October 13, 2021
The undersigned civil society organizations denounce the Honduran State’s nomination for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. Honduras, one of the most dangerous places in the world for human rights defenders, has no legitimacy to implement a mandate to "Promote and protect human rights worldwide". Although the Honduran State is part of a "closed slate" candidacy, we urge voting States to leave the ballot blank when it comes to Honduras, a State manifestly unqualified for the seat, as a symbolic way of denouncing the State’s failure to respect the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights and to cooperate fully with the Council.
For years, Honduras has been plagued by assassinations, arbitrary detentions, threats and intimidations against those who courageously defend their rights. Faced with the serious human rights situation, the IACHR has presented three reports on the country in 2009, 2015 and 2019, in which it identifies the persistence of structural problems such as poverty, inequality, corruption and impunity that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable sectors of society, due to the existence of a "selective justice" that, on the one hand, acts belatedly in relation to human rights violations, but on the other hand, acts in favor of the interests of various actors linked to public, political and business power.
On the other hand, there has been little movement on the recommendations made by the former Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Michel Forst, after his visit to Honduras in 2019, and the situation of vulnerability and risk faced by defenders has not diminished. On the contrary, regressive laws, including profound changes to the penal code, have served to deepen the situation of risk faced by defenders, their communities and their families.
Ahead of the Human Rights Council elections on October 14, Amnesty International and the International Service for Human Rights held an engagement event for candidate states on September 8, 2021. During the event, we were surprised that Honduras pledged to cooperate with civil society and States from all regions, when just this year, far from respecting the will and spirit of the UN to protect and promote human rights, Honduras failed to comply with Resolution Opinion No. 85/2020 of the Working Group on Human Rights. 85/2020 of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, concerning José Daniel Márquez Márquez, Kelvin Alejandro Romero Martínez, José Abelino Cedillo, Porfirio Sorto Cedillo, Orbín Nahúm Hernández, Arnold Javier Alemán, Ewer Alexander Cedillo Cruz and Jeremías Martínez Díaz (Honduras), known as the Guapinol defenders, which urged the State to immediately release the eight water defenders who have been arbitrarily detained for more than 25 months. The Honduran State not only failed to implement the resolution but has since prolonged without cause the arbitrary detention of the defenders who were fighting to defend their community’s drinking water from mining projects in Carlos Escaleras National Park.
This October 14, UN member states should not promote Honduras, but take action to stop the State from acting against its own people and their rights.