Honduras' National Congress voted on Aug. 21 to approve a law creating the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP), a new 5,000-member police unit composed of army reservists under the control of the military. This will be in addition to a 4,500-member "community police" force that the government is forming, according to an Aug. 12 announcement by Security Minister Arturo Corrales. Although he called the move a "change of course," Corrales failed to explain the difference between the community police, which to be operative by September, and the existing national police force.

Some 30 inspectors from the Honduran Labor Ministry visited the Kyungshin-Lear Honduras Electrical Distribution Systems auto parts assembly plant in a suburb of the northern city of San Pedro Sula on Aug. 13 after local media reported that some employees had to wear diapers at work because of restrictions on their bathroom breaks. Workers for the company, an affiliate of the Michigan-based Lear Corporation and Korea's Kyungshin Corp, say there are many other labor violations, such as forcing pregnant women to stand while doing assembly work. According to an Aug. 12 press release from the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation, management has fired 26 workers so far this year for trying to form a union at the maquildora (assembly plant with tax exemptions producing for export).

Some 10 armed men identified as security guards from a mining project threatened and detained two foreign volunteers for the Honduras Accompaniment Project (PROAH) for more than two hours on July 25 in the Nueva Esperanza community in the northern Honduran department of Atlántida. Area communities have faced threats and harassment for at least a year while organizing in opposition to open-pit mining by Minerales Victoria, part of the Alutech metal company owned by Lenir Pérez. The two international volunteers, one French and one Swiss, went to Nueva Esperanza hoping that their presence would deter further aggression by the mining company. Less than 24 hours later security guards and a group of mineworkers threatened them and forced them to leave the community. 

Tomás García Domínguez, an indigenous leader, was shot dead on July 15 in Intibucá department in western Honduras during a demonstration at the headquarters for the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project. Four other protesters were wounded, including García's son, 17-year-old Allan García Domínguez, who was hospitalized in serious condition with a bullet in his lung. According to Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) leader Berta Cáceres, the demonstration was peaceful, but "without saying one word the army opened fire against our companions, sending bullets into the bodies of Tomás García and his son, in the presence of police that remained paralyzed and did nothing to prevent it." A press release from the two companies constructing the dam—the Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA) and the Chinese state enterprise SINOHYDRO—blamed the protesters and claimed the demonstration "included the destruction of installations, vehicles and personal property and direct aggression against the physical integrity of personnel."

A charred and dismembered body thought to be that of Honduran journalist Aníbal Barrow was found on July 9 in and around a lake in Villanueva, near San Pedro Sula in the northern department of Cortés. Barrow, the host of a popular morning talk show on the Globo TV channel and also a math professor at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, was kidnapped by armed men on June 24. Police said they had captured four men involved in the crime and were seeking six more; according to police, a "protected witness" led them to the body. National Police Chief Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares told reporters that no motive had been established for the killing. Barrow's death would bring the number of Honduran journalists killed since 2010 to 28, according to human rights groups. (Reuters, July 9, via Huffington Post; El Heraldo, Tegucigalpa, July 10; Upside Down World, July 14, from IPS)

Members of communities opposing open-pit mining in the northern Honduran department of Atlántida have received death threats because of their activitism, according to a June 7 communiqué issued by the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ) and the Atlántida Environmentalist Movement (MAA). The groups said police agents in the service of Lenir Pérez, owner of the Alutech metal company, assaulted members of the Nueva Esperanza community on June 3, intimidating them and making death threats. On June 6 the residents received additional death threats from a group of "heavily armed men" operating in the area with the support of the national police, the communiqué charged. The groups blamed Tela municipality mayor David Zaccaro, who "instead of supporting the communities has made common cause with the mine owners, especially Lenir Pérez…who is carrying out violence and provoking the communities."

After an eight-hour hearing on June 13, a court in Santa Bárbara, the capital of the western Honduran department of the same name, suspended a legal action against indigenous leader Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores for the alleged illegal possession of a weapon. According to Cáceres' lawyer, Marcelino Martínez, the court found that there was not enough evidence to proceed with the case. Cáceres, who coordinates the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), is now free to travel out of the country, although the case could still be reopened. Representatives from some 40 organizations came to the city on June 13 in an expression of solidarity with the activist.

More than 160 civil society organizations—claiming representation of hundreds of thousands of citizens in Mexico, Central America and the United States—sent an open letter to the OAS General Assembly meeting in the Guatemalan city of Antigua this week,  calling for alternatives to the so-called "war on drugs" that guarantee respect for human rights. "Our organizations have documented an alarming increase in violence and human rights violations," the letter states. "While we recognize that transnational crime and drug-trafficking play a role in this violence, we call on our governments to acknowledge that failed security policies that have militarized citizen security have only exacerbated the problem, and are directly contributing to increased human suffering in the region."