Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

Nineteen non-governmental development organizations (NGDOs) have joined to form the new Taula Catalana pels Drets Humans i la Pau a l’Amèrica Central (Catalana Coordinating Group for Human Rights and Peace in Central America). This platform aims to strengthen dialogue and Catalonia’s response to the violence and human rights crises in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

According to the new coordinating group, “the context of repression, persecution and political violence in the region compels us to come together to draw international attention to the situation and strengthen the many links of solidarity that already exist.”

The new platform has ICIP’s support through the “Violence in non-war settings” work area, which aims to provide tools for analysis and action in situations of direct, structural and cultural violence such as those experienced in Central America.

The Taula Catalana Coordinating Group, which is being formally constituted, will be formally launched in Barcelona on 18-19 June with the celebration of the conference “Human Rights and Peace in Central America: Challenges and Opportunities.”  This conference, jointly organized with ICIP, will take place at the Barcelona History Museum and will feature the participation of sixteen advocates for human rights and the environment from Central America with renowned academic, political, journalistic, community or social backgrounds.

Social society initiatives

Some of the topics to be addressed during the conference are the co-optation of the state by criminal networks, the unbridled exploitation of territories, social remilitarization, polarization and hate speech (LGBTIQ-phobic, sexist, racist…) as part of the infringements experienced by the population, condemned to inhuman migratory routes also as a consequence of the migratory policies of the global North.

Featured speakers who will be in Barcelona for this event include Dora María Téllez, opponent of the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua; Morena Herrera, Simone Weil 2023 award winner for her defence of women’s reproductive rights in El Salvador; Yéssica Trinidad, coordinator of the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders of Honduras and an advocate for the rights of Afro-Indigenous communities; and the Guatemalan journalist Rolanda García, attacked and detained in 2018 when she was reporting on the illegal logging of trees on the banks of the Cahabón River (Alta Verapaz) by workers of the Oxec hydroelectric company.

This link provides all the information about the conference and the program of activities. Registration is free.