IRTF News

continued unjust detention of Abelino Chub Caal, indigenous and environmental defender in Izabal Dept., where agricultural and extractive industry companies are in land disputes with local communities; still facing two of initial five criminal charges (cf letter Feb 24 2017)

shooting death of Carlos Maaz Coc and injuries to other Maya Q’eqchi’ people when riot police attacked their peaceful demonstration calling for government to resolve the contamination of Lake Izabal in El Estor, Izabal Department, polluted by nickel mining.

death threats against the children of COPINH (Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) leader Francisco Javier Sánchez and other general threats against indigenous Lenca people in Lempira Department where the DESA corporation wants to build the Agua Zarca hydro-electric dam

armed men threatened Aura Lolita Chávez and other indigenous women of CPK (K’iche Peoples Council) with sexual assault when the women tried to stop illegal logging on their ancestral lands in El Quiché Dept.

assassination in Atlántico Department of Bernardo Cuero Bravo, attorney for AFRODES, the National Association of Displaced Afro-descendants, a coalition of 96 internally displaced Afro-Colombian organizations

hundreds of people from Laguna Larga, El Petén Department, stranded at the Mexico-Guatemala border in temporary shelters after 1,000 Guatemalan security forces carried out a massive eviction because of a long-standing land dispute involving a national park and an oil driller

police repression and injuries to the mostly Afro-descendant residents of Buenaventura in Valle del Cauca Department during a general strike and other protests for health, education, water and sanitation

arrest, detention and travel ban of César Geovanni Bernardez, director of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), which is in a legal battle to secure Garífuna (Afro-Caribbean people) lands against challenges by tourism developers

surveillance, attacks, and death threats against environmental and indigenous rights defenders Rodrigo Flores Peñalosa and Lucila Bettina Cruz Velázquez of the Tehuantepec Indigenous Peoples’ Assembly in Defense of Land and Territory (APIIDTT) in Oaxaca

Raids by Gaitanista paramilitaries threaten the mostly indigenous and Afro-descendant communities of the Jiguamiandó River Basin collective territory in Chocó Dept., near Pueblo Nuevo Humanitarian Zone (an official demilitarized safety zone)