50+ Organizations Sign Open Letter to Support Criminalized Defenders

Defenders pictured: Javier López Miranda, Antonio Hernández Pesquera, Higinio Caballero, Gerardo García Peréz, Efrain Pesquera Vásquez and Javier Madrid Rodríguez.

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Over 50+ organizations representing 7+ countries and regions have signed on a public letter to Honduran authorities in support of Indigenous Maya Chortí defenders who are being criminalized for their struggle against the destruction of Cerro Los Hornillos by a U.S.-based gold mining company, Aura Minerals.

The letter is directed at high-ranking officials in the Supreme Court of Honduras, Public Prosecutor’s Office, Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources, Institute of Geology and Mines, Institute of Forest Conversation, and Human Rights Secretariat.

The mining company with state complicity has already destroyed the community’s cemetery, now it wants to destroy Los Hornillos Mountain.