Honduras: Death threats and defamation against human rights defender, Ms Bertha Oliva de Nativí

Front Line is deeply concerned following reports of death threats received by human rights defender, Ms Bertha Oliva de Nativí, on 27 January 2009. Bertha Oliva de Nativí is the General Coordinator of the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras – COFADEH (Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras). An urgent appeal was issued by Front Line on 22 August 2008 regarding the break-in at COFADEH's offices and the surveillance of Bertha Oliva de Nativí.

Further Information

On 27 January 2009, at approximately 2.45 p.m., two threatening text messages were sent to Bertha Oliva de Nativí from telephone number 97870273. The first contained the following text: ”Quieres saber quién soy yo. Por tu bien más te vale que no lo sepas. Y no quiero que me sigan llamando o les tendré que cerrar la boca de otra manera y ya sabes a que me refiero” (Do you want to know who I am. For your own good it is better that you do not know. And I do not want you to continue to call me or I will have to shut your mouth in another way and you already know what I am referring to [sic.]). The second contained the following text: “Cómo amaneciste. Espero que bien. Porque cuando yo quiera podes amanecer con la boca llena de gusanos. Y en una bolsa de basura” (How did you sleep. Well, I hope. Because whenever I like you could wake up with your mouth full of worms. And in a bag of rubbish [sic.]).

At the same time that day, false information was being distributed on flyers about Bertha Oliva de Nativí in the central park of Tegucigalpa. The distribution of these flyers forms part of a campaign to discredit Bertha Oliva de Nativí which began after President Manuel Rosales issued an executive decree in December 2008 to create a national programme of reparations for victims of human rights violations in the 1980s and to order the peaceful settlement of two cases with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The campaign has accused Bertha Oliva de Nativí of benefiting financially from the executive decree.

Front Line believes that the death threats and defamation against Bertha Oliva de Nativí are directly related to her work in the defence of human rights. Front Line is concerned that this forms part of an ongoing trend of harassment of human rights defenders in Honduras, especially against Bertha Oliva de Nativí and COFADEH.