Mia Manuelita Mascariñas-Green, a Filipino environmental lawyer, was shot and killed, with her three children and a nanny bearing witness. Police believe her murder was in retaliation for her client’s suit against a resort in a land rights dispute. Digna Ochoa was a prominent human rights lawyer in Mexico who, as a part of a Truth Commission, investigated human rights violations committed during Guerrero’s “Dirty War.” At the age of 37, she was shot dead in a Mexico City office, followed by leaked investigation documents indicating the State already planned to conclude she had committed suicide. Samira al-Nuaimy, a human rights defender in Iraq known for promoting women’s rights, was kidnapped, tortured for five days, and publicly shot to death by a firing squad at the orders of Islamic State militants.4 These women are among the many human rights lawyers who are targeted and killed as a result of their work defending fundamental freedoms.
Morganne Barrett