José Abelino Cedillo forms part of the Municipal Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods (Comité Municipal de Defensa de los Bienes Comunes y Públicos (CMDBCP)), an organisation in Tocoa, in the department of Colón, that is comprised of several organisations defending land and environmental rights. This Committee is part of the resistance movement against the mining project Guapinol owned by company Inversiones los Pinares. Guapinol has been a source of conflict ever since mining company Inversiones Pinares was given the concession which the surrounding communities claim was illegal. They also claim irregularities in the way the project obtained it´s environmental licence. Since then, 32 members of the resistance movement have been criminalised, 6 have been killed and many activists have been threatened and stigmatised. On 26th August 2019, José Abelino Cedillo, along with 6 fellow activists, was taken into pre-trial detention accused of the crimes of "unlawful association", "damages", "arson" and "deprivation of liberty". These accusations refer to a peaceful protest that opponents of the mining project engaged in during August and September of 2018. The legal process against the defenders of environmental and land rights began on 13th September 2018, when a Honduran court specialising in organised crime issued an arrest warrant against 18 of the members of the CMDBCP. On 1st September when the defender was arrested along with 6 other defenders and taken to maximum security prison “La Tolva”, they have reported humiliation torture inhumane treatment in the prison. This has been corroborated by different national and international organisations.