Honduras: Union Leader Receives Retaliatory Death Threat

Another union leader in Honduras, where violence is commonplace, has received a death threat.  José Armando Flores Jimenez, president of the Union of Health Workers in eastern Honduras-SITRASAOH, was threatened for allegedly making public the discovery of medications buried on the grounds of Health Region Number Seven buildings in El Paraiso, possibly to divert them from public use.

Flores, a member of the Network Against Anti-Union Violence in Honduras, is the second member of that network to be targeted for violence.

The first, Héctor Martínez Motiño of the university workers’ union SITRAUNAH, was shot and killed by gunmen in June as he drove home from work after three other attempts on his life and numerous anonymous threats, linked to his reporting of violations of human and worker rights within the university.

The Network Against Anti-Union Violence in Honduras is comprised of labor union activists and the human rights non-governmental organization ACI-Participa, and is supported by the Solidarity Center.

Honduran trade unionists are routinely threatened, intimidated, harassed and even murdered, and criminals are rarely brought to justice. A damning report documenting widespread and serious violations of labor rights in Honduras was issued by the U.S. Department of Labor in March this year and was prompted by a complaint filed in 2012 by the AFL-CIO and 26 Honduran unions and NGOs under the Labor Chapter of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

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