Photo: Water defender Óscar Oquelí Domínguez Ramos was murdered on June 15, 2023.
Published by Brent Patterson on
On June 15, PBI-Honduras tweeted:
“ALERT: PBI Honduras is concerned about the murder of Oqueli Domínguez, brother of the renowned #Guapinol river defender Reynaldo Domínguez. We show solidarity with the family for this painful event.”
The Spanish news agency EFE reports: “The Municipal Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa [CMDBCPT], in the Caribbean of Honduras, denounced on Thursday [June 15] the shooting death [in Guapinol, Colón] of water defender Oquelí Domínguez, brother of environmentalist Aly Domínguez, murdered last January [in Tocoa, Colón].”
Oquelí and Aly were the brothers of Reynaldo Domínguez, another water defender who has been persecuted for his opposition to the Inversiones Los Pinares open-pit iron oxide mine in the Montaña de Botaderos Carlos Escaleras Mejía National Park.
Their mother was also injured in the armed attack on June 15.
The following day, June 16, this statement released by the Association for International Cooperation (Espacio ACI), made up of 34 international NGOs, including PBI-Honduras, condemned the murder of Oquelí.
Tweet: We share the statement of the 34 international organizations of Espacio ACI (PBI participates as an observer organization) following the murder of Oquelí Domínguez of #Guapinol.
The statement says: “The ACI Space expresses its solidarity with the Domínguez family and expresses its deepest condolences… [It also] expresses its strong condemnation of this new assassination that demonstrates the insufficient measures of the Honduran State to guarantee the life and integrity of the of Honduras to guarantee the life and physical integrity of environmental defenders.”
The statement also calls “upon the international community, within the framework of their guidelines for the protection of human rights defenders and other international commitments, to contribute to the international commitments, contribute to the visibility and promote the recognition of the human rights work of the CMDBCPT, the human rights of the CMDBCPT and the communities mentioned here, by carrying out visits, and follow up on the implementation of the necessary protection measures to ensure that these serious events do not that these serious events do not happen again.”
Further reading: Environmental activist shot to death in Honduras 6 months after activist brother slain (Associated Press, June 16, 2023), Oqueli Domínguez murdered in Guapinol (Statement by the CMDBCPT, June 15, 2023) and Presentation to Sustainability and Environment in the Global South, Carleton University (PBI-Canada, February 9, 2022).
