Extrajudicial Killings
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Barnes v. Felix: Limiting Deadly Police Force
Our brief asks the Supreme Court to honor the United States’ international human rights law commitments and supports a mother seeking justice for her son, the victim of unnecessary and disproportionate police violence, killed over the simple act of driving a rental car with outstanding toll violations incurred by another driver.
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Open Letter from Kerry Kennedy Following the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Tags Share On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted on a bill that would have granted the Trump administration power to arbitrarily strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status – a blatant attempt to punish organizations that dare to speak truth to power and seek accountability. H.R. 9495 was narrowly defeated, but the effort is a…
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Enforced Disappearances: A State-Sanctioned Weapon for Repression
Tags Share In 1989, during the Guatemalan Civil War, four courageous human rights defenders were arbitrarily detained and disappeared by the Guatemalan Army because of their work to liberate Indigenous peoples forcibly conscripted into military service. The whereabouts of Agapito Pérez Lucas, Nicolás Mateo, Macario Pú Chivalán, and Luis Ruiz Luis remain unknown, causing tremendous…
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Recap: July 10 Hearing Seeks Accountability for Michael Brown’s Murder
Tags Share On July 10, 2024, attorneys and activists from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University appeared alongside members of Mike’s family before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for a public hearing seeking accountability for Mike’s murder by a St. Louis police officer. This…
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Behind the Headlines: Reparative Justice for Sonya Massey
Tags Share This week, Illinois state police released body camera footage of a sheriff’s deputy murdering Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman and mother of two, in the kitchen of her home. On July 6, 2024, Sonya called police to report a suspected break-in of her house. Officers from the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office arrived and,…
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Breaking Green: International Petition Filed on Behalf of COP City Protester Killed by Police with Anthony Enriquez
Tags Share On January 18th of last year, Manuel Esteban Páez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, a land defender protesting the construction of the police training complex “COP City” in Atlanta, Georgia, was killed by police gunfire. Authorities claim Tortuguita fired at officers, but forensic evidence suggests they were seated with their hands raised and…
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Truthout: Groups Bring Tortuguita’s Killing to International Human Rights Commission
Tags Share This month, several nonprofit organizations, including Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the University of Dayton Human Rights Center, filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), requesting an investigation into the police killing of Manuel Terán, an activist known as “Tortuguita.” According to…
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Exclusive: groups call for US inquiry into police killing of ‘Cop City’ protester
Tags Share Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the University of Dayton Human Rights Center have filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, urging a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the police killing of “Cop City” protester Manuel Paez Terán. The petition demands the release…
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Manuel Esteban Paez Teran v. United States: Justice for murder of environmental activist
This case seeks reparative justice for the extrajudicial killing of Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán, the first environmental activist in modern U.S. history to have been shot and killed by police during a protest.
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IACHR refers case of El Junquito Massacre to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Tags Share Foro Penal and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights welcome the IACHR’s decision to refer the Case of El Junquito Massacre against Venezuela to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights last October. This case, in which both organizations act as victims’ representatives, refers to the extrajudicial executions of Oscar Pérez and six other victims…
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The Families of Those Killed by Police Seek a Path to Justice Through International Law
Tags Share “She called and let me know that she wasn’t coming home that night. I didn’t know that she meant that she was going to be gone forever,” Martinez Sutton tearfully testified in 2015 about the killing of his sister Rekia Boyd by an off-duty police officer. Eight years later, he and his family…
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We Welcome the U.S. House Resolution in Support of #ENDSARS
Tags Share Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights welcomes the re-introduction of a U.S. House of Representatives Resolution supporting the #ENDSARS movement against police brutality in Nigeria by Representatives Al Green and Joaquin Castro. The #EndSARS movement calls for the disbandment of the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) which has been implicated in widespread human rights…
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