Honduras: Xiomara Castro demands respect for the human rights of the Garífuna community violated by the Police

The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, demanded respect for the rights of a community of the Garífuna people that was evicted on November 7 by the National Police in the insular part of the Central American country.

“I have requested a report on the violent judicially ordered eviction. I was not informed prior to executing the eviction. The Garífunas demand justice for their ancestral lands. This must go to trial, not an eviction that criminalizes rights. I demand immediate freedom and respect for human rights,” The president exposed through the social network Twitter.

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Foreign Minister Enrique Reina also joined, who condemned the “violent judicial eviction” of the ancestral lands of the Garífuna community of Punta Gorda, in the department of Islas de la Bahía (an archipelago made up of six islands in the waters of the Caribbean Sea).

“We demand respect for international conventions, the human rights of indigenous, Garífuna and Afro-Honduran peoples, as well as the release of detained persons,” said the head of the Honduran diplomacy on Twitter.

Former President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), leader of the ruling party Libertad y Refundación (Libre, left) and adviser to the president, ratified Castro’s words by stating that “those lands belong to the black peoples (Garífunas), from Punta Gorda. They are ancestral rights and the Roatán judge should have initiated a process and not order an eviction, nor criminalize the Garífunas.”

The Secretary of State (ministry) in the Offices of Human Rights published a statement on the night of November 7 in which it urges the search for concerted solutions that do not criminalize or prosecute the actions of human rights defenders of the aforementioned community, as well as the immediate release of detained persons.

On November 7, the Honduran National Police violently evicted the oldest Garífuna community in the country, located since 1797 on the Caribbean island of Roatán (until now, the State and government of Honduras have not legally recognized their possession), denounced the leader of the ethnic group, Miriam Miranda, who affirmed that she was attacked by law enforcement agents.

The police operation arrested Melissa Martínez, coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras in the community of Punta Gorda, as well as Dorotea Arzú, Richard Armando Martínez, Abot Efrahin Sánchez, Keyden Tishany Gonzales and Augusto Moisés Dolmo, all defenders of common goods of the collective.

The Garifuna are a cross-border people inhabiting parts of Nicaragua, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.

They are descended from African and indigenous Arawak and Carib peoples who came into contact in colonial times in the Lesser Antilles, from where they were displaced by European settlers.

With information from Sputnik