Rejection of the prosecution of Yunior Oyuela and other Honduran students

Friends of the Earth International rejects the prosecution of the students of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras -UNAH- that took place on Saturday, September 9, in Tegucigalpa, capital of this Meso American country. The students, among them Yunior Alexander Oyuela, (pictured above) collaborator of Movimiento Madre Tierra/Friends of the Earth Honduras, were detained on September 8 while exercising their legitimate right to peaceful protest at UNAH University.

As an environmental organization working for environmental, social and gender justice, we reject the prosecution of these Honduran social activists, we express our huge concern over the systematic attacks against the Honduran people through criminalization practices that violate the collective rights of the people and their human rights and reflect the building of a persecutory and punitive police-military policy.

The detention and prosecution of our colleague Yunior Alexander and the other UNAH students is yet another example of the irregularities perpetrated against the rights of the Honduran people. Irregularites which have, in recent years, turned Honduras into one of the most dangerous countries in the region for those who defend human rights, defend the territories, and in general terms, defend a dignified life for peasant, indigenous, Garifuna and urban communities.

The detention and prosecution of our comrades has been rejected by hundreds of popular movements and organizations around the world, who will, without question, follow this process closely. This process, through judicial oppression tactics, aims to silence the voices of young men and women who are demanding structural changes in Honduras and using their legitimate right to oppose the privatization of public education, yes another common good turned into a commodity by the precepts of neoliberalism imposed by Honduran public policy.

We urge the Honduran government to answer the international calls for justice in response to these irregularities and drop the unfair prosecution process against Yunior Alexander Oyuela and the other students.

We consider that the path towards the resolution of conflicts cannot be preempted by the permanent threat to freedom, as a way of intimidating voices democratically demanding a country built on the foundation of justice for its people.

We extend our call for international solidarity. Only through the continued monitoring of the current situation in Honduras and bringing visibility to the violation of the collective rights of the peoples and their human rights, will it be possible to put an end to the prevailing impunity and work together for the defence of life, freedom and dignity for the Honduran people, which is also the struggle for dignity for Latin American peoples and the world.