On Saturday, 14th September, environmental defender and coordinator of the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Assets (CMDBCPT) Juan López was murdered as he was leaving his work as a community and religious leader in the parish of San Isidro Labrador in the municipality of Tocoa, department of Colón, northern Honduras. According to public reports, Juan López was shot by an unidentified person on a motorcycle. We demand the Honduran authorities to ensure a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into the killing of Juan López, as well as other killings and attacks against the defenders of the Guapinol river, to refrain from using the justice system to harass them and to ensure integral protection to Lopez’s family, CMDBCPT members, their legal team and witnesses.
What’s the problem?
The safety situation for environmental defenders of the Guapinol River in the district of Tocoa in the department of Colón in northern Honduras is extremely precarious. Juan López, another human rights defender and environmentalist from the Guapinol River in the municipality of Tocoa, was shot dead on 14 September 2024. On 7 January 2023, human rights defenders Aly Magdaleno Domínguez Ramos and Jairo Bonilla Ayala were killed in the municipality of Guapinol. The authorities have still not identified all those responsible for these two murders.
A few days after the killing of Juan López, a local court informed the Guapinol environmental defenders’ lawyers on 19 September that it had allowed the public prosecutor’s appeal against the final dismissal of the criminal proceedings against five Guapinol environmental defenders, including Juan López, from 2022. They could therefore be prosecuted again simply for peacefully questioning the legality of the mining project in the Carlos Escaleras National Park.
The inhabitants of Guapinol and other communities in Tocoa have been repeatedly attacked for peacefully challenging the legality of a mining project in the Carlos Escaleras National Park for years. These attacks have included the unlawful detention of eight environmental defenders of the Guapinol River, known as the ‘Guapinol Eight’.
What you can do to help?
Write an appeal in your own words or use the model letter, which can be found on Amnesty Internationals website (link below).
Link to action (english): Website of Amnesty International
Link to Urgent Action (german): German website of Amnesty International
Additional information
Several communities, campesino groups, parishes and local organizations in the municipality of Tocoa (department of Colón), North of Honduras, led by the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Assets (Comité Municipal por la Defensa de los Bienes Comunes y Públicos, CMDBCP) oppose the operating license issued to the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares in the Carlos Escalera National Park, formerly known as Montaña de
Botaderos, since 2015.
On 1 August 2018, local residents set up the “Guapinol camp” to peacefully protest against the license and mining exploitation in the core zone of a protected area of the water sources on which they depend for their survival. They have filled several criminal complaints before local Courts, still pending. Members of the CMDBCP have faced at least two criminal proceedings since 2018 for defending the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers of the impacts mining project. Aly and his brother Reynaldo Dominguez, as well as Juan López, Leonel George, Marco Tulio Ramos, Eugenio Esquivel and Adaly Cedillo spent some time in prison in 2019 along with other Guapinol River defenders for these proceedings.
The same proceedings led to the unjust detention of eight defenders of the Guapinol river for more than two years solely for peacefully defending the right to clean water that provoked international outcry. After rigorous analysis, Amnesty International determined that the case file shows multiple flaws in the investigation and declared them prisoners of conscience. Following a Supreme Court ruling citing violations of the right to due process, the eight defenders of the Guapinol river were released in February 2021. In a separate decision, in June 2022, this court annulled similarly unfounded criminal proceedings against Juan López, Leonel George, Reynaldo Domínguez, Marco Tulio Ramos y Adaly Cedillo. On 7 January 2023, Aly Magdaleno Domínguez Ramos and Jairo Bonilla Ayala were intercepted by armed assailants
as they were returning home on a moped, after coming home from work, shot and killed on the spot, according to their relatives. Aly is the brother of Reynaldo Domínguez. Both, as well as Juan López, Leonel George, Marco Tulio Ramos, Eugenio Esquivel and Adaly Cedillo are among the 32 people criminalized by the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares and the State of Honduras for defending the Carlos Escaleras National Park. Five months later, on 15
June 2023, Oquelí Domínguez, brother of defenders Aly and Reynaldo Domínguez was also killed in the community of Guapinol.
On 7 February 2023, lawyers of the Guapinol defenders were notified that the prosecutor’s office in Tocoa had appealed in December 2022 a favorable resolution of the Supreme Court of Justice that annulled unfounded criminal proceedings against five Guapinol defenders Juan López, Leonel George, Reynaldo Domínguez (brother of Aly Domínguez), Marco Tulio Ramos and Adaly Cedillo. A sixth defenders Eugenio Esquivel appears in the appeal although he is not part of the case in question denounced the Guapinol resistance.
Over the last five years Amnesty International has alerted on numerous death and other types of attacks against activists in Honduras, which is one of the deadliest countries in the world to be a human rights defender. Honduras still one of the deadliest countries in the world for land and environmental defenders. Despite the seriousness of the attacks on these defenders, Honduras has not yet signed the Escazú Agreement, the first environmental human rights treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean, which obliges signatory states to protect environmental defenders and entered into force on 22 April 2021.