Author: Injusticeto Team

In southern Ethiopia, the Konso people have maintained a 400-year-old stone terracing system, essential for farming in the region’s semiarid environment.This UNESCO-listed practice helps prevent soil erosion, conserve water and enhance agricultural productivity, and at the heart of it are the Konso elders who play a crucial role in passing down the knowledge of terracing to younger generations.However, population growth and climate change threaten the survival of the terracing system, and with land becoming scarce, many young Konso people are migrating to cities, leaving behind traditional farming.Combined with the unpredictable impacts of climate change, this exodus risks severing the…

On November 27, gendarmes in Cameroon arrested and severely beat prominent human rights lawyer Richard Tamfu in the country’s largest city, Douala. The vicious assault fits a pattern of official attacks on lawyers, presumably designed to deter them from doing their job. On the day in question, three gendarmes came to arrest a client of Tamfu’s in the Bonaberi neighborhood. Tamfu told Human Rights Watch he was there to assist her and said he challenged the gendarmes’ authority, as they did not have an arrest warrant. “So, they put me in the back of their pickup truck and started beating…

What’s shaping up to be one of the worst wildfire disasters in U.S. history had many causes. Before the blazes raged across Los Angeles last week, eight months with hardly any rain had left the brush-covered landscape bone-dry. Santa Ana winds blew through the mountains, their gusts turning small fires into infernos and sending embers flying miles ahead. As many as 12,000 buildings have burned down, some hundred thousand people have fled their homes, and at least two dozen people have died.   As winds picked up again this week, key questions about the fires remain unanswered: What sparked the flames…

The Guna Indigenous community of Ukupa in Panama has announced a plan for the relocation of their entire village out of harm’s way after December flooding rendered homes in the area uninhabitable. Community members chose relocation as a measure of last resort after the floods and now seek government and international support.This is not the first time a Panamanian community has requested relocation assistance. In 2010, the Guna community sought help to move from their flood-exposed and crowded island, Gardi Sugdub, to a mainland site in a dignified way. Over a decade later in 2024, the Panamanian government finally gave Guna…

HONOLULU (AP) — Some wounds suffered by six Hawaii residents flown to Arizona for medical treatment after a deadly illegal fireworks explosion on New Year’s are comparable to battlefield injuries, the doctor overseeing their care said Friday. Dr. Kevin Foster, the director of the Arizona Burn Center in Phoenix, said flying particles and debris from the explosion inflicted traumatic injuries. “In addition to the thermal injury that comes from the heat and the flame and the fire, we also have an explosive nature to this with particles moving at very high speeds striking patients,” Foster said at a news conference…

Aid convoys in Jordan head towards GazaAhead through his windscreen, and behind in his rear view mirror, Mustafa al Qadri can see the rest of the long convoy heading towards the Jordan Valley. We pass through the sand-coloured, rocky land that descends in the direction of the Dead Sea, towards Israel and ultimately Gaza.First the convoy must go through Israeli customs at the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge border crossing. Then it is on to the Erez crossing into Gaza where the aid will be transferred to local drivers from the World Food Programme.Mustafa is heading towards a place where Israeli settlers…

Reviving rivers in Bangladesh is not simply an ecological issue, but also a socio-cultural one, and an economic imperative.The government and the people must come together to protect and restore the rivers, not just for environmental sustainability and justice, but also to preserve the rich heritage and cultural identity associated with these waterways, a new op-ed argues.This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.See All Key Ideas Rivers, as Bengal’s nurturing mother, shaped the soul of this land and cultural landscape. The ever-flowing water and fertile sediments formed the entire…

On January 14, prominent activist and former president of Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission, Sihem Bensedrine, began a hunger strike while detained in Manouba prison. “I will no longer stand the injustice that strikes me. Justice cannot be based on lies and calumnies, but on concrete, tangible evidence,” she said in a message relayed by her lawyers.Bensedrine has fought the abuses of successive governments for four decades and was imprisoned under former presidents Habib Bourguiba and Ben Ali. Now she is detained under Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Kais Saied, in a clear case of retaliation for her human rights work. A judge ordered the detention…

Rachel Wald always has a bit of a cold. That’s life when you have two kids younger than 5, she says. You’re always a little sick. But it wasn’t until after Wald and her family voluntarily fled the fires in Los Angeles that she realized the cough, sore throat, and itchy eyes she couldn’t shake were caused by the fires plaguing the city. “I don’t think I was really recognizing how much of it was not the cold, but the smoke,” she said. Wald, who is a director at a health and environment center at the University of Southern California,…

(Brussels) – The European Union’s migration and asylum policies increasingly focused on deterrence in 2024, undermining the rights of people at its borders and beyond, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2025. These policies resulted in increased deaths at sea, unlawful pushbacks at borders, and the return of asylum seekers to countries where they face abuse.For the 546-page world report, in its 35th edition, Human Rights Watch reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In much of the world, Executive Director Tirana Hassan writes in her introductory essay, governments cracked down and wrongfully arrested and imprisoned political opponents, activists, and journalists.…