Name(s):
Official cover-up of government sanctioned assassinations
Government complicity in killing of human rights activists
Nature
People working peacefully for human rights may be persecuted under the pretext that they constitute a threat against the national security of a country. In many cases, human rights activists are gaoled because they defend or try to help people who have been harassed or detained for their beliefs. In some countries, people working for human rights are taken to clandestine detention centres and tortured. They are sentenced to long prison terms in secret trials. Their effort are officially denounced, their houses are raided, their papers are confiscated and their families intimidated. In a number countries, human rights activists may even be assassinated.