On February 15, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “PBI accompanies COFADEH [the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras] in the exhumation of Pablo Isabel Hernández, indigenous leader, defender of human rights and social communicator assassinated on January 9 in the Department of Lempira. It is worrying that there is no open investigation to find those responsible for the crime.”

Last week, Defensores en linea reported: “A month after this vile murder, there is not even a line of investigation that leads to the whereabouts of those responsible for the crime against the indigenous defender and member of the Lempira network, accompanied and empowered by COFADEH.”

That article also noted: “[COFADEH coordinator Berta] Oliva announced that in this case an exhumation will be carried out in order to advance in the investigations and find the whereabouts of those responsible.”

Today, COFADEH posted on Facebook:

“On this day the Public Ministry (MP) is carrying out the exhumation of the body of the indigenous defender and social communicator Pablo Hernandez, murdered in San Marcos de Caiquín, last January 9, 2022.

In the general cemetery of the previously mentioned municipality such exhumation is being carried out, as part of the investigation that leads to giving indications of the people who committed this murder.

Human rights prosecutors of the Committee of the Family of Missing Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH), an organization that accompanies victims, both legally and emotionally, in the search for justice. Also, international human rights organizations such as Peace Brigades International (PBI).”

On January 10, the Associated Press reported: “A local leader of Honduras’ Indigenous Lenca group was shot to death Sunday, police said. Pablo Isabel Hernández was killed on a dirt road near the town of San Marcos de Caiquín as he headed to a local church with his father and brothers, police spokesman Cristian Manuel Nolasco said.”

That article adds: “Hernández served as director of a radio station known as ‘Radio Tenan, the Indigenous Voice of the Lencas.’ He was also active in Indigenous education and environmental projects.”

The International Federation of Journalists has also noted: “The 34-year-old director of Radio Tenan was assassinated in the Tierra Colorada community in the department of Lempira, after being shot while walking to church from his home and was found by his family.”

“In addition to being director of the popular communication project of Radio Tenan, Hernández Rivera was a leader of the Lenca indigenous community to which the radio belonged and from which he promoted the creation of the Indigenous and Peoples University. He was also a member of the network of Human Rights Defenders.

That post adds: “Radio Tenan is a critical medium that denounced acts of corruption of the municipal mayor Efraín Guadalupe Muñoz. Members of the media assure that during 2021, as a result of their critical position against the local government, they had been victims of threats, theft of computers and sabotage of transmission equipment, with the aim of preventing their investigative work.”

Photo of Pablo Isabel Hernández.

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