Issue 8 · October 2, 2026 · Libera Mondo Newsletter

Inter-American Court hears Peru over isolated peoples

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights held a hearing in Montevideo on September 24 and 25 on whether Peru violated the rights of the Mashco Piro, Yora and Amahuaca peoples, who live in isolation or initial contact. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that Peru failed to expand the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve despite evidence that the peoples live there. It asks the Court to order their territories demarcated, buffer zones set up and the reserve classified as an Indigenous reserve. Written arguments are due October 26. The Court has set no date for a decision.

Malaysia begins returning Rohingya to Myanmar

Malaysia began sending Rohingya back to Myanmar on September 29: about 1,500 people in the first phase of a planned 5,000, Al Jazeera reports. Buses under police escort reached a stadium near the Lumut naval base in the northwest, where the passengers were to be processed and carried to Myanmar on two Myanmar naval warships and a hospital ship. Journalists were barred from the grounds. Malaysia calls the returns voluntary. More than 160 civil society organizations had asked it to stop, citing violence and forced recruitment into armed groups, and Doctors Without Borders asked it to disclose who was being sent back. Nay San Lwin of the Arakan Rohingya National Council called it “sending people back to a killing field.”

Court delays release hearing for ailing Crimean Tatar

A Russian court has postponed to October 26 the hearing on releasing the Crimean Tatar prisoner Tofik Abdulgaziev on health grounds. It was set for September 22. Abdulgaziev, 44, from Russian-occupied Crimea, was arrested in March 2019 and sentenced in May 2022 to 12 years over alleged involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir, which the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group describes as a peaceful Muslim organization. He was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in December 2025. His wife, Aliye Abdulgazieva, says the family and lawyers waited a month for examinations the court had ordered; the case file says he refuses them. His lawyer says he spent ten days in a punishment cell. On September 3 he was fined 100,000 rubles for contempt of court.

Indigenous groups contest Brazil’s critical minerals policy

Brazil signed its National Policy on Critical and Strategic Minerals on September 16. The next day the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the national Indigenous umbrella organization, and seven other Indigenous organizations, including COIAB in the Amazon, issued a statement. They say more than 5,000 mining requests are open in the Amazon, over 1,300 of them affecting Indigenous Lands or areas within 10 kilometers, and 390 overlapping them completely. They ask the government to treat Indigenous Lands as exclusion zones, require free, prior and informed consultation before projects are approved, guarantee permanent Indigenous participation in the policy and rule out accelerated environmental licensing for mining.

Taliban halt girls’ admissions at six Kabul schools

Officials of the Taliban’s Education Ministry and its intelligence agency told six Kabul schools to stop admissions for girls, Amu TV reported on September 20. The order ended a UNICEF-backed program in which girls in grades 10 to 12 registered for exams and took a six-month course leading to educational documents. The schools are Om al-Banin, Naswan Amini, Sayed al-Shuhada, Mehrabuddin, Sardar Kabuli and Asif Mayel. A school official said “the process has been completely canceled”; another attributed the refusal to disputes within the Taliban leadership. Girls have been denied secondary education for five years. Amu TV cites UNICEF’s figure of more than 2.6 million affected girls.

Aeta claim land under planned semiconductor hub

A planned 1,620-hectare semiconductor hub in New Clark City, Central Luzon, overlaps the ancestral domain claims of thousands of Aeta people across at least three villages, Mongabay reported on September 23. The hub is part of Pax Silica, a U.S.-led initiative on AI and semiconductor supply chains, and the final agreement is due in November. The Aeta in Clark have sought a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title since 1994, and none exists. Joshua Bingcang, head of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, said there is no ancestral domain title in the area and denied any displacement. At a protest outside the Grand Hyatt Manila on September 10, activists reported at least 27 protesters injured, police reported 16 officers hurt, and five people were arrested.

Indigenous delegates from 16 countries form land alliance

Survival International reported on September 25 that 60 Indigenous people from 16 countries, meeting in Nairobi, had issued the Nairobi Declaration and formed the Indigenous Lands Alliance. The gathering, called Our Land, Our Nature, was organized by Conservation Solutions Afrika and Survival, so this is their account. Participants included Baka from Cameroon and the Republic of Congo; Ogiek, Samburu and Maasai from Kenya; Karen from Thailand; Tharu from Nepal; Bunong from Cambodia; Kichwa from Ecuador and Peru; and Diné and Dakota from the United States. They demand the return of ancestral lands taken for parks and sanctuaries, and tell conservation organizations including WWF, WCS and African Parks to leave their lands and respect their rights. One statement called the current arrangement “nothing more than a cartel.”