This Week in Human Rights News

Indigenous Group in Brazil Wins Decades-Long Battle Over Illegal Logging

Source: Reuters, Human Rights Watch, Yale Environment 360

• In April 2020, the Ashaninka indigenous community in Brazil has won a two-decade federal court dispute against illegal logging interests, receiving $3 million in compensation and an official apology from companies for cutting down thousands of mahogany, cedar, and other tree species in the Kampa do Rio Amônia Indigenous Reserve. 

• As the world’s largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon plays a vital role in mitigating climate change by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide. When cut or burned down, the forest not only ceases to fulfil this function, but also releases the carbon dioxide it had previously stored back into the atmosphere. 

• Sixty percent of the Amazon is located within Brazil, and deforestation accounts for nearly half of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to government data.

• Starting in the early 1980s, timber companies owned by the Cameli family illegally harvested mature trees from the Ashaninka’s ancestral land to supply the European furniture industry. 

• As part of the new settlement, the companies apologised “for all the ills caused” and acknowledged “the enormous importance of the Ashaninka people as guardians of the forest, zealous in the preservation of the environment.” 

• The $3 million reparation will go directly toward projects protecting the Ashaninka community and Amazon forest.

• Experts said the case could serve as a legal precedent in other indigenous and environmental lawsuits in Brazil. 

• The fight is not over. Reuters reports that deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose in March, indicating that illegal loggers and land speculators have not stopped destroying the forest with the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. 

• Reduced policing and an expected economic recession, leading more people to risk criminal activity to make money, could boost destruction, said Carlos Souza Jr., a researcher at the non-profit Amazon institute Imazon.

Trans and Intersex Rights in Hungary

Source: Euronews, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Foundation, UNFE

• Hungary’s government has launched persistent attacks on gender equality and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, as well as asylum seekers and migrants.

• Several days after the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, Biphobia and Intersexism, Hungary approved legislation banning the legal recognition of transgender and intersex citizens.

• The new law defines gender based on chromosomes at birth, changing the characteristic wording from 'sex' to 'sex assigned at birth'.

• The amendment means that gender and names cannot be altered on official documents, such as identity documents and marriage certificates.

• The law puts transgender and intersex people at risk of harassment, discrimination, and even violence in daily situations when they need to use identity documents.

• Being intersex is different from being transgender. Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. They have genitals or internal sex organs that fall outside these binary categories, or have combinations of chromosomes that are different than XY and XX.  Some people might be born with external genitals that fall into these binary categories, but their internal organs or hormones might not.

• Intersex people often experience prejudice and discrimination because their bodies do not conform to other people’s expectations about sex and gender. Many intersex people are subjected to unnecessary medical interventions and in some cases, babies born with intersex characteristics are also murdered. 

• By treating intersex traits as birth defects or disorders, common medical practices have reinforced the belief that intersex people need to be “fixed.”

• The legislation has been widely criticised internationally by human rights organisations, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, and Members of the European Parliament.

• Last month, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán passed a bill during the coronavirus pandemic to allow him to rule indefinitely by decree.