Honduras has struggled with a poor human rights record over the last decade, with the international community expressing concern about reports of torture, arbitrary killings, life-threatening prison conditions and warrantless home searches, among a long list of other things. A significant percentage of the people suffering human rights abuses are connected to the environment, either because they’re activists, conservationists or members of Indigenous communities speaking out against harm to local ecosystems. In a new human rights report on Honduras this month, the Organization of American States (OAS) detailed just how grave the situation has become for environmental defenders in the country, calling the situation “alarming.” While human rights violations also affect women, children, journalists, incarcerated people and members of the LGBTQ+ community, environmental defenders make up a disproportionately large portion of the victims. “It is of special concern to the OAS that violence against defenders, particularly the number of murders recorded in recent years, has been mainly directed against those who defend the environment, land and territory,” the report said. An Inter-American Commission on Human Rights panel on the violence in Bajo Aguán. Photo by Daniel Cima via Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) The statement carries extra weight given the OAS’ role as the leading governmental alliance promoting democracy, security and peace in the region. It said much of the violence can be traced back to long-standing agrarian conflicts tied to the growth of manufacturing, extractive industries and large-scale agriculture. The groups hit hardest by those conflicts tend to involve the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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