On 25 June 2023, human rights defender and union leader Shahidul Islam was attacked by agroup of men at the Prince Jacquard Sweaters factory in Gazipur while resolving a worker paymentdispute. He died the same day from the fatal inuries sustained during the attack.
On the evening of 21 January 2023, Thulani Rudolf Maseko was gunned down at close range, shot through the windows of his home, in front of his wife and children in Luhleko, Mbabane by unknown assailants. Front Line Defenders believes, and is deeply concerned that, the killing of Thulani Rudolf Maseko appears to be a deliberate targeting and silencing of the lawyer and human rights defender, in direct retaliation to his legitimate work in defence of human rights.
On 5 May 2022, woman human rights defender Nokuthula Mabaso was shot and killed outside of her home in eKhenana. Nokuthula Mabaso was a member of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement. On May 6 2022, Nokuthula Mabaso was set to testify in court in a case against the alleged perpetrator of consistent attacks against the eKhenana Commune. The police has opened an investigation into the shooting, but no suspects have been arrested.
On 8 March 2022, land rights defender and member of the grass-roots movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, Ayanda Ngila, was shot and killed by four armed men. At the time of the shooting, the human rights defender had been working on repairing an irrigation pipe in the eKhenana community garden. The gunmen fled the scene through the river. A suspect has been detained for questioning by the Cato police.
On 15 September 2021 around 5:30 p.m., human rights defender Juan Macababbad was shot dead outside his residence in Surallah town, South Cotabato by two unidentified individuals. After the attack, the human rights defender was taken to Javelosa Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
On 10 March 2021, Jaseb Hatteb, father of human rights defender Ali Jaseb Hatteb, was assassinated by an unknown militant in the city of Amarah. The family of the human rights defender believes that Jaseb Hatteb was assassinated as result of his efforts to find his son Ali Jaseb Hatteb who was abducted and disappeared on 8 October 2019.
On 7 March 2021, during coordinated operations led by the police and military in the Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal provinces surrounding Metro Manila, five human rights defenders were among those killed and four human rights defenders were arrested. Human rights defenders Emanuel Asucion, Melvin Dasigao, Mark Lee Coros Bacasno, Chai Lemita-Evangelista and Ariel Evangelista were among those killed, whilst human rights defenders Nimfa Lanzanas, Esteban Mendoza, Eugene Eugenio and Elizabeth Camoral were arrested during the raids.
On 7 March 2021, during coordinated operations led by the police and military in the Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal provinces surrounding Metro Manila, five human rights defenders were among those killed and four human rights defenders were arrested. Human rights defenders Emanuel Asucion, Melvin Dasigao, Mark Lee Coros Bacasno, Chai Lemita-Evangelista and Ariel Evangelista were among those killed, whilst human rights defenders Nimfa Lanzanas, Esteban Mendoza, Eugene Eugenio and Elizabeth Camoral were arrested during the raids.
On 7 March 2021, during coordinated operations led by the police and military in the Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal provinces surrounding Metro Manila, five human rights defenders were among those killed and four human rights defenders were arrested. Human rights defenders Emanuel Asucion, Melvin Dasigao, Mark Lee Coros Bacasno, Chai Lemita-Evangelista and Ariel Evangelista were among those killed, whilst human rights defenders Nimfa Lanzanas, Esteban Mendoza, Eugene Eugenio and Elizabeth Camoral were arrested during the raids.
On 7 March 2021, during coordinated operations led by the police and military in the Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal provinces surrounding Metro Manila, five human rights defenders were among those killed and four human rights defenders were arrested. Human rights defenders Emanuel Asucion, Melvin Dasigao, Mark Lee Coros Bacasno, Chai Lemita-Evangelista and Ariel Evangelista were among those killed, whilst human rights defenders Nimfa Lanzanas, Esteban Mendoza, Eugene Eugenio and Elizabeth Camoral were arrested during the raids.
On 19 January 2021, LGBTIQ+ rights defender Paschal Raymond was brutally killed by unknown assailants in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
On 28 May 2020, human rights defender Ibrahim Ebrat succumbed to his injuries after he was shot by unknown assailants on 20 May 2020 while on his way home after his Ramadan prayers.
On 23 April 2020, the body of disappeared human rights defender and journalist Sajid Hussain was recovered from a river in Uppsala, Sweden. Sajid Hussain, a Pakistani journalist and Baloch rights activist, had sought refuge in Sweden as he was compelled to leave Pakistan in 2012 due to threats to his life. On 2 March 2020, the human rights defender went missing, after he was last seen boarding a train from Stockholm to Uppsala. His body was found nearly two months later.
On 07 June 2024, Pakistan authorities filed a First Information Report (FIR), including false sedition charges, against Baloch woman human rights defender Dr. Mahrang Baloch. The FIR is linked to a full day conference held by Mahrang Baloch in the Quetta Press Club on 18 May 2024, which was unjustly disrupted by local authorities.
On 13 August 2021, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 10 in Legazpi City granted human rights defender Dan Balucio’s motion to quash and to suppress alleged evidence, dismissing the trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against the human rights defender.
On 19 February 2024, the High Court in Hong Kong convened a case management hearing in the case against the Hong Kong Alliance and its three former leaders, woman human rights defender Chow Hang-tung, labour rights defender Lee Cheuk-yan, and human rights lawyer Albert Ho Chun-yan.
On 19 February 2024, the High Court in Hong Kong convened a case management hearing in the case against the Hong Kong Alliance and its three former leaders, woman human rights defender Chow Hang-tung, labour rights defender Lee Cheuk-yan, and human rights lawyer Albert Ho Chun-yan.
On 25 January 2024, the Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong’s top court, overturned the December 2022 ruling by the High Court acquitting woman human rights defender Chow Hang-tung of “inciting others to participate in an unauthorised assembly” in the 2021 vigil to commemorate the victims of the military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing in 1989.
On 12 July 2021, the Regional Trial Court of Davao del Norte dismissed the fabricated charge of murder filed against indigenous rights defender Windel Bolinget by the Tagum City Police.
On 21 January 2021, human rights defender Windel Bolinget presented himself before the National Bureau of Investigation in Baguio City following the filing of a fabricated murder case against him. The human rights defender is keen to prove his innocence and to access protection in a climate where extra-judicial killings of human rights defenders regularly take place
The arbitrary detention of human rights defender Ameen Fiddah continues following his arrest over a week ago. He faces charges in relation to Facebook posts criticizing mass killings by the Algerian military.
Approximately three weeks since he was last seen on, 5 March 2016, the whereabouts of human rights defender Mr Fidencio Gómez Sántiz remain unknown. He was last seen leaving his family in Ocosingo, Chiapas. The prominent local human rights organisations Comité Cerezo believes that Fidencio Gómez Sántiz's disappearance may have been carried out with the participation or acquiescence of Mexican law enforcement agents in what would constitute an enforced disappearance.
On 3 June 2024, Chhattisgargh police arrested woman human rights defender Suneeta Pottam from a women’s collective in Raipur, Chhatisgargh state. The woman human rights defender has been arrested under multiple cases and is accused of being involved with the banned Communitst Party of India (Maoist). In the evening of 3 June, Suneeta Pottam was presented before the Bijapur Magistrate Court and remanded at the Jagdalpur jail in Chhatisgargh.
On 14 September 2023, human rights defenders Adilur Rahman and A.S.M Nasiruddin Elan were sentenced for two years of jail by the Cyber Tribunal of Dhaka. The human rights defenders are Secretary and Director of Odhikar, a renowned human rights organisation documenting human rights violations in Bangladesh.
On 4 July 2023, a group of unknown individuals attacked and severely beat human rights defenders Aleksandr Nemov and Elena Milashina, when they were in a taxi travelling from Grozny City Airport. Both human rights defenders were headed to Grozny, Chechen Republic, for the verdict announcement in the Akhmat District Court on the case of political prisoner Zarema Musayeva on 4 July 2023. They were both were admitted to the Grozny City Hospital #9, but later transferred to a medical facility in Beslan, North Ossetia
On 18 April 2023, human rights defender Arkadeep Goswami was threatened by two unidentified men at his residence in Kolkata, West Bengal and also via telephone. The two men visited his home on 18 April 2023 at around 3 PM when the human rights defender was not at home and questioned his parents about his whereabouts. They asked his mother to call Arkadeep Goswami and threatened him via phone to reveal his location.
