At a glance
In Honduras torture is used as an ordinary tool of repression and social control by both public and private security forces. The situation has been made worse by the alarming security situation following the 2009 coup, and is now characterized by one of the highest homicide rates in the region and even the world. Widespread impunity hinders prospects for improvement, amidst a worrying trend of militarisation of the most basic functions of the State under policies of “zero tolerance” against mara gangs.
The OMCT has worked intensively with local organisations and coalitions, including our SOS-Torture Network members CPTRT and ACI Participa, Caritas San Pedro Sula, Coalición contra la Impunidad and many others, to bring Honduras into the spotlight of international attention, notably by ensuring regular engagement with the Committee Against Torture and other international bodies. Along with our partners, we monitor conditions of detention in heavily overcrowded
April 23, 2021
For more information, please see the preliminary reports of the Expert Observation Mission here.
After more than three years of delays in preliminary hearings, the trial against former military intelligence officer David Castillo for the murder of Berta Cáceres finally began in Honduras on Tuesday, April 6. The trial follows a 2018 trial which led to the conviction of seven men for the murder of the Lenca leader on March 2, 2016. Among those convicted were four hitmen, an employee and a former employee of the
Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA) hydroelectric company, and a Major active in the Honduran armed forces. At the time of the murder, Berta, and the Indigenous community of Rio Blanco, organized in the Civic Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) - an organization that Berta co-founded and led at the time of her murder - were fighting to reclaim their ancestral territorial rights and to stop DESA’s Agua Zarca project.
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The Observatory has been informed about the arbitrary detention of
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a long-standing human rights defender, former president of the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER)[1], doctor and columnist. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu served as a Member of Parliament from 2018 until March 2021, when his seat was revoked.
On April 2, 2021, Mr. Gergerlioğlu was detained to serve the two and a half years prison sentence that he received for allegedly making “terrorist propaganda” through a social media post in 2016 in which he advocated for peace by commenting a news story that reported a call by the PKK[2]
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