Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The lack of faith among the general population in the justice system is so huge. You've got human rights defenders who are receiving threats but who are fearful of going to the police to report them—not even fearful, but thinking it's not going to come to anything, they will still go and report.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  At the moment we haven't documented those cases sufficiently to be able to speak to them. It would be very worth your while to have a look at the statement from the United Nations working group on the use of mercenaries. They'll be issuing a more thorough report later on. The statement itself is quite interesting in relation to the use of private security guards.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There have been allegations that they've been involved in forced evictions. Again, I can't speak to that. I haven't documented those myself, so I wouldn't want to speak to them here. However, we have had those reports where, on occasion, private security guards have been seen with local police in the carrying out of forced evictions.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think there are various concerns around the independence of the judiciary. Just post-coup d’état we saw a particular group of judges targeted and removed from their positions. They all belong to Judges for Democracy, a particular group of judges who pertain to that association.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'm sorry, I speak very fast.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There have been statements, particularly from the minister of justice and human rights, Ana Pineda. We have seen some statements from her expressing concern about the situation of human rights defenders. Last year we heard that there was a draft bill looking at the situation of human rights defenders and perhaps developing some protection systems for them.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We still didn't see that at the highest level, with the president coming out and saying, “This will not be tolerated.” Actually, that's brought up an interesting issue. It's not only journalists and human rights defenders from the civil society who are vulnerable to threats and attacks.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. I just don't want to go over my time. I could talk about Honduras for hours. I am aware of that, and I don't want to go over. We've had serious concerns about the protection systems for human rights defenders for many years, but this was exacerbated post-coup d'état, when we have seen journalists such as Nahúm Palacios actually killed.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be presenting today. We're really delighted that you're interested in the situation in Honduras, which has been a situation of human rights concern for Amnesty International for many years. Perhaps it would be good to start there and recognize that we've been concerned about the situation in Honduras for many years.