UN Condemnes Assasination Of Honduran Environmental Defender

On Wednesday, Isabel Albaladejo, the representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Honduras, urged this country's authorities to investigate the death of Indigenous Tolupan leader Selvin Mejia who was shot to death and whose body was found in Morazan Municipality on Jan. 22.

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Since 2014, Mejia had been trying to recover Tolupan ancestral lands through the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ). Some days before his assassination, he organized actions to defend Indigenous rights over the land against forest lumbering plans.

According to the information released by OHCHR, Mejia's murder is the third against a human rights and environmental defender in Honduras so far in 2022. Other ten social leaders were violently assassinated in 2021.

One of the first reactions against this political assassination came from Olivia Zuniga, the daughter of environmentalist Bertha Caceres, who was also assassinated for defending indigenous territories in 2016. "Solidarity with the comrades of the Broad Movement. I join the cry for justice," she tweeted.