Human Rights

Bayern Munich, Germany’s most famous soccer team, ended its 5-year sponsorship contract with Qatar Airways, after fans spoke out strongly about human and migrant worker abuses in Qatar. Human rights groups say the Qatari government (which owns the airline) turned a blind eye to abuses during the massive construction spree for the 2022 World Cup tournament. Read More

Three Iraqi men who brought a lawsuit against military contractor CACI for torturing them at the U.S. military-run Abu Ghraib prison will be allowed to take the case to trial after a court in Virginia denied an 18th attempt by the company to get the case dismissed. Read More

Enel began construction of Windpeshi, a proposed 205-megawatt wind farm in the La Guajira desert on the ancestral land of the Wayúu Indigenous people in Colombia, in 2021. After two years of blockades and protests, Enel decided to suspend construction indefinitely. The company plans to sell the site if it can find a buyer. Read More

Village land in Chikor Leu commune, Koh Kong province, Cambodia, was forcibly seized in 2006 to give to local companies to grow sugar for conglomerate Tate & Lyle. The former residents sued Tate & Lyle in the UK. In April 2023, the NGO Equitable Cambodia announced that 200 families were compensated for the land and the human rights abuse, although details were not disclosed. Read More

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is one of the windiest locations in the world. Located in Oaxaca state, México, it has been historically famous as the shortest distance between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Today it is also the location of major conflict between Indigenous communities and wind energy companies. Read More

Potássio do Brasil is planning to mine for potash, a key fertilizer ingredient, on the land of Mura Indigenous people in Amazonas state, Brazil. Courts have imposed a US$20,000 fine on the company for attempting to claim land for the mine in Soares village despite the fact that the local Mura have yet to give permission for mining to go ahead.  Read More

Mobil Corporation (now ExxonMobil) began drilling in the Arun gas field in northern Sumatra in the 1970s. Indonesian soldiers, who were paid to provide security for the gas field, attacked local villages during a civil war against the Free Aceh Movement in the 1990s. Read More

Société Financière des Caoutchoucs (Socfin) operates a 58,000-hectare palm oil plantation around the town of Mbonjo in west Cameroon that it acquired from the government of Cameroon in the year 2000. After two years of negotiations, villagers were given back three hectares of sacred land that contain ancestral graves as well as where they grow traditional medicinal plants. Read More

“The company wants to weaken us, undermine our strength and impoverish our fight, it wants to kill us slowly, leave us starving like it does with the Xingu River and the fish that inhabit the waters of the rivers.”    - November 2022 letter from the council of the traditional peoples of the middle and lower Xingu River. Read More

On a secure military base in Tecamachalco, a Mexico City suburb, lies the country’s only gun shop. Prospective customers must fill out multiple forms before being allowed to enter and view weapons locked in glass cases. Advertising the store is illegal – so most Mexicans remain ignorant of its existence. Read More