Guadalupe Carnay Community Faces Siege by Honduran Security Forces for Participation in Protests Defending Healthcare and Educaiton against the U.S.-backed Dictatorship

Condemnation and Solidarity in the face of Human Rights Violations

 

The Municipal Committee in Defense of the Common Public Good in Tocoa, given what has happened in the community of Guadalupe Carney, declares:

That today, June 1st, the community of Guadalupe Carney has suffered the gravest of abuses and violations of the rights granted by the constitution of the republic and international law, solely due to the struggle for the human right to healthcare and public education. It is under a siege that even includes helicopters flying over the community.

As a social movement we united with the public denunciation by many solidarity organizations in holding the security forces of the police and military responsible for having entered the community launching teargas on girls, boys, youth, women and elderly people.

We demand justice for 24 year old Jairo Leonel Hernández Ramirez, 19 year old Nerlin Ignacio Hernández Hernández, 58 year old Ezequiel Urrea and minors 15 year old Jorge Soto Portillo and 8 year old William Aron Ruiz Sánchez, all of whom are victims of the regime of Juan Orlando and the police and military forces assigned to the Aguan region.

We denounce the direct persecution by these repressive bodies of the State against peasant leader Adolfo Cruz who, along with his family and neighbors was victimized by teargas launched directly into his house as a clear message of intimidation and aggression, with his family placed at risk by the Honduran state.

We also denounce the attack on human rights defender Obed Ulloa, who had all of the equipment he need to carry out his work as a human rights defender taken by the police. According to the human rights defender about 9 people have been wounded by the police during the community's protests in defense of healthcare and education.

We remind the Honduran state that the community of Guadalupe Carney has been a beneficiary of collective protective measures since the year 2003 and that the public protest it has been engaged in along with the teachers and medical associations in the area is a constitutional right that all communities and people have when fundamental rights like the right to healthcare and education are under attack.

We encourage the rural communities, the teachers unions, the doctors and nurses, the students, the mothers and fathers, the communities fighting for water and the environment and to protect their territory and all social movement organizations to stay firm in the struggle. The truth and human rights are on the side of the people.

We alert the human rights defense organizations nationally and internationally to stay tuned to what is happening in this region of the country and especially to what is happening in the community of Guadalupe Carney.

Tocoa, Colón, June 1st, 2019

Tocoa Municipal Committee in Defense of the Public Common Good

Report from Emergency HR Delegation on Criminalization and Political Prisoners

March 26 - April 2, 2019La Voz de los de Abajo with Alliance for Global Justice and CODEPINK, all members of the Honduras Solidarity Network sent an emergency human right delegation to Honduras focused on following up on criminalization and violence since the November 2017 electoral fraud crisis began. 

We visited political prisoners, Edwin Espinal and Raúl Álvarez, indigenous and campesino communities criminalized and attacked for their struggle, human rights organizations, families and supporters of murdered and criminalized journalists. 

LINK TO REPORT IN ENGLISH- El informe en español estará publicado pronto.

Support for political prisoners  and against criminalization of
protest at a vigil in front of the US Embassy

Nacaome REDEHSUR human rights defenders with delegation after a vigil
for assassinated journalist Gabriel Hernandez

Two of the three political prisoners being held pre-trial in prisons
Edwin and Raúl 

Miriam Miranda and other OFRANEH leaders detained this morning in Saba, Colon

Miriam Miranda is one of the most well-known human rights defenders and organizers in Honduras. She is the leader of the Organización Fraterna Negra de Honduras (OFRANEH – the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras) and was a close friend and collaborator of assassinated indigenous leader Berta Cáceres. She has faced repeated death threats, criminalization, persecution, harassment and intimidation for her continued and fearless work in defense of the human rights of the Garífuna people. The Garífuna are descendants of marooned Africans and indigenous peoples and have resisted and resided on the Caribbean coast of Central America for close to 500 years. Their territory, culture and survival are under continued threat from national and transnational tourist corporations and developers who for years have been working to take over the entirety of the North coast of Honduras, the ancestral home of the Garífuna people. Under the present day illegitimate U.S.-backed regime of dictator Juan Orlando Hernández, whose brother is in a Miami prison facing charges as a top drug trafficker and whose 2017 election was denounced internationally as fraudulent and illegal, the threats and harassment against Miriam and other human rights defenders have intensified. We have translated the below statement from the Red Nacional de Defensoras de Derechos Humanos en Honduras (National Network of Women Defending Human Rights in Honduras) denouncing the arbitrary and illegal detention this morning, April 19^th, 2019 that was just the latest development in the ongoing persecution faced by Miriam and OFRANEH. We call on all people of conscience of the world to denounce this situation and continue to accompany Miriam, Aurelia, OFRANEH and the Honduran people in their struggle.

ALERT: HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS MIRIAM MIRANDA AND AURELIA ARZÚ ARE DETAINED ONCE AGAIN IN SABÁ, COLÓN, HONDURAS
[Denuncia original]

 

Today, April 19^th, at the Elixir community in Sabá, Colón, Honduras, the National Police and Military Police detained the vehicle in which human rights defenders Míriam Miranda and Aurelia Arzú were travelling as they were en route to attend to an emergency situation facing the Organización Fraterna Negra de Honduras (OFRANEH – the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras).

The police and military forces stopped their vehicle at 9am and held onto the personal documents of these human rights defenders and the OFRANEH team that was travelling with them.

Miriam and Aurelia state that they are still stopped after 45 minutes, waiting for contact with a prosecutor on call and they point out that no other vehicle travelling through the area has been stopped.

As the Red Nacional de Defensoras de Derechos Humanos en Honduras (National Network of Women Defending Human Rights in Honduras) we are worried about Miriam Miranda being repeatedly stopped despite having been granted protective measures from the Mecanismo Nacional de Protección (National Protection Mechanism).

We call on the National Protection Mechanism to implement the protective measures that were granted to these human rights defenders.

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UPDATE: Miriam Miranda and Aurelia Arzú were finally released after being held up over an hour. They call on the national and international community to denounce the continued harassment, threats and persecution that they have faced as defenders of the Garífuna people and human rights in Honduras.

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What can I do?

 One of the most effective ways that people in the United States can show solidarity and hold the Honduran regime accountable for these ongoing human rights abuses is to pressure for an end to U.S. economic support of the Honduran security forces who continue to kill, harass and detain Honduran human rights defenders with impunity. Please call and write your representative to ask that they sign on to the Berta Caceres bill for Human Rights in Honduras.

Roots of the Exodus: from the Honduran political crisis to the Refufee c...

"The struggle for justice for Berta Cáceres and the Lenca people isn't over" - Statement on today's conviction by COPINH, Berta's family, Gustavo Castro and the legal team

Statement by Berta's Family, COPINH, Gustavo Castro and the legal teams regarding the conviction of Sergio Rodríguez, Mariano Díaz, Douglas Bustillo, Elvin Heriberto Rápalo, Edilson Duarte, Oscar Haroldo Torres and Emerson Duarte

November 29, 2018

[Original en español]

The verdict that was just released DOES NOT satisfy our demands for justice as victims in the assassination of Berta Cáceres and the attempted assassination of Gustavo Castro.

The decision that has been made in the 1st District Sentencing Court condemning the group of hitmen and their intermediate structure related directly to the DESA corporation does not mean that justice has been obtained.

The structures and people who gave the money for these criminals to assassinate Berta Cáceres are still free and able to continue carrying out crimes like this one with impunity.

Since the beginning of this process - almost three years ago now - it has been clear that the assassination of Berta Cáceres was planned by the leadership of the DESA corporation and then  carried out by hitmen linked to the Honduran Armed Forces. Nonetheless, the full truth surrounding this crime and all of those responsible for it has been limited to those who were just condemned through intentional obfuscation by the Honduran state via its Attorney General and courts. They seek to deny access to the truth, which is part of true justice.

What has become even more clear during these legal proceedings, from which we have been expelled due to our refusal to be silent in the face of the daily abuses in the court room, is that the Atala Zablah family, who have an ownership stake in the DESA corporation, are behind the entire plot of persecution, intimidation, attacks and threats that led to the assassination of Berta Cáceres.

Our participation as victims is a fundamental part of the judicial process and the State, by systematically excluding us, perpetuates the impunity that inundates this country and causes so much harm.

During the trial we, along with international observers, diplomats and the press, bore witness to the telephone communications that show this participation. This also made it clear that the criminal acts committed by the DESA corporation under the leadership of this family go beyond the assassination and comprise a series of crimes carried out against Berta Cáceres, COPINH, the Lenca people and the public administration and state of Honduras.

We ask the state and its institutions, what interests are at stake that motivate you to behave in a way that protects the masterminds whose names are no secret? Why, despite clear evidence of their participation, have they still not been charged almost three years after this hideous crime? What are you waiting for to carry out your responsibility??

We demand that all of those responsible for the assassination of Berta Cáceres be brought to justice and not just those who were paid by DESA to carry our the crime.

The struggle for justice for Berta Cáceres and the Lenca people does not end with the chapter that closes today, the convictions of the lowest layer of the criminal structure, with which the Honduran state seeks to silence the demand for justice. On the contrary, we are deepening our efforts.

These convictions are the first step in the search for justice and the family, Gustavo Castro, COPINH and the legal teams have been accompanied by those who believe in Berta Cáceres, in her words and actions and we know that they will continue to make a principled stand on the side of truth and justice in the battles to come, which we will wage with complete determination.

The impunity that the masterminds of this crime continue to enjoy is part of the plot of corruption and violence that sustains the model of extraction that plunders our peoples. As victims, and other people, communities and organizations we commit to continue confronting it, like Berta Cáceres did, until dignity, truth and justice prevail in this case and in all of the struggles that are being waged right now throughout Honduras and the world.

We and the entire Honduran people are still owed a debt of justice!

Written in the city of Tegucigalpa on the 29th day of the month of November in the year 2018.