Honduras: News & Updates

The National Commission of Human Rights in Honduras recently reported that more than 60 human rights defenders, including environmental defenders, were killed under violent circumstances during 2020-2025. The majority of those crimes remain in impunity.

We wrote to the National Commissioner to express our dismay over the lack of justice in the case of environmental defender Juan Antonio López, who was assassinated while walking home from church on September 14, 2024 (cf our letter of 21 SEP 2024). Local bishops, the bishops conference of Latin America, and even the late Pope Francis publicly decried his assassination and called for justice.

As a leading member of the Guapinol Environmental Defense Committee (in Tocoa, Colón Department), Juan López worked tirelessly to protect the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers from the destructive impacts of the Los Pinares/Ecotek mining project in the Montaña de Botaderos “Carlos Escaleras” National Park. Despite a 2024 presidential decree (Decree 18/2024) designating the park as a protected zone, reports persist that the mining company continues to operate illegally in restricted areas, protected by armed groups and with impunity.

Since 2012, Honduras has recorded at least 149 murders of environmental activists, with one of the highest per capita rates in the world. The similarities between the López case and that of murdered Indigenous Lenca environmental defender Berta Cáceres (March 2, 2016) are striking and deeply troubling: obstruction of justice, denial of state responsibility, and failure to dismantle the networks of corruption and violence that enable these crimes.

On the same day of the forced disappearance of Max Castillo (cf our letter 15 APR 2025), the brother of the community council president of Punta Piedra (a Garífuna community along the Atlantic coast in Colón Department), another Garífuna community, El Triunfo de la Cruz (Atlántida Department) faced an incursion. On April 12, two buses carrying armed individuals—allegedly hired to “clear” land—arrived in the community. Fortunately, residents were successful in their resistance and turned them away. But then on April 14, community leaders of El Triunfo de la Cruz received voice messages containing direct threats—as did prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda. The threats came from an individual claiming to be a bodyguard for an investor tied to a tourism complex illegally situated within Garífuna territory—land that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled must be restored to the community.  

These attacks follow a well-documented pattern of repression that strategically coincides with Garífuna mobilizations and symbolic actions—such as the recent symbolic funeral for the CIANCSI (Intersectoral Commission for the Compliance with International Sentences), held to protest the State's failure to implement international rulings in their favor. The Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) has rightfully described this as a synchronized cycle of terror aimed at silencing community demands and halting the recovery of ancestral lands. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates.

The Garífuna, an Afro-Indigenous people with a profound historical and cultural presence in Honduras, continue to be targeted for defending their rights to territory, culture, and life. Despite legal victories, the Honduran government has failed to implement structural reforms or offer protection for these communities.

On April 10, the Garífuna community, which lives primarily along the Atlantic coast, led mobilization in the nation’s capial,  Tegucigalpa. They demanded that the Honduran government comply with binding rulings issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2015, 2023)  in favor of three Garífuna communities in Colón (Punta Piedra) and Atlántida (Triunfo de la Cruz, San Juan). 

Barely two days later, in the early morning hours of April 12, Max Gil Castillo Mejía, brother of the president of the community council of Punta Piedra was kidnapped from his home in San Pedro Sula (Cortés Department) by armed individuals who identified themselves as police officers. Just two days later, prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda and other members of the Garífuna community of El Triunfo de la Cruz received threats.

Silencing Indigenous and Afro-descendant voices through fear and violence is a violation not only of human dignity but of binding international commitments.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates. IRTF calls on the government of Honduras to implement the rulings of the Inter-American Court to ensure that justice, reparations, and peace are no longer deferred for the Garífuna people.

For many years, the Afro-Honduran and Garífuna residents of Diamond Rock (Bay Islands) have been victims of harassment, threats, and persecution, which has generated a climate of fear and uncertainty in the community. At the root of the controversy is ancestral land of the residents of Diamond Rock, which was legally granted to them in 1965. For the past twenty years, the powerful Cooper-McNab family has been illegally occupying land belonging to the McLaughlin family, in violation of their land and cultural rights. The McLaughlin family, with support from other residents of Diamond Rock, has repeatedly filed complaints against the Cooper-McNab family for the crime of land usurpation. This year, in an exercise of their right to self-determination, the McLaughlin family began the process of  reoccupying their ancestral territory. On January 5, they decided to lift the gates, remove the wooden fence, clear the entrance and recover their property.

On January 28, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a prosecutorial request seeking arrest warrants and judicial detention orders against 13 residents of Diamond Rock, including members of the McLaughlin family.  They are being accused of arson, robbery with violence, and property damage within the very ancestral land of the McLaughlin family. This misuse of the powers of the Public Prosecutor is an abuse of criminal law.