Almost 200 ecological activists murdered last year while protecting environment, says new report
In Mexico, where 18 activists were reportedly murdered last year, Global Witness documents the disappearance of people defending indigenous rights over the expansion of lucrative mining operations, in areas rife with criminal gangs.
Mining features strongly in the report as an industry linked to alleged human rights abuses across the world.
“More than 40 per cent of all mining-related killings between 2012 and 2023 occurred in Asia – home to significant natural reserves of key critical minerals vital for clean energy technologies,” it says, warning that pressure will likely increase as demand for these minerals rises.
The report reveals wider trends of not only murders but “wider retaliations against defenders who are being targeted by government, business and other non-state actors with violence, intimidation, smear campaigns and criminalisation” in “every region of the world and in almost every sector.”
It points to Mexico and the Philippines as particularly vulnerable to the tactics of enforced disappearances and abductions.
Global Witness ranks the Philippines as the “deadliest place in Asia for land and environmental defenders”, reporting that of 468 murdered in Asia between 2012 and 2023, 64 per cent, or 298, of these cases occurred in the Philippines.
It’s an accusation that the Philippine authorities refute as “preposterous” and one-sided.
‘Your birthdays will be your death days’
In one of the most high-profile cases of the last year, Jonila Castro, 23, and Jhed Tamano, 22, were abducted and detained for 17 days last September while investigating the economic and ecological impact of reclamation activities in Manila Bay on coastal communities.
Ms Castro told the Telegraph that they were grabbed off the street by a group of men who suddenly pulled up in a car and dragged them inside.
“They put packing tape on our mouths and tied our hands and blindfolded us and brought us to two secret detention facilities,” she said, describing psychological torture in the days that followed.
During their interrogation, the women were allegedly pressured to expose links between their campaign activities and the Communist Party of the Philippines.
“Because we were not cooperating with them or answering their questions, they were threatening us and our lives,” said Ms Castro.
“Your birthdays will be your death days and we will just put you in one grave. That’s what they told us on the first night when we were still blindfolded,” she said. “They even threatened the lives of my family.”