Geneva.
Honduras continues to face challenges related to fundamental freedoms, “including high levels of violence, impunity, discrimination and lack of access to economic, social and cultural rights, ”stressed today the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.
In her report on the situation in that and other countries to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the high commissioner also emphasized that the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact caused by the hurricanes Iota and Eta last year “they exacerbated the pre-existing obstacles facing the most vulnerable.”
Bachelet confirmed that during the state of emergency declared in Honduras as a result of the pandemic, 665 social protests were recorded, and expressed concern about the arbitrary detentions carried out therein, as well as the excessive use of force by security operations.
He also expressed concern about the “militarization of citizen security” during the pandemic, for which he called the Honduran Government to “a gradual process of demilitarization and strengthening of the civil institutions“in the field of safety.
The former Chilean president pointed out that the UN office she heads in 2020 observed how threats, prosecutions and even killings of human rights, environmental and land defenders continued in the Central American country.
He also expressed concern about “obstacles to access to justice in various legal processes,” including that related to the murder of Honduran indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, committed five years ago.
The high commissioner, on the other hand, regretted that the Honduran government has not yet initiated participatory consultations on the new one criminal law, and stressed that many Honduran returnees, after being part of the so-called “migrant caravans”, returned “without meeting the criteria of will, dignity and security”.