impartially, and independence when it comes to investigating attack on human rights defenders. The complaints that have been received suggest that there are serious problems in the investigations, for example, they do not relate the intimidation and threats directed against defenders to the type of work they do. The problem is also reflected in the attacks against judicial officers who seriously and effectively investigate and prosecute attacks suffered by human rights defenders.
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