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RRN Letter
Colombia 7/1/2019
July 1, 2019
continued killings occurring at an increasing rate in Colombia. Recently, four former members of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) were murdered in one week. They are: Rafael Polindara, Anderson Pérez Osorio,Daniel Esterilla, and Servio Delio Cuasaluzan Guanga. Also murdered was Manuel Gregorio González Segura, a beneficiary of the National Comprehensive Plan to Replace Crops for illicit use (PNIS), the government’s program to replace coca plantations with legal crops.
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News Article
On World Environment Day, Water Defenders in El Salvador Barricaded by Anti-Riot Police
June 14, 2019
On World Environment Day, June 5, upwards of 16,000 people in San Salvador took to the streets for the 19th annual Caminata Ecológica(Ecological Walk), calling for land and water rights and an end to the right-wing water privatization campaign. This urban pilgrimage began in 2000 as a way of visibilizing the country’s environmental issues and organizing popular support behind them.
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News Article
No More Deaths: Mistrial Declared After Jury Refuses to Convict Scott Warren for Aiding Migrants
June 13, 2019

In Tucson, Arizona, a jury has refused to convict humanitarian activist Scott Warren, who faced up to 20 years in prison for providing water, food, clean clothes and beds to two undocumented migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona. Warren’s trial ended June 11 in a mistrial after a deadlocked jury was unable to deliver a verdict. Scott Warren had been arrested January 17, 2018, just hours after No More Deaths released a report detailing how U.S. Border Patrol agents had intentionally destroyed more than 3,000 gallons of water left out for migrants crossing the border. The group also published a video showing border agents dumping out jugs of water in the desert. Hours after the report was published, authorities raided the Barn, a No More Deaths aid camp in Ajo, where they found two migrants who had sought temporary refuge.

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News Article
Scott Warren trial: Hung jury in case of No More Deaths volunteer
June 11, 2019
Judge invokes pressure, jurors still deadlocked
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News Article
Transgender woman who had been in ICE custody dies in El Paso after falling ill
June 6, 2019
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have complained to federal agencies about the treatment of gay and transgender detainees at the New Mexico facility where the Salvadoran woman was held.
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News Article
Climate change is the overlooked driver of Central American migration
May 29, 2019

As people from Guatemala and Honduras continue to seek sanctuary in the US for a variety of reasons, including violence and poverty, another factor driving their migration has gotten much less attention: climate disruption.

Many members of the migrant "caravans" that made headlines during the 2018 US midterm elections are fleeing a massive drought that has lasted for five years.

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News Article
Honduran transgender woman freed after a year in US detention
April 19, 2019
Nicole García Aguilar was granted asylum in October but was held another seven months while ICE appealed
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RRN Letter
Honduras 4/12/2019
April 12, 2019
Recent attack on human rights workers and their families in Honduras. This case is especially shameless as a 90-year-old woman was one of the victims. Injured in the attack by police was the mother of Hedme Castro, director of Asociación para una Ciudadanía Participativa (ACI PARTICIPA) in Choluteca, where residents have been protesting government policies that open up land to extractive activities, such as mining.
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RRN Letter
Colombia 4/11/2019
April 11, 2019
Assassinations of two more social leaders: musician Edwin Andrés Grisales Galvis and indigenous leader Ebel Yonda Ramos.
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RRN Letter
Colombia - 03/26/19
March 26, 2019
Argemiro López Pertuz, a rural organizer, was murdered on March 17. Armed men broke into his home in the village of La Guayacana in Tumaco municipality, Nariño Department, attacked him and his family, injuring his partner and his mother. Argemiro López Pertuz promoted the implementation of the Comprehensive National Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops (PNIS), which was established under the peace agreement 2016. More than 30 people working on crop substitution programs have been murdered in this area since November 2016. Meanwhile, coca production is increasing.
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