PBI-Honduras marks June 28, Pride Day and the 15th anniversary of the coup and the murder of trans rights defender Vicky Hernandez

PBI-Honduras has posted:
“Today [June 28], we celebrate International LGTBI+ Pride Day and commemorate the 2009 coup d’état. We also commemorate the life of trans advocate Vicky Hernandez: she was assassinated exactly 15 years ago, on the same day of the coup.
Since the coup, LGTBI+ organizations have registered a worrying increase in the murders of LGTBI+ people in Honduras. From PBI, we will continue to accompany the tireless work of these organizations to demand justice and the fulfillment of reparation measures for Vicky Hernandez and so many other LGTBI+ people who are no longer here.”
Pride Day takes place on June 28 to commemorate the Stonewall uprising that began in Greenwich Village, New York City on that day in 1969 following an early morning raid of the Stonewall Inn by the police. It is considered to mark the beginning of the gay liberation movement in the United States.
June 28 also marks the day of the US-backed coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya in 2009. Twenty-six year old trans rights defender Vicky Hernandez was killed on the first night of the coup. She was shot in the head while a curfew was in effect when only soldiers and the police would have been on the streets.
Almost twelve years later, on June 26, 2021, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the state of Honduras had violated Hernandez’s right to life and personal integrity and that it was both ultimately responsible for her state-sanctioned murder and for the failure to adequately investigate her death.
London-based LGBT campaigner Peter Tatchell says on average two LGBT people were murdered each year in Honduras from 1994 to 2008. After the 2009 coup, that rate rocketed to an average 31 murders per year. More specifically, 118 trans persons were murdered in Honduras between 2008 and November 2023.
Corporate connections
In Canada, concerns continue to be raised about the corporate sponsorship of Pride Day, notably in the context of the genocide against the Palestinian people.
The Breach has reported: “In Toronto, the No Pride in Policing Coalition has zoned in on the festival’s key sponsor, TD Bank, and its $16-million investment in General Dynamics, an aerospace and weapons company that makes arms for Israel. …Mainstream Pride events across Canada are frequently sponsored by TD and other financial institutions like Scotiabank—which has a $500 million stake in Israel’s biggest military and arms company, Elbit Systems Ltd., making it the company’s largest non-Israeli shareholder.”
Mining
Notably, MiningWatch Canada has highlighted: “By May 2009, a new draft mining bill was complete. It would have imposed tax increases in the mining sector, prohibited open-pit mining and the use of toxic substances such as cyanide and mercury, and required prior community approval before mining concessions could be granted. Debate within congress was scheduled to begin August 16, 2009. On June 28, 2009, President Zelaya was ousted in a military-backed coup. The debate never happened.”
The Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs has noted the presence of Canadian companies “has grown even stronger after Honduras’ controversial 2009 coup. Three consecutive post-coup administrations have increasingly favored the mining industry in the country by pushing legislation that has done little to regulate mining activities and assure the protection of the environment and the indigenous communities affected by the extraction of minerals in their lands.”
Further research would be needed to draw any links between the Canadian mining companies that have benefited from post-coup mining legislation in Honduras and Pride sponsors in Canada such as TD Bank and Scotiabank that finance mining companies.
Accompaniment
The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied Arcoíris, the LGTB Association of Honduras, since July 2015, and the Centre for LGTBI Development and Cooperation (Somos-CDC) since January 2022.
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