Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2004 - Honduras

International Federation for Human Rights, Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2004 - Honduras, 14 April 2005, https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/ifhr/2005/en/46505 [accessed 13 September 2024]
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Death threats and new harassment against the CPTRT177

The Centre for the Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and their Relatives (Centro de Prevención, Tratamiento y Rehabilitación de las Víctimas de la Tortura y sus Familiares – CPTRT) and its staff still faced acts of harassment and serious threats. The Centre's director, Mr. Juan Almendares, was the victim of death threats.

In the night of 26-27 October 2004, the CPTRT new offices in Tegucigalpa, the capital, were searched, and those responsible stole money, destroyed office equipment, and searched through documents and archives. Furthermore, those who committed the crime wrote threats on the walls and, as a death threat against the director, arranged books in the form of a cross on the floor of his office. This most recent attack against the CPTRT is likely linked to the support that this organisation gave, during a recent campaign, in favour of an independent legal system before the Honduras department of security. Ten judges had written a letter saying they were feeling threatened for having defended legal independence in Honduras. In this letter, the judges expressed their concern about the human rights situation in the country, and particularly about the increase in the number of violent deaths, and they referred to the anti-democratic attitude of the State Secretary of the Public Security Office (Secretario de Estado de la Oficina Publica de la Seguridad), Mr. Oscar Arturo Alvarez Guerrero. The CPTRT had supported some lawyers who had been dismissed from their duties at the Public Ministry for having also expressed their concern about human rights violations and corruption in the country, particularly through a letter written to the President of the Republic of Honduras.

The CPTRT offices had already been searched on 12 May 2003. On this occasion, the attackers broke the office door and searched the computers for confidential information and archives. Following these events, the CPTRT decided to move into the offices that were searched in October 2004.

[Refworld note: This report as posted on the FIDH website (www.fidh.org) was in pdf format with country chapters run together by region. Footnote numbers have been retained here, so do not necessarily begin at 1.]

176. See Urgent Appeal HAI 001/0804/OBS 063.

177. See Annual Report 2003 and Urgent Appeal HND 001/0503/OBS 024.1.

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