Now more than ever, the world needs human rights defenders.

Now more than ever, human rights defenders need your support.

A message from our new Director, Ben Leather

The IPCC has recognised that, in order to combat the climate crisis, the voices of those indigenous communities and environmentalists already beginning to suffer its consequences must be heard. Yet many live in fear of speaking out. More than four land and environmental defenders have been killed every week since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement.

The fresh threats to women’s rights in recent weeks have shown once again why standing up for our freedoms is so important. But women’s rights defenders often face reprisals, even from within their own communities

Both the war in Ukraine and recent developments in Palestine have underlined both how crucial it is for us to depend upon independent journalism, and the great risks that people take to report the news, especially when it exposes human rights abuses.

Nevertheless, with PBI’s support, human rights defenders continue to make a huge difference. In Guatemala, indigenous leaders recently won a landmark court case to prohibit destructive mining projects on their land. In Kenya, grassroots activists in Nairobi’s slums have worked to prevent extrajudicial killings by the police. In Colombia, civil society gained key provisions on rights and justice in the country’s peace accords after half a century of civil war.

For 40 years, PBI volunteers have accompanied human rights defenders in their darkest hours and their greatest triumphs, but that would have been impossible without your support.

The threats facing activists are evolving, but so are our tactics. Business involvement in attacks on defenders has skyrocketed, which is why we are advocating for laws to regulate their behaviour. Violent assaults on LGBTI+ activists are on the rise, which is why we provide groups with protective accompaniment. Freedoms are under threat at home too, which is why we are working to oppose UK government plans to scrap the human rights act. Your support will help us respond. 

Ever since PBI’s first team managed to stem the assassinations of Guatemalan activists working against enforced disappearances in 1983, we have been driven by a desire to use innovative international presence and pressure for peace. With PBI providing round-the-clock nonviolent escorts, not a single other leader from the organisation who had requested that initial field presence was killed.

Today, we use the same model of ‘protective accompaniment’ in many other countries, with increasingly diverse teams of volunteers from across the world standing alongside human rights defenders, while wearing the distinctive PBI vest. They back this presence with outreach and lobbying, with PBI one of the only organisations to advocate at all levels - from the soldier at a local checkpoint, to UN leaders. Our activities help create the security, policy and political environments in which indigenous leaders, journalists, community activists and NGOs can carry out their work.

Sometimes the model is modified. The confines of the current Nicaraguan context mean we support human rights defenders there and in exile from a base in Costa Rica. In Indonesia, we collaborate with local organisation ELSAM to conduct extended trainings for defenders in security, protection networks and field research.

Indeed, networks are everything to PBI. Here in the UK, we pass information to hundreds of lawyers, politicians, civil servants, and civil society allies, so that they are ready to act when those at risk most need them. We are constantly advocating for the UK Government to do more to support defenders, and have generated a wealth of multimedia materials with which to carry out awareness campaigns.

But we simply cannot do this without you.

Covid’s impact, government cuts, and rising costs have increased the challenges we face to finance our life-saving activities. But we are determined to overcome them.

Please donate today, and help PBI defend the defenders standing up for fairness and justice.

*Monthly donations can be even more impactful, as they allow us to plan further ahead. These can be made at http://bit.ly/TogetherWeDefendDefenders