Hi there,

In this chaotic news cycle it may be tempting to tune out, but we hope you won’t—only an informed and engaged public can defend democracy. In these times of deep political polarization we need news that goes beyond play-by-play headlines, news that goes to the heart of each story by asking people to tell their own stories of abuses of power and injustice in their own words. If our journalism is important to you, please donate today. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much.

Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Haitian Human Rights Champion Mario Joseph Dies in Car Crash

HeadlineApr 03, 2025

Mario Joseph, a prominent Haitian human rights lawyer, has died in a car accident at the age of 62. Joseph was an attorney at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and represented many political prisoners and other victims of human rights abuses. He led the prosecution in the trial of the 1994 Raboteau massacre, which saw military and paramilitary forces attack and kill at least two dozen people who’d taken part in demonstrations supporting Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been overthrown in a coup three years earlier.

Democracy Now! traveled to Haiti in 2010 following the devastating earthquake, where we spoke with Mario Joseph.

Mario Joseph: “The way the earthquake hit, it didn’t discriminate. That’s a good example for us to look at in Haiti and stop with this exclusionary system. It’s true a lot of poor people were touched by this, but even people with big houses or small houses, everybody is living in the street now. This is why we have to begin to end the system of exclusion, for everybody to participate in the country’s life.”

Click here to see our interviews with Mario Joseph, as well as our coverage of Haiti over the years.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top