May 21, 2013
  
  • Promoting nonviolence and protecting human rights defenders since 1981
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In their own words

PBI helps to protect hundreds of human rights defenders - people working nonviolently to promote and protect the human rights of others. They work on a broad spectrum of social, economic, cultural, civil and political rights. Here some of them speak about their work, their experiences, and the challenges they face.

Lorena Cabnal, Association of Indigenous Women of Santa María Xalapán, Guatemala

"I’ve been threatened several times for our work denouncing sexual violence against women and children, for promoting the right for education and the recognition of our ethnic identities here in the mountains, as women and as an indigenous people." More

Héctor Cerezo Contreras, Cerezo Committee, Mexico

"My name is Héctor Cerezo Contreras, I am 29 years old and I am a human rights defender. I was a prisoner of conscience for seven and a half years." More

Wilfrido Mayrén Peláez (Father Uvi), “Bartolomé Carrasco Briseño” Regional Centre for Human Rights (Barca-DH), Mexico

"They shot to kill me, and ever since we have been convinced that working for the defence of human rights is a risk." More

Maurilio Santiago Reyes, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Advice for Indigenous People (CEDHAPI), Mexico

"That day we received death threats for the first time. I had to leave Oaxaca… We went back, but it was the first time we felt afraid to do our work." More

Father Martín Octavio, “Bartolomé Carrasco Briseño” Regional Centre for Human Rights (Barca-DH), Mexico 

"I went to San José to hold the mass and as I arrived, a truck blocked the road, and the people in it forcibly took me out of the car and hit me with a pistol right here. They threw me to the ground and started to kick me, hit with sticks and stones, hurling insults." More

Reinaldo Villalba, José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR), Colombia 

"The work of human rights lawyers seeks to bring the Colombian constitution to fruition, in the sense of us being a society with a democratic rule of law... It is those who violate human rights who destabilise the state, not we who seek to sanction those responsible.” More

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