Paraguay: 200 Families at Risk of Forced Eviction
200 families are at imminent risk forced eviction in the Guahory Campesino Community, Caaguazú department, Eastern Paraguay.
UA: 137/18 Index: AMR 45/8815/2018 Paraguay Date: 20 July 2018
URGENT ACTION
200 FAMILIES AT RISK OF FORCED EVICTION
200 families are at imminent risk forced eviction in the Guahory Campesino Community, Caaguazú
department, Eastern Paraguay.
According to public information, on 13 July 2018, about 400 police officers were deployed in the Guahory
Campesino Community after the decision of the attorneys in charge of the process to implement the Joint Action
Plan on Punishable Actions related to Trespass (Plan de Acción Conjunta para Hechos Punibles de Invasión de
Inmueble Ajeno). Amnesty International has identified that this procedure leads to veiled forced evictions, carried
out without due safeguards to respect and protect the right to decent housing.
Forced evictions could initiate at any time, violating the rights to due process and adequate housing of hundreds of
people, including dozens of children who live in the community. Amnesty International is also concerned that these
forced evictions could escalate into violence, as has happened in the previous eviction operations carried out in the
Guahory Campesino Community in 2016 and 2017.
Families in the Guahory Campesino Community are asserting their right to food and decent housing in the context
of access to land and agrarian reform in Paraguay. The ownership of the lands where they live has not been
determined by any judicial authority.
Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language, calling on authorities to:
Refrain from forcibly evicting people living in the Guahory Campesino Community;
Repeal the Joint Action Plan on Punishable Actions related to Trespass (Plan de Acción Conjunta para
Hechos Punibles de Invasión de Inmueble Ajeno), which is incompatible with the rights to due process and
adequate housing.
Provide full detailed information (including the number of law enforcement officials involved, the measures
taken by them and the dates) on this attempt to implement the Joint Action Plan in the Guahory community.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 5 NOVEMBER 2018 TO:
Minister of Interior
Ariel Martínez Fernández
Email: buzonciudadano@mdi.gov.py
Twitter: @minteriorpy
Salutation: Minister/ Señor Ministro
Attorney General
Sandra Quiñónez
Email:
comunicaciones@ministeriopublico.gov.py
Twitter: @SandraQuinonezA
@fiscalia_prensa
Salutation: Attorney General/Señora
Fiscal General
Commander of the National Police
Luis Carlos Rojas Ortiz
Email: comandancia@pn.gov.py
Twitter: @RRPPpoliciapy
Salutation: Comissary General
Commander/Señor Comisario General
Comandante
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email Email address Salutation Salutation
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
URGENT ACTION
200 FAMILIES AT RISK OF FORCED EVICTION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
On 15 September 2016, a prosecutor accompanied by about 1,200 police officers using tractors forcibly evicted
people from the Guahory Campesino Community. According to campesino families, their houses and crops were
destroyed. There was no discussion and no eviction order was handed over. Officials and community
representatives reported that private individuals took part.
On 3 January 2017, houses and crops in the Guahory Campesino Community were again destroyed in a second
eviction operation. Twelve people were arrested, including three adolescents, who were released at midnight and
accused of trespass. Men, women, boys and girls reported the police beat them and attacked them with tear gas.
Some police officers told them: "the campesinos are trash and don't want to work" and to "stop hanging around with
campesinos if they wanted to stay out of trouble".
According to the Paraguay Human Rights Coordinating Group (Coordinadora de Derechos Humanos del
Paraguay, CODEHUPY) and campesinos from Guahory, other evictions occurred in February and October 2015
and in December 2016.
The Joint Action Plan on Punishable Actions related to Trespass is an agreement between the Attorney General’s
Office, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police on 28 March 2012, updated on 20 March 2017, which
sets out the actions these three bodies will take to stop the potential trespass on property. The Attorney General’s
Office, the body in charge of the criminal investigation, does not define property ownership; this is the remit of the
judicial authorities, who define it using civil and agrarian procedures. As a result, there is a risk that forced evictions
may be carried out in relation to properties whose ownership is still to be established.
Name: Guahory Campesino Community
Gender: both
UA: 137/18 Index: AMR 45/8815/2018 Issue Date: 20 July 2018