Honduran Indigenous leaders at risk of unfair imprisonment
Honduran Indigenous leaders at risk of unfair imprisonment
19 September 2013
Authorities in Honduras must drop spurious charges against three indigenous leaders who will receive a verdict in their trial tomorrow. There have been increasing attacks against human rights defenders in the country ahead of presidential elections in November, Amnesty International said.
“Defending human rights in Honduras has become a life-threatening activity with Indigenous leaders protecting their peoples’ rights, being particularly vulnerable to attack,” said Nancy Tapias Torrado, Researcher on Human Rights Defenders in the Americas at Amnesty International. She met with the three leaders in May.
Indigenous leaders Bertha Cáceres, Tomás Gómez and Aureliano Molina, have been charged with “usurpation, coercion and continued damages” for allegedly inciting others to commit these crimes. If they are imprisoned, Amnesty International will consider them prisoners of conscience.
The three defendants were at the forefront of a campaign regarding a hydroelectric project in Rio Blanco, north-west Honduras where the Lenca Indigenous community live. They want their human rights, including that to free, prior and informed consent over the development, to be respected.
More:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/honduras-indigenous-leaders-2013-09-19
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Defending Indigenous Lands in Honduras: A Photo Essay
Indigenous activists in Honduras risk their lives to protect their lands from predatory "development."
By Beverly Bell, September 19, 2013.
All photos appear courtesy of the author, as well as another collaborator who cannot be named for safety reasons.
For five months, Pedro Diaz and his daughter Iris—together with other members of the 400-family community of Rio Blanco, Honduras—have stood before this roadblock. The community in Rio Blanco, Honduras constructed it to defend their sacred Gualcarque River from Honduran and Chinese construction companies who want to build a dam on it. “The flag is mine,” Pedro said proudly. Pedro, Iris, and their neighbors are indigenous Lencas whose ancestral lands are supposed to be protected by national and international law. Like other indigenous peoples throughout Honduras, those in Rio Blanco defend their river and their land at the cost of their lives and liberty.
More:
http://fpif.org/defending-indigenous-lands-honduras-photo-essay/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=defending-indigenous-lands-honduras-photo-essay
I have to state I always regret having to post things I believe are sensitive regarding the abused people of the Americas at this forum, knowing entirely we have been infested with right-wingers who see honest people as unimportant, unwealthy working people who are their "inferiors" (as if that could ever be possible), their enemies, to be shoved around, persecuted, terrorized, even murdered. It kills me there is no place where right-wingers can't slime their way in, to occupy and degrade. It's disgusting discussing decent people knowing degenerates can also, in their idle, perverted curiosity, read right along with good people.
