Commissioned by the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, and based on analysis of significant new material, new report finds a range of protection and accountability failures in five separate killings from around the globe.
A new report led by Unredacted researchers and released yesterday investigates the murder of five human rights defenders across the globe. Chasing Shadows investigates the killings of Fikile Ntshangase (South Africa), Thulani Maseko (Eswatini), Jude Fernandez (Philippines), Quinto Inuma Alvarado (Peru) and Maria Bernadete Pacifico (Brazil).
The report is the result of a year-long investigation by Unredacted research consultants, commissioned and funded by Mary Lawlor, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders (2020-2026).
Led by Claire Lauterbach, and supported by Namir Shabibi, the investigation is based on an analysis of interviews with persons familiar with each case, including witnesses to the killings, friends, family members and colleagues of the victims, and professionals working adjacent to the case, including legal and human rights analysts. In some of the cases, original primary material related to police investigations was obtained, and was complimented by expert forensic analysis commissioned for this report.
Human rights defenders around the globe frequently operate in contexts which see them and their communities pitted against a range of vested political, economic and criminal interests. Hundreds are killed each year. In the vast majority of cases, the killers are never identified, never face criminal charges, or are never convicted for the crimes they commit. In turn, this has severe consequences not only for the families and communities connected to those killed; it impacts the ability of others to engage in similar activism against environmental, social and human rights abuses.
Identifying the protection failures and accountability gaps in real-life cases can support in-country attempts to address the lack of justice for the killings of individual defenders. Identifying cross-case themes can also assist the global human rights community to build capacity and strategies for challenging state and corporate actors more broadly.
The five cases profiled in depth are:
- Joyce Fikile Ntshangase, a South African grandmother and community leader opposed to mining expansion, murdered by hitmen in her rural home in October 2020.
- Thulani Maseko, a prominent Swazi lawyer and democracy activist, killed in his rural homestead by a single person unknown in January 2023.
- Jude Thaddeus Fernandez, a Filipino labour rights and union activist, killed in his urban home by police officers under suspicious circumstances in September 2023.
- Quinto Inuma Alvarado, a Peruvian conservationist and indigenous leader opposed to land grabbing and criminality, murdered while travelling in the Peruvian Amazon by individuals linked to organised crime in November 2023.
- Maria Bernadete Pacífico, a Brazilian quilombo leader and activist for the rights of her racial minority community facing environmental pollution, murdered in her rural home by individuals linked to organised crime in August 2023. The murder of her son Flavio Gabriel Pacífico dos Santos in 2017 is also discussed.
For each of these cases, the report examines the threats the murdered defender faced during their work, and the protection failures and missed opportunities that occurred in the run-up to their killings; the bottlenecks and obstacles preventing accountability or justice for their killings, particularly failures by duty-bearing state actors; the most effective ways of supporting justice and accountability for these cases, and more generally for killings of HRDs; and the support and interventions by international actors such as the Special Rapporteur or other bodies that are most likely to be effective in promoting justice for HRDs killed for their work.
