"Now They're All Dead": Threats of Assassination to Human Rights Advocates in Haiti

Mark Snyder, Beverly Bell and Alexis Erkert, Toward Freedom
August 21, 2013

"Those before you were strong. Now they're all dead. Stop what you are doing, or the same will happen to you."

Those were the words delivered to Frena Florvilus, Director of Education and Advocacy of the Haitian human rights organization Defenders of the Oppressed (DOP), early on the morning of August 11 by one of four unidentified men who attempted to enter DOP's office. The threat echoed numerous others that have been leveled against the DOP office and its staff since they took on the case of a young man who died in police custody within hours of his April 15 arrest, his body left covered with bruises and wounds inflicted by a severe beating. DOP has also been targeted for its work to support displaced peoples who face violent eviction from their camps, by the government and private landowners who are determined to rid the country of camps. Never mind that the people, homeless since the January 2010 earthquake, have nowhere else to go. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/americas/3340-qnow-theyre-all-deadq-threats-of-assassination-to-human-rights-advocates-in-haiti