[Peace-discuss] Honduran Human Rights Defender Acquitted

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

Honduran Human Rights Defender Acquitted

Description: Honduran women protest violence in the country earlier this
year. 

Honduran women protest violence in the country earlier this year. | Photo:
Reuters. 

Published 11 December 2014 (2 hours 35 minutes ago) 

Irma Lemus and other farmers were dropped of all charges after being
accussed of extortion and illegal land grabs. 

Human rights defender Irma Lemus from Bajo Aguan, Honduras was declared
innocent at a hearing on Wednesday. Judge Freddy Cenen Caballeron Nunez
dismissed the case against Lemus citing insufficient evidence. Honduran
social movements have denounced the case against Lemus and other farmers
accusing the government of criminalizing activists.

Lemus is leader and adviser for the Joint Forces Rural Workers Cooperative
and has worked with other organizations including the Committee of Relatives
of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH).

Lemus and other farmers were charged with usurpation of land, damages to
livestock and extortion. In November, Lemus said, "They should know that we
are entitled to these lands to survive, the state should provide us with
land where we can harvest our food, and the fact that I am an advocate of
human rights does not mean that I should not have my plot of land."

On Tuesday, more than 500 people participated in a march in Tocoa, Colon in
solidarity with Lemus and other farmers. Upon her acquittal, Lemus remarked
that she regrets how Honduran judicial and military authorities minimize the
work of human rights defenders, criminalizing and ridiculing their efforts.

>From 2008 to 2013 there have been 125 murders of farmers and six disappeared
due to the fight for land in Honduras.

 

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