IRTF News

On March 22, Julio Toc Mucu was apprehended by police near his home and taken to the Penitentiary Center in Puerto Barrios, where he was beaten in custody. We understand that arrest warrants have also been issued against 12 more environmental defenders and journalists who protested the mine in October 2021 when state security forces violently attacked community residents with beatings and tear gas.

We reiterate our condemnation of acts of state violence against, and criminalization of,  Indigenous environmental rights defenders in El Estor. We strongly urge the government of Guatemala to: (1) drop all criminal charges against Julio Toc Mucu and the other environmental defenders, (2) suspend the company’s mining license and stop all further mining operations promptly, and (3) initiate a new, transparent and thorough and inclusive consultation process with impacted communities.

On March 15 in Tegucigalpa, lawyer and member of the LGBTQ+ organization SOMOS-CDC (Centro para el Desarollo y la Cooperación LGBTI) Roger Mariano Silva Carbajal was threatened by an armed man on a motorcycle who held a gun in his hand and stole his computer containing information pertaining to that group. This event occureed just one day before Roger Mariano Silva Carbajal was to serve as a panelist on the Inter-American human Rights Commission convocation to talk about the problematic situation of LGBTQ+ persons in Honduras. This is not the first time SOMOS-CDC has been the target of attacks, in spite of having requested the implementation of protective orders in August 2021 to protect the lives of LGBTQ+ human rights defenders.

We continue to be deeply concerned for leaders of the LGBTQ+ community. On March 17, Luis Carlos Bustamante Fernández, the current representative of the archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia to the Central Committee of Artists of the National Dance Council, was found dead at his workplace, his body showing signs of torture. He was an LGBTIQ+ activist on San Andrés Island, located 470 miles north of the Colombian mainland. Just three days prior, another musician, Fabián Pérez Hooker, was killed at his home, also on San Andrés Island.  Many musicians and other artists are involved in defense of environmental, cultural and social rights, and do work against violence and drugs. The killing of two artists on the same island in a matter of days is greatly troubling. Luis Carlos Bustamante Fernández became the 42nd human rights defender assassinated in 2022. There have been 1,328 social leaders killed since the signing of the Peace Accords in November 2016. 

We wrote to President Bukele of El Salvador to express our concerns over the weakening of democracy in El Salvador, especially in light of the recently imposed State of Exception. Measures implemented by the Bukele government over the past three years mark a move away from democracy and toward more authoritarianism: militarized repression, the state surveillance of journalists and dissidents, and political persecution. After a shocking total of 62 murders were recorded from different parts of the country on March 26, the population woke up the next day to learn that a State of Exception had been put into effect. Since then, police and army troops have been deployed in gang-controlled areas, resorting to unnecessary and excessive use of force. More than 5,747 people have been detained without a warrant, and there have been reports of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Security forces are combing through poor communities and neighborhoods, searching the pockets of students, and mass arresting real or suspected gang members. All the while, journalists are told they are prohibited from reporting. We join with human rights organizations within El Salvador and across the world in calling for an immediate end to the State of Exception, which is an instrument of repression and social control that dangerously limits constitutional rights.