PENANG, Malaysia - Even before the spread of COVID-19, another "pandemic" has already been spreading terror in many rural communities worldwide. Killings, arrests, harassment and other forms of repression have been the daily reality of many poor peasants and indigenous people asserting their rights to land and resources. Data show that the trend worsened in 2020, aggravating a year already made extremely tough for the most vulnerable sectors by the COVID-19 pandemic.

PAN Asia Pacific's (PANAP) Land and Rights Watch monitoring revealed that 123 rural people were killed from January to November this year. During the same period in 2019, PANAP monitored 108 victims of killings related to land struggles of rural communities, or an increase of 15 victims from last year's total.

Of those killed this year, 61 were indigenous people while 35 were farmers and farmworkers; 20 were advocates of the people's right to land while seven were not identified in reports as belonging to a certain sector.

The advocacy group disclosed its findings as the world marks Human Rights Day on December 10.

"Rural people are among the biggest victims of human rights abuses. Impoverished and marginalised by governments in favour of big business agenda, they are extremely exposed to atrocities by those who desire their farms, ancestral lands and other resources for profit-making," said PANAP executive director Sarojeni Rengam.