Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the death due to medical negligence of Nubian human rights defender Gamal Sorour in Aswan Prison on 5 November 2017. The human rights defender was arrested along with 24 others in September 2017 after a peaceful protest demanding the Nubian peoples' right of return to their lands from which they were displaced in the 1960s.
On 7 July 2017, human rights defender Rosenildo Pereira de Almeida was killed by unidentified assailants in Rio Maria, Pará, Brazil. His killing comes roughly one month after the slaughter of ten other land rights defenders on 24 May 2017 by police.
On 23 April 2017, human rights defender, Silvino Nunes Gouveia, was killed by gun shots at his home in Assentamento Liberdade (Liberty Settlement), in Vale do Rio Doce, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
On 4 April 2017, LGBTI rights defender and transgender woman, Sherlyn Montoya, was found dead in the surroundings of Tegucigalpa and her body displayed signs of torture.
On 27 May 2017, indigenous and land rights defender, Carlos Maaz Coc, was killed while he attended a peaceful demonstration which called on the authorities to resolve the contamination of Lake Izabal, El Estor, Guatemala, due to mining activities.
On 23 June 2017, Roberto Antonio Gómez, father of student and human rights defender Andy Johan Gómez Jerónimo was killed while he was travelling to his house in La Esperanza, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Andy Johan Gómez Jerónimo is one of the students who has been charged with trespassing and deprivation of liberty because of his involvement in the Honduran student movement. It is believed that his father’s murder is related to the human rights defender’s work with the movement.
