Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights -- Outcome Adoption for Paraguay
Delivered by Inés M. Pousadela
Thank you, Madame President.
Semillas para la Democracia and CIVICUS welcome the government of Paraguay’s acceptance of UPR recommendations pertaining the space for civil society. However, our joint UPR submission documents that Paraguay did not implement 13 of the 19 such recommendations it received during its previous review, and only partially implemented six.
As detailed in our submission, both state and non-state actors frequently attack, intimidate and judicially harass human rights defenders and journalists, particularly when reporting on protests, organised crime, corruption and human rights abuses; the hostile environment for journalists is fuelled from the highest political levels. Defenders of Indigenous and peasant communities and land rights activists are targeted in attacks often linked to agribusiness corporations; women’s and LGBTQI+ rights defenders face attacks perpetrated mostly by fundamentalist anti-rights groups. Examples abound of land rights defenders who suffered attempts on their lives, and some have been killed. Most aggressions remain unpunished.
Workers face strong legal obstacles to exercise their freedom of association, as well as de facto obstacles and direct attacks from non-state actors, notably private companies that threaten to fire them if they try to organise. The law does not adequately protect this freedom.
Our submission also shows that the freedom of expression is threatened by the systematic use of criminal defamation statutes by public figures to intimidate and silence critical journalists, especially when they investigate allegations of corruption. The deficient implementation of the Access to Information Law has restricted access to information that should be public, and instances of censorship as well as self-censorship have been recorded.
The exercise of freedom of peaceful assembly remains obstructed. Peaceful demonstrations, particularly by the peasant and Indigenous movement and communities mobilising for land rights, are frequently broken up with excessive force, typically leading to people being arrested or injured, and occasionally resulting in fatalities.
We call on the Government of Paraguay to take proactive measures to address these concerns and implement recommendations to create and maintain, in law and in practice, an enabling environment for civil society.
We thank you.
Civic space in Paraguay is rated as obstructed by the CIVICUS Monitor.