07, Feb 2018 | CJP Team

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) said that more than 120 activists working to shield their environmental, land, and labour rights from corporate interests were killed in 2017, according to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. This figure was nearly 50% higher than the same figure in 2016, according to BHRRC. BHRRC’s spokeswoman said that the increase could partly be credited to higher global attention that resulted in more incidents being reported and recorded. BHRRC said that it recorded 388 attacks on activists in 2017, 34% higher than the previous year. Attacks included threats, physical assaults, legal action, and arbitrary detention. 212 of the incidents took place in six countries: Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines. BHRRC said that agriculture and mining were most impacted, but said that attacks linked to clean energy initiatives like wind farms and dams were rapidly increasing as investments in green energy are growing.