On 3 March 2021, Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, decided to start a UN report to the Human Rights Council referring to Mama Fikile Ntshangase, a South African environmental activist who was brutally murdered six months ago. The report, “Final warning: death threats and killings of human rights defenders,” raises concerns on the risks and threats that environmental activists face because of their work and on the attempts to silence them on a global level.
According to Mama Fikele’s lawyer, the 65-year-old activist received threats by phone for the first time in June 2019. These death threats continued for more than a year, until her brutal murder on the evening of 22 October 2020 in her home in Mtubatuba, South Africa. She was shot five times and died at the scene. Since then, no arrests have been made. Following the killing, South African activists and environmental justice groups have raised concerns with the government, demanding it execute an impartial and independent investigation into the killing of Mama Fikile and to hold the people responsible for her death accountable. However, no such progress has been made.
Mama Fikile Ntshangase was a member of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organization (MJECO), and she was raising environmental concerns regarding the further extension of an already-large coal mine of the company Tendele Coal Mining Ltd. at Somkhele in KwaZulu-Natal. The expansion would cause further environmental destruction in the area and impose hardship on the lives of the locals, as it would require the relocation of 21 families away from their homes and the land of their ancestors. Despite the death threats she had been receiving since 2019, Mama Fikile stayed true to her cause. In fact, before her murder, Tendele had asked MJECO to sign an agreement in order to withdraw their court challenges regarding the expansion of the mine. However, Mama Fikile resisted this agreement, stating: “I refused to sign. I cannot sell out my people. And if need be, I will die for my people.” These tragic words became a reality.
The murder of Mama Fikile should not be considered an isolated incident. The UN expert used this story as an example to stress that the killing of human rights defenders is a global issue, and that it poses a threat to civil society as a whole. Activists are condemned to live under constant fear, while others who aspire to fight for environmental justice and human rights are widely discouraged.
Especially in the case of South Africa, violence and threats towards environmental defenders is a widespread issue, with the government continuously neglecting the situation. Most of the time these threats aim to simply intimidate the activists into stopping their resistance. However, there are times, such as in the case of Mama Fikile, that threats become a reality. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), from 2015 to 2019 human rights defenders have been killed in at least 64 countries—a statistic which proves that the issue of the killing of human rights activists is not endemic to one region.
Ioanna is a translator and holds a Master's degree in Human Rights and Democratization. During her studies, she focused her research on indigenous issues and linguistic rights. She has a great interest in decolonization and human rights in the context of the Americas. She speaks five languages and has worked as an intern for the European Parliament and Amnesty International.