Human rights defenders (HRD) around the world are routinely the target of judicial harassment, smear campaigns, intimidation, death threats, illegal surveillance, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, assault, torture, enforced disappearances, and even assassination. With the rise of authoritarian practices—actions by those in power to consolidate power and silence dissent—human rights defenders are more important than ever, but they are also more targeted than ever.
Who are human rights defenders?
Human rights defenders are people (individually or in a group) who act to promote and protect human rights through peaceful means. They come from all walks of life. They can be lawyers, union leaders, journalists, environmental activists, migrant rights leaders, survivors of human rights abuses, students, women’s rights activists, family member associations, religious leaders, anti-corruption activists—the list goes on. HRDs play a key role in defending freedom, justice, and the rule of law, many times at great personal risk.
Since the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998 until 2023, an estimated 5,515 human rights defenders have been killed worldwide.
– In 2024 alone, over 324 HRDs were killed in 32 countries, according to Front Line Defenders.
– 79% of those killings were in the Americas, with Colombia accounting for 157 of the killings alone.
– Global Witness documented the murder of 196 environmental human rights defenders in 2023.
These numbers alone are shocking, but they also point to an even more incalculable loss sustained by a family, a community, and a country deprived of a human rights champion working to make the world a better place.
Impact of growing authoritarian practices on HRDs
With the rise of authoritarian practices globally, we are seeing more HRDs being targeted and attacked. They are being silenced for calling out human rights abusers and holding their governments accountable. We see this most prevalently with the sharp increase in the criminalization of human rights defenders worldwide.
Criminalization, or misusing the legal system to judicially harass HRDs, is not something new and has been used against HRDs in certain countries for decades, but it is becoming much more widespread. This tactic is substantially harder to fight back against and counter—after all, authorities can say they are just adhering to the rule of law; but what they are doing is seeking to concentrate their own power and silence dissent.
These authoritarian practices take on many different forms: from passing laws restricting peaceful assembly and association to limiting free speech; from imposing new foreign funding regulations to limiting or outlawing NGO registration; from targeting HRDs with spurious legal charges such as violating terrorism, national security, money laundering to immorality laws.
All these authoritarian tactics are meant to silence HRDs. And when you add to those authoritarian practices used by governments against HRDs like illegal surveillance (both physical and digital), smear campaigns, travel bans, the targeting of family members or legal counsel, and increased instances of transnational repression, it creates an extremely difficult environment to work and live in. Unfortunately, this environment is becoming increasingly more dangerous, and HRDs have to work with even fewer resources and support.
U.S. foreign aid cuts devastating HRDs
One of the things that has put even more HRDs at risk worldwide are the devastating cuts to USAID. The widescale, arbitrary, and abrupt stoppage of the United States’ foreign assistance programs that supported thousands of human rights defenders worldwide has had devastating impacts. As a direct result, human rights defenders are less safe. Life-saving resources—such as emergency relocation, secure phones, bulletproof jackets or windows, medical treatment to deal with the effects of torture or sexual abuse, legal assistance to fight off spurious charges—have become more difficult to access.
The political support the U.S. government once provided to human rights defenders through programs in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor is now being eliminated because of the State Department’s reorganization.
Amnesty International is working to fill as many gaps as possible by continuing to support and protect human rights defenders worldwide as we have always done, but we cannot do it alone.
This blog is part of a series exploring how increasing authoritarian practices impact human rights across a variety of issues. Learn more.