Given Honduras’ human rights situation, CRLN will provide for its members a monthly update on human right issues afflicting the country.

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• The Honduran authorities arrested another suspect of the assassination of Berta Caceres, Henry Javier Hernandez Rodriguez, a former member of the Honduran military, in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Berta’s family demands the arrests of those that planned the murder. However, the Honduran authorities don’t seem to be making any effort to prosecute the real intellectual authors of Berta’s assassination.
• Gustavo Castro, who survived an assassination attempt when Berta Caceres was murdered, filed a formal accusation against the Honduran State for human rights violations. 
• Global Witness released a report that denounces, after a two-year investigation, that 120 environmental activists have died since 2010 in Honduras and that at the heart of the conflict are the rich and powerful elites, among them members of the political class. The Guardian analyzed the Global Witness report, focusing on the involvement of politicians and the business elite in the murder of the environmental defenders. Global Witness also denounces that the U.S. continues to provide security aid to Honduras despite the continuous human right violations by the state. Just this week, the U.S. gave the first Alliance for Prosperity funds ($125 million) to the Honduran government.
• President Juan Orlando Hernandez is seeking a reform to the Penal Code and introduction of new legislation which would provide more power to the security forces of the country. Also, with this legislation, police, military and security forces who kill or injure civilians in “defense” would be exempt from justice. CARITAS Honduras said this legislation would bring the country back to the 80’s when the opposition and media were persecuted and practices of forced disappearances occurred regularly. Amnesty International, among other international and national organizations, is critical of this reform of the Penal Code.
• Miriam Miranda and other members of the Afro-Honduran Garifuna cultural group OFRANEH were harassed and threatened by the Honduran Police in early January. The police wanted to illegally detain Miranda and three other human right defenders, during a checkpoint in La Ceiba. Miriam has protective measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH).
• Journalist Igor Padilla, was assassinated in the Northern part of Honduras. Honduras is one of the most dangerous and deadliest countries in the world to be a journalist. Padilla became the 63rd media worker to be killed since 2003. 50 of the 63 murders took place since 2009 and 24 alone in 2014 and 2015.
• OFRANEH is fighting against Indura Hilton, which wants to build resorts on their ancestral lands in Northern Honduras, and denounces the role of the Attorney’s General Office in granting access to that land to Indura Hilton
• Honduras celebrated National Women’s day this past January 25^th, and local women right’s defenders and organizations protested the continuous violence and discrimination against women in the country.
• President Hernandez is actively seeking an illegal re-election, prohibited by the Honduran Constitution, and is harassing the opposition. In the previous election, the National Party stole funds from the Social Security system, leaving sick and economically poor people without medicine and treatments, in order to finance his political campaign.

Honduras is the most dangerous country in the world in which to be an environmental activist and one of the most dangerous to be a journalist, union member, or member of a social movement opposed to the current Honduran administration’s policies. Members of the military and police have been implicated in violence against, including assassinations, of members of these groups. 97% of crimes committed in Honduras are left unsolved, with no consequences for the perpetrators.

In this context, we thank you for your signatures supporting the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act (H.R. 5474). They helped CRLN convince 7 out of 10 Democratic Illinois U.S. Representatives to co-sponsor this important legislation introduced by Rep. Hank Johnson. By the end of 2016, the bill, which would suspend U.S. security aid to Honduras pending compliance with international human rights standards, garnered a total of 52 co-sponsors nationwide.

Because the 114th Congressional session ended January 3 and any legislation that did not come to the House and Senate for a vote ended with it, H.R. 5474 will need to be reintroduced in the 115th Congressional session that runs from now through the end of 2018. Rep. Hank Johnson plans to reintroduce this bill.

As soon as that happens, CRLN will contact U.S. Representatives from Illinois to ask those who signed on (Schakowsky, Gutierrez, Davis, Rush, Quigley, Lipinski) to do so again. We will contact those of you in their districts to contact them, identify yourselves as CRLN members, thank them for their co-sponsorship last year, and ask support them to sign on again.

For those of you in districts whose Representatives did not co-sponsor, we will construct new arguments for why they should co-sponsor and will contact you at the appropriate time for signatures again to show support in your district for this bill. In addition, we have a fresh opportunity to speak with Representatives elected in November (Brad Schneider in the10th District, who replaces Bob Dold; and Raja Krishnamoorthi, who replaces Tammy Duckworth—now one of Illinois’ U.S. Senators—in the 8th District).

It is vitally important to people whose lives are under threat in Honduras that the U.S. stop providing weapons and training to the forces under the authority of the current Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernandez, whose party illegally used and deprived the public of funds designated for the health care system to support his last election and who has just orchestrated a change to the constitution to allow himself to run again for President in 2017. Under his administration, military and police forces have been unleashed to do violene against those who oppose the corruption and anti-democratic maneuvers of many of those currently in power.

If you would like to take part in a delegation to Honduras to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Berta Caceres’ death and visit other groups struggling to defend their land and human rights, click here for more information.

On Friday morning, December 16^th, CRLN, La Voz de Los de Abajo, and several other Chicago partners delivered over 200 holiday post cards signed by Illinois residents to Senator Durbin’s Federal Plaza office urging him to place an immediate hold on all military and police aid to Honduras pending compliance with international human rights standards.

CRLN members and many friends stepped up to sign letters to Senator Durbin, a high ranking Senate Appropriator and the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Defense, who has the power to suspend security aid to Honduras given the grave and consistent state-sponsored human rights violations in that country. Our folks met briefly with Senator Durbin’s staff who expressed concern with the situation and who ensured us that they would give the Senator our message. At this time, they were unable to give us a definitive answer about withholding security aid. We will continue pressuring Senator Durbin into 2017 and we expect to work hard to win support from Senator-elect Duckworth as well.

The 200 signatures delivered to Durbin also appeared on letters to Illinois members of the House urging that they support H.R.5474, the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, a bill that would also suspend U.S. security aid to Honduras. At this time, seven out of ten Democrats in the Illinois delegation have decided to cosponsor the legislation, a major win that would not have been possible without grassroots pressure from those who signed.

Berta Cáceres, co-founder of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), was assassinated on March 2^nd, 2016 and in the nine months that have passed since her murder, her case files have been stolen and her family has been kept in the dark about the judicial process. In July, COPINH member Nelson Garcia was murdered and Tomás Gomez Membreño, COPINH’s current General Coordinator who visited the Senator’s office asking that he withhold security aid in June 2016, recently survived an assassination attempt.

In October, Jose Angel Flores, President of the campesino organization MUCA (Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan) and Silmer Dionosio George, another MUCA leader, were killed by gunmen as they left a meeting of MUCA members. More activists and human rights defenders were illegally detained and threatened by Honduran security forces while peacefully protesting highway privatization. The latest report on Human Rights in Honduras from the Association of Citizen Participation reported that in 2016 there were 32 assassinations of human rights defenders, environmental activists, and Indigenous and rural farmer defenders.

Despite these ongoing attacks, credible accusations of Honduran state complicity, and an ongoing 95% impunity rate, the U.S. has sent over $200 million in police and military aid since the 2009 coup and, last month, the State Department certified—with little to no evidence—the Honduran government for having met human rights conditions, thus releasing $55,000,000 in security aid.

In response, roughly 200 Illinois residents were represented in the December 16^th holiday post card delivery urging the Senator to use his, “power to suspend security aid to Honduras until their police and military demonstrate compliance with international human rights standards. Our tax dollars can no longer provide Honduran security forces with both the material resources and international legitimacy to commit human rights violations with impunity.”

While the 114th Session of Congress has adjourned for 2016, we will continue supporting our partners in Honduras and pressuring Senator Durbin and all of our elected officials to suspend U.S. security aid and to respond to the ongoing assassinations of and violence against human rights defenders in Honduras.