- Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Early Days of Music Video Activism This video of ‘My Country Tis of Thee You’re Dying’ is from an episode of Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest, is demonstrates an early blending of video, song, and human rights advocacy.
- Airport Expansion in North-East India Forcibly Evicts 17 Families Since independence in 1947, tens of milions of Indians have been displaced in the name of development. They have been forcibly uprooted from their homes, farmlands, fishing areas and forests to make way for dam reservoirs, irrigation projects, mines, plantations, highways, and tourist resorts. Reportedly less than 20% have ever been rehabilitated.
- Derailed: Cambodia’s Poor Paying the Price for Railway Development Every year millions of people around the world are forcibly displaced from their lands, homes and livelihoods to make way for large-scale infrastructure projects. Most often those who are forced to sacrifice their place on earth for both public and private interests are amongst the poorest and most vulnerable people in society.
- Why Stephanie Zito, Traveler, Blogger and Humanitarian Supports WITNESS For our year-end post, we asked a supporter to share a personal story about why she cares about the organization and our partners. You can show your support for WITNESS by visiting our website to make a year-end donation. Thanks to Stephanie Zito for her support and to all of you who support us throughout the year.
- Mexico Partners Use Video to Pressure Governor, Influence Media, Document Protests A few weeks ago, I met our forced evictions campaign partners in Mexico and we traveled together to Temacapulín, a small community in the mountains of Jalisco state that has been fighting its own eviction for several years due to the construction of the El Zapotillo Dam.
- Join the Call: No More Evictions for Rio 2016 Olympics We’ve joined forces with our local partners in Rio and Amnesty International to call on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to address the complaints of hundreds of poor families that have been (or are at risk of being) forcibly evicted from their homes under the pretext of the XXXI Summer Olympic Games to be held in Rio in 2016.
- World Habitat Day Is About People: Their Struggles, Their Strategies As I shared in an earlier post, Global Networks Unite on Forced Evictions, WITNESS, our partner the Habitat International Coalition and 6 other networks working on housing and land rights have organized World Habitat Days - six weeks (16 September - 31 October) to bring attention and activism to forced evictions, land grabbing and activists at risk.
- Communities in Rio de Janeiro Blame Olympics for Evictions Communities in the West Zone (Zona Oeste) of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil have been earmarked for eviction and removal by the City Hall in preparation for the 2016 Olympics. Recently, at least two of them, 'Vila Harmonia' and 'Vila Autódromo', have witnessed the presence of tractors, government staff and police.
- Mexico Training on Forced Evictions A quick update from the WITNESS training in Mexico City in association with the Habitat International Coalition (HIC)- Latin America. We've been holed-up for nine days solid in a convent (cheap, good food, peaceful atmosphere, nightly curfew) training a range of human rights defenders either from or working with communities whose rights are being compromised or violated by dam mega-projects.
