AmazoniAlerta contributes to IACHR investigation in Araribóia

AmazoniAlerta is proud to be supporting the successful appeal made by APIB and COAPIMA for a precautionary measure from the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR), demanding the Brazilian government the guarantee of rights to the Guajajara and Awá indigenous peoples, from the Araribóia Indigenous Land. AmazoniAlerta is contributing with evidence gathered by its Environmental Agents.

The request argues that the Guajajara and Awá peoples are vulnerable and at risk from COVID-19, and that the state is failing to provide acceptable access to healthcare and failing to protect their territories from illegal invasion and, in particular, the isolation of the Awá people.

The IACHR is an autonomous institution of the Organisation of American States (OAS), that promotes the observance of human rights in the States that signed the American Convention on Human Rights. Precautionary measures are requests to a State to protect one or more persons who are at serious risk of suffering irreparable harm.

Kari Guajajara, AmazoniAlerta Director, receives U.S. State Dept. Award for Global Anti-Racism

Kari Guajajara, AmazoniAlerta’s Strategic Partnerships Director and Legal Advisor to COAPIMA (Coordination of the Indigenous Peoples of Maranhão), was honoured as a recipient of the inaugural U.S. State Department’s Award for Global Anti-Racism. Kari was one of six civil society leaders from around the world recognised for advancing the human rights of members of marginalized racial, ethnic, and Indigenous communities and combatting systemic racism, discrimination, and xenophobia. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken presented the awards in Washington on Tuesday 9 August.

Kari, an Indigenous rights lawyer, is native from the Araribóia Indigenous land and belongs to the Guajajara-Tenetehára People, who have been suffering extensive losses of their traditional territories, devastating losses of life, and disruptions of tradition due to contact with non-Indigenous groups.