Rapid Response Network

assassinated: young, gay defender of environmental and human rights Erlin Asbiel Blandin Alvarez

The killing of 34-year-old Erlin Asbiel Blandin Alvarez is a significant loss to the rural community of Los Laureles in Danlí, El Paraíso Department. It highlights the dangers faced by those who stand up for human rights in Honduras. His commitment to his community and his work as a journalism student highlight the importance of protecting those who strive for transparency and justice.

Erlin Asbiel Blandín Álvarez was home for the weekend from Tegucigalpa, where he was enrolled in his final year as a journalism student at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). Openly gay and well-respected by his neighbors, he was committed to advocating for essential community resources, including management of a water project and bringing awareness to the trafficking of migrants through El Paraíso. So deep was his commitment that he was serving as president of the community board of Los Laureles.

On Sunday morning July 14, when he went outside his home to work on a shed that he was building, assailants arrived on motorcycles and in an ATV.  Neighbors and family heard the gunshots and cries for help. They arrived only to see the assassins flee at high speed in their vehicles. Erlin Asbiel Blandín Álvarez died moments later, with gunshot wounds to his chest and shoulder.

Erlin Asbiel Blandin Alvarez, ¡presente!

Living and working in a rural hamlet called La Gabarra, young community journalist Jorge Méndez, known as “Yeiko the leader,” had 650,000 followers on Facebook. Because his home region along the Venezuelan border had such a negative public image due to years of armed violence, Jorge started the page "La Gabarra con una imagen diferente," with content that was positive and favorable to the region.

In a country dangerous for social leaders and journalists, Jorge Méndez sadly became another victim. On the morning of June 27, Jorge was traveling along a road in a rural zone of Tibú, Norte de Santander Department. Local residents later found his car abandoned and alerted the police. They began a search and found his body with multiple bullet wounds and signs of torture.

After learning of his assassination, a social leader from La Gabarra commented: “He was a young dreamer, a young man who wanted to show a different image of La Gabarra, show its resilience, show the beautiful things, its people, its landscapes, its nature, he sought to remove that stigmatization of La Gabarra, which for many years [from] the outside looked like that image of violence that has plagued it for years…”

Jorge Méndez, ¡presente!

The pattern of persecution against anti-corruption defenders in Guatemala must end.

As head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), former public prosecutor Virginia Laparra had led investigations into corruption and large-scale crime. While leaving her office in Quetzaltenango on February 23, 2022, she was arrested, detained and arraigned on trumped up charges. She spent almost two years in pretrial detention. On July 8—without sufficient evidence or due process of law—Virginia Laparra was convicted of disclosure of confidential information and sentenced to five years (commutable at the rate of 5 quetzales per day) and a fine of 50,000 quetzales (approximately US$6,500). In addition, the conviction bars her from practicing law for five years and disqualifies her from holding public office for ten years.

Her conviction on July 8 is part of an ongoing pattern of criminalization of human rights defenders, journalists and others who have been fighting against corruption and impunity to make the mechanisms of justice possible. Because of the ongoing climate of persecution of anti-corruption law defenders, Virginia Laparra announced on July 18 that she would flee the country. Her exile means that she will join more than 50 other members of the judiciary, journalists, Indigenous leaders and others who have fled the country (2019-2023) after denouncing harassment against them by the Public Ministry.

Nolvia Alberta Obando Turcios,  a respected Christian pastor and leader of the Las Galileas Women’s Rural Movement in the La Bomba community of Jutiapa, Atlántida Department, is being falsely criminalized and persecuted through irregular judicial proceedings. 

Nolvia Obando is scheduled for trial on charges of land usurpation on August 12. She and 60 other members of the women’s farming cooperative were evicted from land disputed by a private landholder in March 2023. She spent five months in pretrial detention, released only after paying a $2,000 bail.  Both before and after her arrest, Nolvia Obando has suffered many human rights violations, including defamation and stigmatization from police authorities and news agencies who baselessly claim that Las Galileas is a criminal gang engaged in terrorist activities.

The criminalization of Noliva Obando is part of a larger attack of systemic criminalization against women’s rights workers and land defenders.  In its 2024 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Honduras, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warned: “The use of criminal offenses such as incitement to violence, usurpation, insults and slander are the most commonly used to criminalize human rights defenders, especially those who defend the environment, land and territory. ” The judicial process has violated Nolvia Obando’s procedural rights and has done harm to her personal, emotional, and mental integrity.

Her defense attorney is concerned that the proceedings have been prejudicial against Noliva Obando. IRTF is urging that authorities investigate the possible complicity of judges, magistrates, police, and the Public Prosecutor’s office with the private landholder of the disputed territory of Las Galileas.

Because of the violent history associated with large-scale mining operations in their communities, Tolupán Indigenous residents in Yoro Department are anxious and fearful because of renewed illegal mining in San Francisco de Locomapa. In recent years, many Tolupán defenders in Yoro have been harassed, threatened, criminalized and even killed. In January 2024, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expanded protective measures to include a total of 97 members of the Tolupán community in San Francisco de Locomapa. This underscores the severe risks they face. 

The main culprit had been the US-owned Lachansa mining company, which in theory has now left the area. They have a reputation of creating  armed groups to generate violence and intimidate residents opposed to his company’s mining operations. It is deeply concerning that despite legal actions filed against the owners of Lachansa and the company’s supposed exit from the community, illegal mining operations are recurring.  The more recent illegal mining of antimony is  spearheaded by people who have been linked to previous unlawful mining activities. The mining is occurring without the free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of the Tolupán community, violating their fundamental rights and sovereignty over their ancestral lands. The devastating environmental impacts of open-pit mining are of great concern to the Tolupán communities. 

Because of his bold leadership in protecting the Wayuu people, Javier Rojas Uriana has suffered many reprisals: assassination attempts, death threats, slander, and trumped-up legal charges. For more than a decade, Javier Rojas Uriana has denounced the humanitarian crisis facing the Wayúu people, the largest Indigenous community in Colombia. Where they live in La Guajira, the department with the highest prevalence of food insecurity, extreme climate phenomena have been causing droughts and heatwaves, affecting food staples such as rice and corn. Their economy—based on artisanal fishing, sheep and goat breeding, and handicraft production—has been disrupted. Child malnutrition is reaching alarming levels.

On July 2 while he was in Valledupar, the capital city of Cesar Department, Javier Rojas Uriana suffered an assassination attempt when assailants targeted him with an explosive device.  Fortunately, he was not injured in the vicious attack. We are urging that the National Protection Unit (UNP) review and reinforce its protection measures for Javier Rojas Uriana and his family, in strict accordance with their wishes.

For two decades, award-winning, anti-corruption journalist José Rubén Zamora has been subjected to threats, physical violence, and now false criminalization.

In June 2003, Zamora and his family were held hostage in their home in Guatemala City for hours by a group of assailants who beat Zamora's children and forced him to strip and kneel at gunpoint.  In August 2008, Zamora was kidnapped and beaten after a dinner with friends and was left unconscious and nearly naked in Chimaltenango, about 16 miles away. Due to the threats he faced as a journalist, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) ordered precautionary (protective) measures for him twenty years ago. 

In July 2022—five days after local media outlets published strong criticism of various officials of President Giammattei’s administration involved in corruption—Zamora was arrested on questionable charges of money laundering, blackmail, and influence peddling. The judge who ordered the imprisonment of Zamora two years ago said it was because of his work at the newspaper El Periódico, which specialized in anti-corruption reporting.

Finally, after nearly two years of detention (with reports of torture and solitary confinement), a judge ordered him to house arrest in May 2024. But prosecutors persisted, and on June 25 an appeals court granted their request to overturn the order. So Zamora remains in pretrial detention.

In May, the Gabo Foundation—whose governing council consists of respected journalists from Spain, the US, the Caribbean and Latin America—announced that Zamora would be presented the 2024 Recognition of Excellence for his tireless fight to “reveal corruption and human rights abuses” at their awards ceremony in Bogotá on July 5.

The people of Honduras are experiencing a nationwide pattern of increased violence towards campesino communities.

In June, 300 campesino families in the community of La Guacamaya, located south of El Progreso in Yoro Department, suffered physical violence and forced eviction at the hands of the Honduran National Police and the Commission of Agrarian Security and Access to Land (CSA). Ostensibly created to review the legal status of properties and to guarantee the security and food sovereignty of rural Hondurans, the CSA has instead violated the human rights of the very people it is supposed to protect. The eviction of La Guacamaya is one of at least 24 forced evictions carried out by the CSA since its creation in June 2023, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OACNUDH). 

Over a two-day period, the National Police, the Police Investigation Directorate (DPI) and the militarized “Cobras” Special Forces used heavy machinery owned by the sugar company AZUNOSA (Azucarera del Norte) to destroy the  campesinos’ modest houses (built with wood, sheets of zinc, and pieces of plastic), their few possessions, and food crops—ruining their livelihoods and forcing them to live without shelter and means of subsistence. During the violent eviction, the security forces assaulted some of the residents, including women, children and the elderly.  Police also used physical violence against journalists to prevent them from covering this incident.

We are deeply saddened to learn of the assassination Yoli María Toloza Cardoza, who served on the coordinating team of the Popular Women's Organization (OFP) in Puerto Wilches, Santander Department.  On June 27 at 11:00 a.m., two armed men traveling on a motorcycle entered her home in Puerto Wilches.  Without saying a word they shot her in the forehead.

The 52-year-old grew up there and became well-known and respected throughout Puerto Wilches and the Magdalena Medio region because of her ccommitment to advancing women's rights. Her home is located directly in front of the headquarters of the regional OFP chapter, where she also maintained a clothing workshop. The fact that Yoli María Toloza Cardoza was murdered in her own home so close to the OFP office underscores the danger faced by those advocating for justice and equality in the Magdalena Medio region.

OFP is a close partner of CPT(Community Peacemaker Teams) in Colombia’s Magdalena Medio region; CPT is a close partner of IRTF Cleveland. We extend our profound condolences to the members of OFP and CPT-Colombia.

We are deeply concerned for the safety of Indigenous elders who steward ancestral, regional, and social wisdom. On the morning of June 25, Nasa Indigenous ancestral scholar Luis Eduardo Vivas was shot five times at the Mosoco reservation (Resguardo Indígena Mosoco), north of the municipality of Páez, Cauca Department.  A note was found with his body that read "every witch is cleansed."

The assassination of Luis Eduardo Vivas puts the wisdom, worldview, spirituality and territoriality of Indigenous peoples at risk. Ancestral knowers (sabedores ancestrales) are the guardians of this ancestral knowledge; their persecution threatens the disappearance of practices and knowledge that have been transmitted from generation to generation. The targeting of violence against ancestral knowers generates a crisis in the knowledge of biodiversity and medicinal plants. There is a great need for cooperation among the State, Indigenous organizations, and civil society groups to ensure that the rights, customs, and critical knowledge of Indigenous peoples are protected and respected.