The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has posted on social media:
“’We had a table full of applications for a declaration of unconstitutionality, waiting for someone to come forward. But they wouldn’t let us demonstrate; peaceful protest is not permitted. It was a completely violent reaction to the peaceful action we were carrying out,’ explain the organizations @cntctegucigalpa [the National Union of Rural Workers], Plataforma Agraria [the Agrarian Platform] and Ofraneh [the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras], based at the Garífuna People’s ‘Camp for Life’, located opposite the Supreme Court of Justice in Tegucigalpa, following the police action to disperse the protest outside the National Agrarian Institute on 24 August.
On Monday 23 August, PBI was accompanying peasant, indigenous and Garífuna organizations as they submitted a petition challenging the constitutionality of the Law for the Strengthening and Protection of the Agro-industrial Sector (Decree 107-2026), signed by 25 organizations, cooperatives and peasant groups from different regions of the country, who stated that the decree contravenes the Agrarian Reform.
On 24 August, PBI was present during the organizations’ peaceful demonstration outside the INA [National Agricultural Institute] premises and witnessed the excessive use of force by the police to disperse the protest, using tear gas and a water cannon, without taking into account the presence of elderly people and those with health conditions.
We at PBI wish to express our concern regarding the infringement of the right to protest and the shrinking of civic space, as well as the arrest of one of the people taking part in the protest in defence of the right to land and territory.”
News coverage
El Heraldo reports: “A group of peasants who came to protest in front of the facilities of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) were evicted by riot police of the National Police, who used tear gas and a water tank. …Since the Law for the Strengthening and Protection of the Agro-industrial Sector, Energy, Tourism, Livestock and Small Agricultural Producers Projects was approved in June, there has been rejection by peasant sectors, denouncing greater repression in evictions.”
HCH Televisión adds: “The peasants had come to the place to demand answers to their claims related to the defense and respect of their lands, in addition to requesting the departure of the INA minister, Javier Talavera.”
We continue to follow this.
