In February of 2022, Colombian human rights activists Teófilo Acuña and Jorge Tafur were assassinated in front of their friends and families after decades of working to protect small, rural communities from mining and land-grabbing. Their killers have not been brought to justice.
Acuña and Tafur were just two of 401 human rights defenders killed in 2022, according to a new report from Frontline Defenders, an international human rights organization. According to researchers, approximately 48 percent of those killed were protecting land, environmental, and Indigenous peoples' rights, while 22 percent of people killed were Indigenous. The report also found that environmental and Indigenous rights defenders were most targeted and regularly faced arrest, detention, legal action, physical attacks, death threats, and murder.
