Today, 17.00 CET, MEPs Miguel Urbán(España) and Marisa Matias (Portugal) explain the nomination of  Berta Cáceres and the activists of Guapinol for  Sakharov Prize, with the participation of the Honduran NGOs  COPINH and COPA and Eu-Lat Network.

The debate, in Spanish, can be followed on our Facebook page

MEP Miguel Urbán (Anticapitalistas, Spain) said the nomination may bring attention to their cases, the imperative of fair treatment and the need for justice for the struggles they represent.

https://www.facebook.com/guengl/videos/2007879152675683/

Berta Cáceres was a courageous ecologist and human rights defender from the indigenous Lenka community in Honduras before she was assassinated in March 2016. Cáceres was co-founder of COPINH (Council of Indigenous People of Honduras). For over two decades she resisted land grabs, illegal logging and mega-projects such as the Agua Zarca hydro projects for which she was murdered.

The Guapinol environmental defenders, members of the Municipal Committee in Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa, have been in detention without charge for over a year and awaiting trial for protesting against the actions of a mining company that contaminated the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers. Their judicial process has been riddled with irregularities and there are concerns about their welfare.

The struggle of Berta Caceres and the Guapinol activists highlight the importance of indigenous activism to protect ancestral territories and communities from environmental degradation in a country that is under the indiscriminate control of private corporations, narcos, and oligarchs who made illegality legal. The nomination for the Sakharov Prize represents in itself a recognition for their struggle against repression, criminalisation, and threats against their environment, community, and lives.