Environmental activist from Honduras wins 2016 Front Line Defenders Award
Environmental activist from Honduras wins 2016 Front Line Defenders Award
Ana Mirian Romero was presented with the award at a ceremony in Dublin's City Hall this morning
9:38 10 Jun 2016
Newstalk
1 day ago
An environmental activist from Honduras has won the 2016 Front Line Defenders Award.
Ana Mirian Romero had her home burned down and was beaten by police for protesting in her native country.
Romero has been active in opposing the installation of the Los Encinos hydro-electric dam on indigenous land in Honduras.
She was presented with the award at a ceremony in Dublin's City Hall this morning.
Director of Front Line Defenders Mary Lawlor said Ana Mirian has been through a lot for her cause.
"Her house was burned down in January, and her children she's had to take out of school because they've been intimidated," she explained.
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We Don’t Fear: Honduran Indigenous Defender Wins Global Prize
Published 10 June 2016
Ana Mirian Romero has suffered death threats and other harassment as a result of her resistance against unwanted corporate projects on Indigenous land.
A Honduran Indigenous rights activist who has suffered repeated attacks, harassment, and death threats since joining her community’s land struggle in the wake of the 2009 U.S.-backed coup was recognized Friday in Dublin, Ireland, for her commitment to fighting for human rights with the annual international Front Line Defenders Award.
“For me this prize is strength. I also feel happy for the organizations because through human rights and the work we are doing we have achieved this,” Ana Mirian Romero told teleSUR by phone from Dublin, where she received the award. “I feel that this achievement will be a source of courage and strength to continue in the struggle and not get discouraged.”
Romero is a Lenca woman who has worked for years through local Indigenous organizations in the western Honduran department of La Paz to protect her people’s traditional territories and natural resources in the face of an unwanted hydroelectric dam that threatens to displace communities and destroy their livelihoods.
. . .
“It does not benefit us. It’s destruction being carried out in Honduras that benefits a few countries but does not benefit the poor,” she said about hydroelectric development in Lenca territory. “We feel displaced by the government because we’re not important to them.”
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/We-Dont-Fear-Honduran-Indigenous-Defender-Wins-Global-Prize-20160610-0002.html