For six years, social organizations and collectives in Honduras have demanded justice for Berta Cáceres and an end to impunity. | Photo: Copinh
Tegucigapla, June 21 (RHC)-- The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh) called this Monday for a sit-in in the vicinity of the Sentencing Court of the Supreme Court of Honduras while the sentence against David Castillo, mastermind of the murder of environmentalist Berta Cáceres in 2016, is being read there.
In a message disseminated through the social network Twitter, Copinh mobilized its bases and followers to carry out, starting at 13H30 local time, the sit-in to demand justice for Berta and the capture of other masterminds of the crime, perpetrated on March 2 of the aforementioned year.
Castillo was found guilty of the murder of the social leader and environmental defender on July 5, 2021, but the reading of his sentence has been postponed four times.
Cáceres was murdered in her own home while leading the fight against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, owned by one of Honduras' most powerful economic clans, the Atala Zablah family.
Copinh has emphasized that "The State of Honduras has all the information to prosecute, judge and condemn all those involved in the crime, including the Atala Zablah family".
According to media reports, the Honduran justice system has only prosecuted seven people involved in the case, among them the assassins and David Castillo, who is linked to those who gave the order to commit the crime.
At the time of Cáceres' murder, Castillo was executive president of the company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), in charge of the construction of the hydroelectric plant in Agua Zarca.
The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras also rejected the delays surrounding the reading of the sentence. Through its social networks, the platform expressed: "We condemn the constant unjustified delays for the reading of the sentence of David Castillo, co-intellectual author of the murder of our colleague Berta Cáceres."