Human Rights Watch called for the reduction of overcrowding to improve poor prison conditions in Latin America following a prison fire in Honduras. The fire killed more than 300 inmates while injuring dozens more.
Honduras is in shock after a fire at a triple-capacity Comayagua prison left at least 360 dead, many burned or suffocated to death in their cells. Reports said guards hurled keys away before fleeing, abandoning the prisoners.
A pact between indigenous leaders and the government of right-wing president Ricardo Martinelli ended more than a week of massive protests over mineral and territorial rights that led to at least two deaths and dozens of arrests.
President Mauricio Funes named retired general Francisco Ramón Salinas as director of El Salvador’s National Civil Police, replacing former director Carlos Ascencio—removing the last high-ranking FMLN member of the public security cabinet.
Honduran police detained 13 campesinos leaders in the conflicted Lower Aguán Valley as talks about financing a proposed settlement for long-term land disputes broke down. Venezuela has proposed funding to purchase lands for campesino communities.
Protesters blocked highways in the latest round between Panama’s largest indigenous group and rightwing president Ricardo Martinelli over environmental protections in indigenous territories.
Two men on a motorcycle gunned down Honduran campesino activist Matías Valle Cárdenas as he was leaving his home in the Lower Aguán Valley, the site of often violent land disputes.
A Guatemalan judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to try former military dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide, but the current president denies there was genocide.
After years of impunity, former Guatemalan military dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-83) is to appear before a judge this month in what could become a trial for genocide.
Three unidentified men gunned down attorney José Ricardo Rosales in the coastal city of Tela just four days after a newspaper reported on Rosales’ claim that local police agents had abused detainees.
Eight people, including four children, were murdered in the village of Regaderos, in the Lower Aguán Valley, the site of several violent land disputes between campesinos and large landowners.
Marco Aurelio Lorenzo, an activist Catholic priest based in western Honduras, has filed a criminal complaint charging that he and his two brothers were tortured by eight police agents the day after Christmas.
