Extrajudicial Killings
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San Francisco Chronicle: In the U.S. there is no standard for police use of lethal force. SCOTUS can change that
Tags Share Nearly a decade after the tragic death of 24-year-old Ashtian Barnes, the Supreme Court is set to hear Barnes v. Felix, a civil rights case brought by Barnes’s mother to seek accountability for his unnecessary loss. In a contribution to an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Medha Raman, Dale and James…
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The family’s right to truth and transparency in investigations of U.S. police killings: report to UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions
Receiving Body United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial,Summary or Arbitrary Executions Report Type Submission for the report of the Special Rapporteur at the 59th session of the Human Rights Council Tags Partners
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Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa is a Burmese human rights activist. He is Co-founder of EarthRights International, and a member of the Karen ethnic nationality from Myanmar (Burma). After being captured and tortured, he participated in the 1988 student uprising calling for human rights, democracy and an end to military rule. In the ensuing crackdown by the…
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Southern Border Communities Coalition Files Supreme Court Amicus in Barnes v. Felix to Urge End to Excessive Use of Force by Law Enforcement
Tags Share November 20, 2024 – Today, the Southern Border Communities Coalition took its fight for dignity and human rights to the U.S. Supreme Court by filing an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in a major police shooting case, Barnes v. Felix, to hold law enforcement including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), accountable…
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Barnes v. Felix: Limiting deadly police force
Supreme Court holds that legality of police use of lethal force must be assessed under totality of circumstances, leaving room for consideration of necessity and proportionality, in line with RFK Human Rights amicus brief.
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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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10 years after Michael Brown’s death, his mother is still fighting for justice
Tags Share Michael Brown’s mother is still seeking justice 10 years after her son’s death. The August 8 issue of NPR’s Morning Edition featured testimony that Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, provided in an appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
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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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