Honduras: News & Updates

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!

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. 

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.

In December 2023, the Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) called a popular assembly at which more than 2,000 local residents flatly rejected projects that are threatening the environment by three companies that have interlocking ownership: Emco Holdings (thermal electric generation), Inversiones Los Pinares (iron oxide mine), and Ecotek (pelletizing plant).  Six months later, the mayor of Tocoa in Colón Department collaborated with Ecotek to hold their own “cabildo abierto” (town hall meeting). The result? At a meeting without quorum or proper discussion—underming the democratic process and the will of local communities who have already demonstrated strong opposition to the project—the controversial energy plant was approved. 

The CMDBCPT contends that Mayor Adán Fúnez’s “open” meeting on June 13 was nothing more than a display of abuse of power and intimidation, reinforced by the presence of police and military forces in the community the night before.