The UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on Sept. 26 rejected an appeal by former Liberian president Charles Taylor of his convictions for war crimes committed during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone. According to a press release from the court, Taylor's lawyers appealed his convictions on 42 grounds, arguing that the Trial Chamber erred in evaluating evidence and that the 50-year sentence was "manifestly unreasonable." The court ruled that his guilt had been proved beyond doubt and upheld Taylor's 50-year sentence. The sentence came after Trial Chamber II convicted (PDF) Taylor of planning as well as aiding and abetting crimes committed by rebel forces in exchange for diamonds during the civil war, including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, conscripting or enlisting children into armed forces, enslavement and pillage.

Campesino leader Nelson Giraldo Posada, a founder of the Ríos Vivos movement that opposes the HidroItuango hydro-electric project in Colombia's Antioquia department, was slain by unknown gunmen near his lands in the town of Ituango Sept. 17.  Giraldo Posada was among a group of some 350 Ituango residents forcibly relocated from their lands along the Río Cauca to make way for the hydro project. With negotiations over compensation still underway, they have been housed since March in a sports stadium at the University of Antioquia in Medellín. Leaders of group had repeatedly received death threats, and on Sept. 9 a local court, the Medellín Superior Tribunal, ordered that authorities take measures to guarantee their safety. (Radio Santa Fe, Corporación Juridica Libertad, Bogotá, Sept. 19)

The wife and infant son of a local mining leader were assassinated last week in the community of Pamputa, Coyllurqui district, Cotabambas province, Apurímac region, Peru. The bodies were found Sept. 18 by ​Carmelo Hanco, president of the local Artisenal Miners Association of Los Apus de Chunta, when he returned home from a trip to Abancay, the regional capital, where he had been petitioning authorities for the "formalization" of mining claims. Authorities said the killings took place during a robbery, but Hanco said he suspected the involvement of the Xstrata mining company—which he charged has been pressing for the arrest of independent artisenal miners in the region with an eye towards establishing its own operations. The company has for 10 years operated a giant gold, silver and copper mine at nearby Las Bambas (Chahuahuacho district), above the opposition of both local artisenal miners and campesinos. (Con Nuestro Peru, Sept. 21)

On Sept. 20, a group of workers and security guards from the Yanacocha mining company attacked the protest encampment established by local  campesinos at the Conga site, where the company seeks to expand operations of Peru's biggest open-pit gold mine. The tents and bivouacs were torn down and burned, and the protesters evicted from the site. Three days later, protesters returned to re-establish the encampment—some 500 strong, and headed by the movement's most visible leaders, Jorge Rimarachín, Gregorio Santos and Marco Arana. But that night, a group of some 10 men, hidden by darkness on the hills overlooking the new camp, fired shots at the protesters. A detachment of DINOES, the special anti-riot force of the National Police, looked on and did not interfere.

Leaders of the National Council of Marka and Ayllus of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ) charged that their office in the Bolivian capital La Paz was attacked by followers of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) on Sept. 16. CONAMAQ's jiliri apu mallku, or top leader, Félix Becerra,  said the MAS followers, some armed with knives and clubs, stormed the office and attempted to occupy it. A group of MAS dissident lawmakers in Bolivia's congress, calling themselves the "free-thinkers" (librepensantes), joined Becerra in denouncing the apparent attack and calling for an investigation. But a rival CONAMAQ leader, Hilarión Mamani, denied Becerra's version of events and called for dialogue with the MAS. Becerra charges that MAS is attempting to divide CONAMAQ by setting up a parallel leadership within the organization. (El Diario, La Paz, Sept. 17; Eju!, Santa Cruz, Sept. 16)

Venezuela's withdrawal from the American Convention on Human Rights went into effect this month, drawing the condemnation of rights groups across the hemisphere. The withdrawal was one of the Hugo Chávez’s last decisions as president, and took effect one year after he announced Venezuela's official "denunciation" of the American Convention, also known as the San José Pact. Upon the withdrawal, President Nicolás Maduro reiterated Chavez’s charge that the Inter-American system is a US pawn: "[T]he US is not part of the human rights system, does not acknowledge the court's jurisdiction or the commission, but…the commission headquarters is in Washington. Almost all participants and bureaucracy that are part of the [Inter-American Court of Human Rights] are captured by the interests of the State Department of the United States."

The Joint Task Force at Guantánamo Bay said Sept. 23 that they would no longer issue daily updates on detainee hunger strikes. This announcement sought to effectively declared the end of the unprecedentedly broad, six-month long, prisoner protest. There are now 164 prisoners in Guantanamo, and as many as 106 were on strike at the peak of the protest in July. Only 19 detainees are still classified as on hunger strike. For those 19 prisoners, force-feeding continues. The hunger strike has brought attention to the prison, and caused US President Barack Obama to renew his pledge to close the facility.

On Sept. 20 a judge in the southwestern Honduran department of Intibucá issued an order for the preventive detention of indigenous leader Berta Cáceres on charges of having broken into the property of a company constructing a hydroelectric project. Cáceres, the general coordinator of the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), was taken to the prison in La Esperanza, Intibucá. The charges stem from her support of indigenous Lenca communities in their protests against the construction of the Agua Zarca dam on and near their territory; the struggle against the project has already cost the life of Tomás García, an indigenous leader the protesters said was shot dead by soldiers on July 15.