Persecution and resistance

PRIX RÉDUIT: Fr 3.- au lieu de Fr 8.-

The experience of human rights defenders in Guatemala and Honduras.

Amnesty International, 2007. 30 pages

Following the killing of a Honduran human rights lawyer on his way to a court hearing in December 2006, other laywers and human rights defenders from the same organization received text messages warning them they risked a similar fate if they continued their work. Several weeks later, an attack on two environmentalists in Guatemala forced them to flee the country in fear for their lives.

Despite positive advances in the development of international human rights standards, reports of killings, attacks, death threats, harassment and intimidation against human rights defenders in Central America continue. Those responsible for these attacks are rarely identified and brought to justice.

Focusing on individual cases in Honduras and Guatemala, this report reveals some of the obstacles, dangers and challenges facing human rights defenders working to defend and promote the economic, social and cultural rights of some of the most marginalized civil society groups. It also points to the failure of the governments in question to live up to their obligation to ensure that these activists can carry out their important work free from attacks, fear or reprisals.

Printed version of the AI report published in August 2007. See www.amnesty.org