2019 Request for IACHR precautionary measures on behalf of Guapinol human rights activists

Lawyers representing the environmental activists of Municipal Committee in Defence of Common and Public Goods (CMDBCP) in detention or threatened with arrest requested the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to issue precautionary measures obliging the Honduran government to protect the Guapinol defenders at risk and respect their right to promote the protection of human rights. At the time of writing (April 2021), the IACHR has not issued precautionary measures. However, the IACHR previously issued precautionary measures on behalf of campesino activists under threat in the Bajo Aguán, where Tocoa is located, in 2014 and extended them in 2016 to additional beneficiaries. These grassroots peasant organizations had been subject to scores of attacks, killings and disappearances as a result of conflicts over land and natural resources since the 1990s (Kerssen 2013; OPDAH 2014). The 2016 precautionary measures identified members of the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán (MUCA) as at risk. This included a former president of MUCA who received State police protection as a result of the IACHR measures. He was subsequently arrested in connection with the Guapinol case and at the date of writing (November 2021) remains imprisoned (See the Legal action entitled “2018- Criminalisation and detention of CMDBCP environmental rights defenders”).