Blog

By George Harvey and Alex Xavier, LGBTI Coordinators

Summer is officially here, and with it some of the first Pride festivals of the year in Canada. We have a lot to celebrate this summer!

Last November, following efforts from Amnesty supporters around the world, openly gay Venezuelan politician Rosmit Mantilla was released. after more than two years in prison. Upon his release, he expressed gratitude to all those who took action on his behalf:

“I often woke up believing my strength was running out, believing I couldn’t keep going, and then I received photographs of Amnesty International human rights activists from all over the world requesting my freedom, respect for justice and for life. Infinite thanks, friends, without you I wouldn’t be here!”

By Matthew Wells, Senior Crisis Advisor at Amnesty International

When Ngau Masar watched her husband Le Mei Tah speed off on his motorbike on the morning of 4 December 2016, little did she know she might never see him again.

Two weeks earlier, heavy fighting had prompted the family to flee to China from their village in northern Myanmar. When they returned, they joined thousands of others in makeshift camps near the border. Soldiers remained ubiquitous in the area’s villages, where some houses showed damage from airstrikes. There was no feed left for their farm animals, so Ngau Masar asked Le Mei Tah if he could go to a neighbouring village to grind grain. That was the last she saw or heard of him, as he was one of two people disappeared by the Myanmar Army that day.

Maya-K’iche human rights defender Lolita Chavez is known to Canadians for her determined and principled stance on the right of Indigenous peoples to determine what happens in their territories. Lolita has spoken to Canadian leaders, investors and the public about the ways in which the Guatemalan government has failed to protect Indigenous peoples and how this leaves them exposed to abuses by corporate actors, such as mining, hydro-electric or logging interests. Most people in the region rely on subsistence farming for their livelihoods and are concerned that these industrial activities would destroy sources of water needed for irrigation and drinking. Lolita organized a community referendum on resource development in Santa Cruz del Quiche, Quiche department and residents overwhelmingly voted ‘NO’ to any form of industrial development on their lands.

By Craig Benjamin, Indigenous Rights Campaigner for Amnesty International Canada

The leaders of the British Columbia NDP and Green parties announced yesterday that when they form the provincial government they will send the Site C megaproject to the independent BC Utilities Commission for a long overdue review.

Such a review, which will try to determine the province's actual energy needs and whether the cost of Site C is warranted, is widely expected to be the death knell for the $9 billion plus project.

Critically, however, the province needs to come to terms with the consequences of outgoing Premier Christy Clark's drive to push the dam to what she referred to as “the point of no return.”

A University of British Columbia study recently concluded that stopping the project is still a better use of money than building a dam that will produce more power than is needed for decades. So far, the ecological harm to the Peace Valley is still reversible.