PBI-Honduras accompanies COFADEH during the return of criminalized student Eduardo Urbina from exile in Costa Rica

Photo by COFADEH.

On April 4, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“PBI accompanied @cofadehonduras [the Committee of Relatives of Detained-Disappeared in Honduras] during the return of Eduardo Urbina, a student criminalized in the context of demonstrations due to the electoral situation in 2017. Eduardo had to abandon his studies and flee to Costa Rica, a country where he remained in the exile.”

On March 30, Defensoresenlinea.com reported: “The young man, upon his arrival in Tegucigalpa, was received by his family who were waiting for him at the headquarters of the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (Cofadeh), together with the general coordinator of the committee, Berta Oliva.”

In that article, Eduardo says: “Today I do not find words, I dreamed, I longed to be here and hug my family again. In the last two weeks I made two failed attempts to come from Costa Rica and each attempt was overwhelming, but I think there is a sample that when you work in a network, when you do things with love and are done thinking about the good of other people and justice and truth, things come out.”

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has also explained that Urbina was a member of the University Student Movement (MEU):

“Since July 2017, Mr. Urbina has been subjected to a stigmatization campaign through which he was accused of a series of acts of vandalism and terrorism.

He arrived in Costa Rica on December 11, 2017, before the Honduran authorities issued an arrest warrant against him for having allegedly participated in the burning of a military truck in Honduras, despite the fact that it occurred days after his arrival in Costa Rica.

The MEU has been strongly repressed by university and government authorities, who have resorted to the use of police force, elite bodies of the State security forces to repress demonstrations.

[Th government had also filed] criminal actions against the members of the MEU with the aim of dismantling and delegitimizing the movement and its activities in defense of the right to education and the peaceful exercise of protest.

In this context, within the framework of the conflict at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), there have already been three murders and at least 73 cases of criminalization through improper use of criminal law against members of the university movement.”

Photos by COFADEH.