Francesca Lessa writes the opening chapter of SERPAJ’s 2020 Human Rights Report

Dr Francesca Lessa, Departmental Lecturer in Latin American Studies and Development, was invited by the Peace and Justice Service (SERPAJ) NGO to write a chapter for its prestigious annual report on the human rights situation in Uruguay. In 1981, still at the time of the military dictatorship, SERPAJ was the first NGO to be founded in Uruguay to work in the defence of fundamental human rights. Since 1988, SERPAJ has also been publishing a yearly report on the human rights situation in the country. This year, Dr Lessa wrote the opening chapter of the 2020 report, in which she discusses the significance of the historic appeals sentence that Rome’s Appeals Court handed down in the so-called Operation Condor trial in 2019, in which 13 former Uruguayan civilian and military defendants were condemned to life imprisonment. The full chapter can be read here.

The launch of the report can be watched here (in Spanish) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMpjvzEv5Jc