“Miriam Miranda and members of OFRANEH harassed by police officers”, 12 Jan 17

On 11 January 2017, members of the National Police attempted to detain human rights defender Ms. Miriam Miranda while she was passing through a checkpoint in La Ceiba, on the Northern coast of Honduras, with fellow human rights defenders Mr. Luis Gutierrez, Mr. Oscar Gaboa and Mr. Luis Miranda…The incident took approximately thirty minutes and it is believed that the police officers gave up on the arbitrary arrest due to the calls made by Miriam Miranda. Miriam Miranda is the coordinator of the Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras (Black Fraternal Organisation of Honduras, OFRANEH). In October 2016, Miriam Miranda was awarded the Carlos Escaleras Prize in recognition of her human rights work, which involves protecting and defending ancestral territories of the Garífuna people in Honduras…OFRANEH has two pending cases against the Honduran State at the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. The organisation has recently brought Randy Jorgensen, a Canadian businessman, to trial in Trujillo, Honduras, in relation to a large-scale tourism project that displaced Garifuna communities from their ancestral lands…