Lots of the males were in pre-trial detention since 2019, accused of deprivation of liberty and annoyed arson. Two of the 8 have been acquitted.
They’re all participants of the Municipal Committee for the Protection of Commonplace and Public Items, which has been protesting the legality of mining concessions in northern Honduras they argue threaten the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers. The concessions are inside of a countrywide park.
“We’re going to post a prison enchantment in conjunction with the protection that they be integrated within the amnesty licensed by way of congress,” mentioned Hugo Maldonado, president of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras. “The trial has been manipulated and there hasn’t been due procedure.”
Maldonado referred to a wide amnesty handed final week that some criticized for serving to other people from the management of Castro’s husband, former President Manuel Zelaya. It covers the ones focused “for opposing and protesting in opposition to the coup” that got rid of Zelaya from place of business in 2009.
It wasn’t straight away transparent the way it might be carried out to the environmental activists, however their legal professional Kenia Oliva advised native media that they might enchantment below the portion of the regulation that addresses “defenders of nationwide sovereignty.”
Prosecutors allege the activists broken non-public belongings and illegally held a safety skilled all the way through a conflict with the mine’s safety staff. However advocates have lengthy asserted that the arrests have been arbitrary and geared toward quelling protests in opposition to the mine.
“This verdict is outrageous and is going in opposition to Honduras’ responsibilities to ensure the best to protect human rights. It will have to be overturned straight away,” mentioned Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty Global. “We can no longer forestall hard this of the government till all the Guapinol defenders are straight away and unconditionally launched.”
The lads are scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 21.
Isabel Albaladejo Escribano, consultant of the United International locations Place of work of the Top Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras, expressed “deep fear” over the decision.
Her place of business mentioned they’d adopted the trial intently. There was once a loss of impartiality and prosecutors didn’t meet a minimal same old of evidence, the commentary mentioned. She referred to as for the convictions to be overturned.
Honduras is thought of as some of the international’s most threatening nations for environmental activists. One in every of its maximum notorious circumstances was once the 2016 homicide of Berta Cáceres, who was once protesting a hydroelectric mission.
