The environmental defense organization ARCAH (Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication of Honduras) has helped to shine the international spotlight on abuses occurring with the ZEDEs, or charter cities. In August, ARCAH filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming that the ZEDEs are responsible for threatening the environmental, territorial, and human rights of ancestral peoples in Honduras. ARCAH is a vocal opponent of the ZEDE Próspera, where construction of a luxury hotel is destroying the Bay Islands forest and coral reef. In Tegucigalpa, ARCAH has been fighting against the company El Cortijo because its poultry production is contaminating the Choluteca River.
We wrote to officials in Honduras on March 23 to express our concern for the safety of ARCAH member Misael Martínez, who, since 2020, has been enrolled in the National Protection Mechanism due to previous threats and harassment. Last month he was the victim of an attempted kidnapping. As he was walking through a neighborhood in Tegucigalpa to catch a bus, a man in an unknown car started following him, yelling at him and threatened to use force to make him get into his car. Misael Martínez tried to evade the man by going into several shops and exiting onto different streets, but the stranger was waiting for him and continued yelling angrily at him to get into the car. Fortunately, Misael Martínez was able to escape harm.