COPINH
Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Indígenas Populares – COPINH (Civic Council of Popular Indigenous Organisations) is an organisation that works for the recognition of the political, social, cultural, and economic rights of indigenous communities in Honduras and to protect their territory. It was established in March 1993, in the department of Intibucá, south-west Honduras. COPINH members have been campaigning for their right to free, prior and informed consent in relation to mega-projects that would threaten their territory and force them out of their ancestral lands. Because of their work, COPINH members have been targeted with threats and harassment. Several human rights defenders - including Berta Caceres, Tomas García and Nelson García - have been killed.
Human rights defenders suffer extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment as well as judicial harassment, threats and stigmatisation. Journalists, lawyers, prosecutors, those defending the rights of women, children, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, indigenous and Afro-Honduran communities, and those working on environmental and land rights issues are particularly at risk.
