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Associated Press
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
El Salvador President Bukele denies beating and torture of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in prison
MEXICO CITY (AP) — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele cast aside allegations that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was beaten and subject to psychological torture in a Salvadoran prison on Thursday. In a post on the social media platform X, Bukele wrote that Abrego Garcia 'wasn't tortured, nor did he lose weight.' In the post, Bukele included pictures and video of Abrego Garcia in a detention cell. 'If he'd been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture?' Bukele wrote. It comes after Abrego Garcia said he suffered severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation and psychological torture in the notorious El Salvador prison the Trump administration had mistakenly deported him to in March, according to court documents filed on Wednesday. He said he was kicked and hit so often after arrival that by the following day, he had visible bruises and lumps all over his body. He said he and 20 others were forced to kneel all night long and guards hit anyone who fell. In the new court documents, Abrego Garcia said detainees at CECOT 'were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation.' Abrego Garcia's description falls in line with accounts from other Salvadorans who were detained under Bukele's state of emergency, where the government has detained more than 1% of the Central American nation's population in its war on the country's gangs. Hundreds of people people have died in the prisons, according to human rights groups, which have also documented cases of torture and deteriorated conditions. Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported and became a flashpoint in U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. The new details of Abrego Garcia's incarceration in El Salvador were added to a lawsuit against the Trump administration that Abrego Garcia's wife filed in Maryland federal court after he was deported. The Trump administration has asked a federal judge in Maryland to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it is now moot because the government returned him to the United States as ordered by the court.
Reuters
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Latin America court calls for unified climate action as legal fights mount
SANTIAGO, July 3 (Reuters) - Member states must cooperate to tackle climate change and not take actions that set back environmental protections, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) said in a non-binding advisory opinion issued on Thursday. The court holds jurisdiction over 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries and the advisory opinion, requested by Colombia and Chile, said that countries must also regulate and monitor corporate activities, especially those that generate greenhouse gases. The opinion also said companies must adopt "effective" measures to combat climate change and states should discourage "greenwashing" and undue corporate influence in politics and regulations related to climate change. States must also pass legislation for companies to act with "due diligence when it comes to human rights and climate change along their value chain." States must also set binding GHG emission mitigation goals that "are as ambitious as possible" with concrete time frames. Cooperation must go beyond transboundary harm, the opinion said, and should go beyond mitigation and adaptation and cover all necessary measures to comprehensively respond to the climate emergency. Maria Antonia Tigre, director of global climate change litigation at the Sabin Center at Columbia Law School, said that many countries rely on these opinions as precedent, even though they're non-binding. "The (IACHR) is a little bit of a special case because it's highly influential in domestic courts," Tigre said, adding that regional supreme courts often cite IACHR opinions. "The other aspect is if there is a contentious case on the topic, it will likely follow what's said in the advisory opinion," she said, citing a 2024 IACHR as an example. In 2024, the IACHR ordered Peru to pay damages to a mining town, a decision that followed the 2017 interpretation of an 2017 advisory opinion the court issued that stated that a healthy environment was a human right. The ruling builds on a global wave of climate litigation as countries, organizations and individuals are increasingly turning to courts for climate action. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights said climate inaction violates human rights and a South Korean court said that the country's climate change law does not effectively shield future generations. Vanuatu has also urged the top United Nations court to recognize the harm caused by climate change in its judgment on the legal obligation of countries to fight it and address the consequences of contributing to global warming. The ruling is expected this year. The IACHR opinion noted that climate litigation is an "emerging field" but also an increasingly essential tool for holding states and companies accountable for climate change and obligations.
Washington Post
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Latin America's top human rights court says states have duty to act on climate crisis
BOGOTA, Colombia — The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Thursday issued a landmark advisory opinion linking governments' human rights obligations to their responsibility to address the threat of climate change — a move expected to shape policy and litigation across Latin America and the Caribbean . The opinion is the first of its kind from the region's top human rights tribunal and responds to a 2023 request from Colombia and Chile. It says states have a duty under international law to prevent, mitigate and remedy environmental harm that threatens human rights, including through laws, policies and actions aimed at curbing climate change.
BBC News
02-07-2025
- BBC News
Colombia violence: Missing social leaders 'killed by rebels', prosecutor says
The bodies of eight Colombian religious and social leaders who had been reported missing in April have been found in a shallow grave in Guaviare province, in south-central Colombia. The prosecutor's office blamed members of a rebel group called Frente Armando Ríos for their said the eight - two women and six men - had been summoned by the rebels to be interrogated about the alleged formation of a rival armed group in the area. There has been no response from Frente Armando Ríos to the is the deadliest country in the world for rights defenders and social leaders, according to a report by international rights organisation Front Line Defenders. The bodies were found in a rural area known as Calamar, where members of the Frente Armando Ríos are group is an off-shoot of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).The Farc signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016 and many of its members laid down their arms, but parts of the group refused to disarm and set up dissident rebel groups such as the Frente Armando Rí offshoots engage in the production and trafficking of cocaine as well as extortion and illegal also engage in armed confrontations with the security forces and with members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) - a rival guerrilla group. According to the statement released by the prosecutor's office, leaders of the Frente Armando Ríos feared that the ELN was setting up a local cell in the reportedly summoned two of the victims for an "interrogation" on 4 April, and the remaining six people three days later. Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a human rights organisation specialising in freedom of religion, said all but one were active leaders and members from two Protestant denominations: the Evangelical Alliance of Colombia Denomination (DEAC) and the Foursquare Gospel Church (ICCG). The eighth was the uncle of two of the other them is a married couple - Isaíd Gómez and Maribel Silva - who often preached in their Protestant church. Also among those whose bodies have been found is Maryuri Hernández, who helped the evangelical pastor in the area. She is survived by her five-year-old to CSW, all eight had settled in the area after fleeing violence and violations of freedom of religion in Arauca, a province bordering Venezuela where several armed groups are active. Religious leaders and social leaders are often targeted by armed groups in Colombia which do not tolerate any other authority than their of the victims said the eight had received a message by the Frente Armando Ríos, which demanded that they present themselves for questioning. According to the investigation by the prosecutor's office, days later they were taken to an abandoned property, where they were suspect the order to kill them was given by the inner circle of Iván Mordisco, one of the most powerful commanders of the dissident rebel murder of the eight has been condemned by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who called it "heinous" and denounced it as "a grave attack on the right to life, religious freedom and spiritual and community work".
Al Arabiya
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Venezuelan lawmakers declare UN human rights chief persona non grata
Venezuela's ruling party–controlled National Assembly on Tuesday declared Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, persona non grata, criticizing the UN official for failing to protect the rights of Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador. The rare diplomatic designation has no immediate practical effect but reflected the broader anger of President Nicolás Maduro at the UN agency that monitors and defends human rights. It comes just days after Türk said his office has documented increasing arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and torture under Maduro's government. 'Türk turns a blind eye to atrocious crimes,' said National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, who is also Maduro's chief negotiator with the US. 'He does nothing for the human rights of Venezuelans in the United States and El Salvador.' El Salvador is holding 252 Venezuelans deported from the US in a maximum-security prison. Türk recently urged the US to halt deportations of Venezuelans who may be at risk of arrest in their home country and raised concerns about the lack of due process in mass deportations from the US. The ire of Venezuela's National Assembly appeared to have been energized by Türk's speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva last Friday. Türk raised alarm over an intensifying crackdown on civil liberties in the wake of Venezuela's parliamentary elections in June and the unrest that followed Maduro's disputed reelection last year–echoing past statements of concern from his agency and other watchdogs. Electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner of the July 2024 presidential election despite credible evidence to the contrary. 'I am very concerned by detention conditions, including people being denied access to medical care and lacking access to food and water,' he told the council last week. 'Some prisoners were subjected to incommunicado detention.' Lawmakers called on Maduro to withdraw Venezuela's membership from the Human Rights Council while Türk remains in his post. Türk's office offered no immediate response to the National Assembly decision. The move Tuesday raised new questions over the status of the UN human rights office in Venezuela's capital of Caracas, which partially resumed operations last December–months after Maduro's government forced it to close and expelled its staff, accusing the agency's employees of aiding coup-plotters and terrorists as tensions surged in the run-up to the presidential election.
