Guapinol: Urgent Alert After Wave of Death Threats, Surveillance and Stigmatization Campaigns

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December 7, 2022

We alert about the monitoring and surveillance in vehicles without license plates by armed groups linked to the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares against recognized defenders of the Municipal Committee for the Defense of the Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) and the communities of Guapinol and Sector San Pedro who have been intercepted to threaten them with "eliminating one by one because they do not let us work peacefully"; at the same time expressing names with whom they were going to start.

The death threats are a result of legitimately defending our rivers and opposing the mining exploitation of the company Inversiones Los Pinares/Ecotek and are part of a systemic pattern of attacks against the CMDBCPT and community defenders.

In addition to the wave of threats in the communities affected by mining, there is a hate campaign on social media and, separately, a public communication by the Honduran Institute of Geology and Mines (INHGEOMIN) using dangerous and stigmatizing language against the CMDBCT to undermine its legitimate work in the defense and promotion of human rights, the rights to clean water and the right to a healthy environment.

We call on the government of President Xiomara Castro to guarantee the physical integrity and immediate solution to the petitions presented by the Municipal Committee in Defense of the Common and Public Goods of Tocoa to stop mining in the zone.

To the National and International Organizations we make an urgent call to accompany the CMBCPT and the human rights defenders of the communities of Guapinol and Sector San Pedro.

Tocoa, Colon, December 7, 2022