State Terrorism

State terrorism is a system of political domination based on the spreading of terror in society. It is characterized by a systematic and massive criminally repressive policy, implemented by the State agencies.

The following are examples of campaigns against state terrorism around the world:

AFRICA

WITNESS

“I was running the first community video center in South Africa, and I was detained in solitary confinement. When I came out in 1981, I saw a picture of Siphiwo Mtimkulu, who then was hospitalized in Capetown. Security police had poisoned him. Within a couple of weeks of suing them for torture he disappeared.”
- Mark Kaplan, South African filmmaker who was punished for his human rights work under apartheid with solitary confinements, deportation and ten years of exile.

Learn about Mark Kaplan’s film Where Truth Lies.

ASIA

WITNESS

On the night of February 12, 1998, 15 year old Yumlembam Sanamacha was worried about his forthcoming exam. On that night the Indian army entered his home, grabbed him, and took him away.

Learn about the Witness film Sanamacha’s Story

CENTRAL/ SOUTH AMERICA

Human Rights First

During Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, state forces and allied paramilitary groups committed countless human rights violations against Guatemalan civilians. Anthropologist Myrna Mack was deemed an “enemy of the state” because of her groundbreaking research on the impact of the armed conflict on indigenous rural communities. Under orders from Colonel Juan Valencia Osorio, a military death squad pursued Mack for two weeks and finally murdered her outside of her office on September 11, 1990.

Read about the history of the Myrna Mack Chang case and the recent conviction of Colonel Juan Valencia Osorio as the officer who ordered the murder of Myrna Mack.

UNITED STATES and WORLDWIDE

Speak Truth to Power

Meet the Speak Truth to Power’s Defenders struggling against state terrorism and abuses around the world:

-Judge Baltasar Garzón, Spain a Spanish judge who prosecuted Augusto Pinochet for crimes committed during his military rule of Chile.
-Dianna Ortiz, Guatemala an American nun who was raped and tortured by Guatemalan security forces who were overseen by an American national, she has worked ceaselessly to force the U.S. government to open its case files on all those brutalized in Guatemala.
-Maria Teresa Tula, El Salvador one of the Co-Madres, the mothers of the Disappeared of El Salvador, her advocacy on behalf of relatives of the disappeared and her chilling personal testimony helped change U.S. policy toward El Salvador.
-Samuel Kofi Woods, Liberia founded the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Church, the foremost human rights organization in Liberia.

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