Killed by cancer, and by the indifference, power and wealth of a faraway Canadian mining company, its investors and government supporters

Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries to defend human rights, land and the environment, ever since the 2009 U.S. and Canadian-backed coup brought to power a repressive, pro-business regime, still in power due to systemic repression and electoral fraud, links to international businesses and organized crime, and to corruption and impunity.

Honduran migrants are caught between economic despair and militarized crackdowns
By Sandra Cuffe, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 3, 2020

“Mr. Wanless, I do not need to hear from you”, said Judge Fred Myers of the Ontario Superior Court during the September 30, 2020 Hudbay Minerals lawsuit hearing, indicating he had no need to listen to arguments from lawyers for the plaintiffs Cory Wanless and Murray Klippenstein.

“The 11 women’s accounts of the trauma that the alleged gang-rapes caused them are unfathomable. Five were pregnant at the time; four miscarried, and one, three days from her due date when she was allegedly gang-raped, said in a deposition that she gave birth to a stillborn that “was all blue or green.””

~ In depth article from The Intercept, by Max Binks-Collier ~

Rights Action remembers and honors Adolfo Ich Chaman, a Mayan Q’eqchi’ environmental, territorial, human rights defender, assassinated September 27, 2009, by Hudbay Mineral’s security guards

For reasons related to Covid-19, the landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits were suspended earlier this year.

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020, 10am
The lawsuits will continue, with a ‘virtual hearing’ in Toronto. (We are seeking information as to whether the public will be able to listen, ‘virtually’.)

These are tough times for many people across the planet, particularly in countries of the global south, like Guatemala and Honduras. Tough times caused by the “normal pandemics” of poverty and exploitation, racism and discriminations, violence and dispossession, corruption and impunity, and the unequal nation-state system – all now worsened by Covid19.