Activists in Honduras have been targeted in a wave of surveillance, intimidation and violence since the country’s security forces cracked down on a wave of social unrest prompted by last month’s disputed presidential election.

Lawyers from the Movimiento Amplio (MA) – a collective representing communities opposing dams and mines in the north of the country – have received death threats, while the group’s founder has been followed and assaulted by armed men.

Martín Fernández, 42 – who is spearheading a legal battle against a hydroelectric dam – has been forced to flee his home, and is accompanied 24 hours a day by volunteers from the US group Witness for Peace.



Fernández and other activists have also accused the Honduran police and military – as well as armed civilians – of intimidating protesters who are still holding regular demonstrations over alleged fraud in the re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernández. A national strike was launched on Sunday ahead of Hernández’s inauguration this weekend.

Thousands of security forces, including military police and elite Cobra riot officers, have been deployed since the election in late November.

Since the vote, at least 35 people have been killed by security forces; 15 of the deaths occurred in the northern departments of Atlántida and Cortez.

Amid the crackdown, high-profile activists appear to have been singled out. According to the human rights group Cofadeh, reports have emerged of security forces entering communities with lists of people to detain.

In December, Fernández and his brother Víctor met with the commander of the fourth infantry battalion and intelligence chief at the military base in the department of Atlántida.



“The commanders said the protests had been infiltrated from day one, and the ringleaders identified,” Fernández told the Guardian.

Soon after the meeting, police and army sources warned Fernandez that protest leaders in the northern Atlántida province had been targeted for assassination.

The two brothers reported the alleged plot to the US embassy’s human rights attache in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

“We’re used to threats but this time we’re very worried. It’s clear there’s a well-resourced, well-coordinated operation to harass, repress and eliminate social leaders opposing the existing economic model. We went to the Americans because we’re clear about the fundamental role they play in Honduras,” Fernández said.

Days after the embassy meeting, the MA outreach worker Diego Aguilar, 24, was badly beaten and Tasered by security forces as they cleared a protest roadblock in the village of San Juan Pueblo.

Two weeks later, another protest leader, Wilmer Paredes, was shot dead by gunmen in unmarked SUVs as he rode his motorbike home from work.

The US embassy would not comment on the specific allegations but a spokesperson said: “There have been a number of serious allegations of possible human rights violations by the security forces in the post-electoral environment … We encourage the Honduran government to abide by its commitment to investigate [the] allegations.”

The National party government, in power since the 2009 military coup, has sanctioned dozens of environmentally destructive mega-projects in northern Honduras.



In recent months, attention has focused on the semi-rural community of Pajuiles, where local people are campaigning against the construction of a hydroelectric dam which they say has polluted water supplies.

In August 2017, Martín Fernández and Óscar Martínez, a local community leader, were assaulted by a group of men near the dam site. No arrests have been made in that case, but prosecutors have charged 14 community members with “usurpation” and coercion.

Charges against four were dismissed, but the case against the remaining 10 has been delayed for months after the assigned judge turned out to be the sister of the local mayor who approved the dam.

Víctor Hernández, who also represents the family of slain indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, said: “We are fighting against an economic model which kills our people not just with bullets but from hunger, by stealing our natural resources and selling our public services. Our work before and after the election fraud puts us in the first line of these grave threats.”

