On November 10, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted: “Yesterday, PBI accompanied social, peasant and indigenous organizations in filing complaints with the #Public Ministry regarding the negligence and ineffectiveness of the National Protection Mechanism of the Honduran Human Rights Secretariat.”

“Specifically, they denounce an intervention strategy that includes the principles of voluntariness and secrecy of the processes.”

“We denounce the Protection Mechanism for exposing the integrity of the people who defend the #DDHH [human rights].”

Radio America reports:

“Social Organizations with precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) denounce officials of the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders before the Public Ministry.

The lawyer Víctor Fernández said that seven organizations are the complainants, this for the crimes of abuse of authority, crimes of violations of constitutional guarantees and violation of the duties of officials.

The officials who would be under a complaint is the current director of the National Protection System and another employee who has implemented operations that would put people under protection at risk, he said.

He recalled that the protection system was created to protect defenders at risk.

He explained that these officials would be developing a policy of intervention to the organizations, and this would put many defenders at risk, because they have tried to address the problem and situations without consultation, just as extractivist companies do, he criticized.

“We have met with the Human Rights Secretariat to remove these officials,” he revealed.

He regretted that many of the beneficiaries of the protection mechanism have not only been threatened, but also killed.”

Conexihon adds:

“Upon arriving at the facilities of the Public Ministry (MP), the organizations held a press conference and denounced through a press release, which they described as the “implementation of an intervention strategy by the National Mechanism to the groups of beneficiaries and beneficiaries, which includes the violation of the principles of voluntariness and secrecy of our processes, which consequently has placed us in a greater situation of risk and vulnerability since the information of our measures has been shared with the different actors that promote and execute the aggressions”.”

The statement from the seven organizations, including PBI-Honduras accompanied COPINH, making this complaint, can be read here.

Photo by Radio America.

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