“Even if you were to bring guns and machetes, we would still stand for our land. We would not fight [you]…but we would face you non-violently, and we would stand…You will not take [our land].” That’s the message Joseph Cheo Johnson—a chief elder in Grand Bassa County, Liberia—has for anyone seeking to claim the land …
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AJWS is proud to support activists fighting to protect the environment in countries around the world. We aid communities and movements organizing to protect the land, water and natural resources that people depend on for their survival.
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Thailand is among the world’s most dangerous countries in which to oppose powerful interests that profit from coal plants, toxic waste dumping, land grabs or illegal logging. Some 60 people who spoke out on these issues have been killed over the past 20 years, although few perpetrators have been prosecuted in a culture in which …
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On March 3rd, unknown assailants murdered Berta Cáceres, a Honduran human rights defender and environmental activist who dedicated her life to protecting the land and human rights of indigenous people. Berta and the organization she founded and directed, AJWS grantee Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indigenas de Honduras (COPINH), had received violent threats in recent months because of its work to resist the construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam, which was threatening the survival of the indigenous Lenca people.
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They are all young women in their 20s and 30s. All of them are Kachin and passionate about their common cause: the human rights of Kachin women, and of Kachins generally. And they are all members of AJWS grantee the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT).
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