The Committee against Torture today concluded its consideration of the third periodic report of Honduras, with Committee Experts praising the development of the bill on comprehensive reparation for victims of human rights violations by the State, and raising questions about the recurrent use of the state of emergency and reported acts of torture in police stations.
Naoko Maeda, Country Co-Rapporteur and Committee Expert, said it was commendable that the State party had prepared the bill on comprehensive reparation for victims of human rights violations caused by actions or omissions attributable to the State. What was the status of this bill, and had victims already been provided with reparations?
Claude Heller, Country Co-Rapporteur and Committee Chair, said that the Committee was concerned about the recurrent use of the state of emergency, which had been renewed 10 times since 2023 and extended to the country's 18 departments. There had been human rights violations allegedly committed in the context of the state of emergency. Why did the State party continue to enforce it?
Mr. Heller also cited reports of acts of torture in several police stations in the country, including electric shocks, the extraction of nails, second- and third-degree burns due to the detainees' exposure to the sun, the obligation to sleep naked on the floor, and beatings at night. Eight out of 10 detainees reportedly suffered violations of fundamental rights. Could the delegation comment on this situation?
Angélica Lizeth Álvarez, Secretary of State for Law, Office of Human Rights of Honduras and head of the delegation, said regarding reparations for victims of serious human rights violations, the State had approved the law for the reconstruction of the constitutional rule of law; established 24 March as the National Day for the Right to Truth and Justice; created programmes of memory, truth, reparation, justice and non-repetition; and established the Museum of Memory and Reconciliation and the National Centre for Historical Memory.
The delegation said that extending the state of emergency was based on the urgent need to safeguard security and public order. Honduras had the second highest homicide rate in the region, and people were being displaced from their homes by gangs. The situation had improved through the state of emergency - over 400 gangs had been broken up and the homicide rate had dropped by 10 per cent since 2021. The State party hoped to be able to end the state of emergency soon.
There were specific protocols on police detention that prohibited torture and excessive use of force, the delegation said. Disciplinary measures were taken when there was evidence of ill treatment. There had been 77 complaints against police, which had led to 13 members of the police force being stripped of their roles. The State party was working to strengthen oversight of the police force and training of police concerning detention protocols.
In closing remarks, Mr. Heller said that the dialogue had allowed the Committee to delve deeper into the challenges faced by Honduras. Based on it, the Committee would develop concluding observations that the State party could address within one year to better implement the Convention. The Committee sought to maintain cooperation with Honduras.
In her concluding remarks, Ms. Lizeth Álvarez said that the State party had made strides forward in the protection of human rights but needed support to improve its institutions. It would continue to work to bolster human rights and tackle torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Honduras would take on board all the Committee's recommendations.
The delegation of Honduras consisted of representatives from theNational Congress; Supreme Court of Justice; Office of Security in Prevention and Human Rights; Attorney General's Office; Office of National Defence; National Institute for Juvenile Offenders; National Penitentiary Institute; Offices of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation; Office of Human Rights; and the Permanent Mission of Honduras to the United Nations Office at Geneva.
The Committee will issue concluding observations on the report of Honduras at the end of its seventy-ninth session on 10 May. Those, and other documents relating to the Committee's work, including reports submitted by States parties, will be available on the session's webpage. Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, and webcasts of the public meetings can be found here.
The Committee will next meet in public on Tuesday, 23 April at 10 a.m. to begin its consideration of the fifth periodic report of Azerbaijan (CAT/C/AZE/5).
Report
The Committee has before it the third periodic report of Honduras (CAT/C/HND/3).
Presentation of Report
ANGÉLICA LIZETH ÁLVAREZ, Secretary of State for Law, Office of Human Rights of Honduras and head of the delegation, said that as a result of a coup d'état in 2009, Honduras had regressed institutionally in the recognition and fulfilment of human rights. The coup was followed by a drugs dictatorship, whose leaders were now serving sentences in the United States or had fled abroad to evade justice. The COVID-19 pandemic and hurricanes had been used as excuses to justify new acts of shameful corruption, which had aggravated the economic health of the State.
The new Government had established Secretariats of State in the Office of Social Development; the Office of Women's Affairs; the Office of Transparency and the Fight against Corruption; the Offices of Culture, Arts and Heritage of the Peoples of Honduras; the Office of Coordination of Indigenous and Afro-Honduran Peoples; and the Office for Children, Adolescents and the Family, which had an approved budget of 283 million lempiras. Public institutions had been strengthened to guarantee greater conditions of well-being and justice, and reduce the risk of people, especially vulnerable populations, becoming victims of torture and cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment.
The State party had repealed the organic law on employment and economic development zones and the State Secrets Act, with the aim of reducing corruption. It had also worked to revise the definition of the crime of torture in the Honduran Penal Code, and approved the law for the prevention, care and protection of internally displaced persons, the law for the reconstruction of the constitutional rule of law, the shelter law, and the law on the national DNA database system. It had ratified the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture and introduced a budgetary obligation to allocate financing to gender issues.
In 2023, due to the unfortunate events that occurred in the Women's Social Adaptation Penal Centre, which ended the lives of 46 women, as well as other incidents in prisons, the State, as an emergency measure, instructed the Military Police of Public Order to take control of prisons. Necessary investigations were being carried out to deduce responsibilities for the incidents. The Directorate of Education and Culture of Peace of the Secretariat for Human Rights had trained a total of 14,279 law enforcement officials in human rights from 2021 to March 2024, including police and military personnel. The Armed Forces and others were developing measures to reduce overcrowding in the Tamara National Penitentiary Centre, and other centres at the national level.
The judiciary had developed a protocol of actions for judges, which provided guidelines for resolving disputes and land claims by peasant groups. The legislative branch recently elected the new Attorney General of Honduras and the Deputy Prosecutor of the Public Prosecutor's Office. A Regional Office of the Unit for Monitoring and Reporting Missing Persons was also opened in the city of San Pedro Sula, Cortés, and the Single Criminal Investigation Manual was updated.
A management and care model for children, adolescents and young people in conflict with the law had been drawn up in accordance with international standards, which provided education to all incarcerated children. In 2022 and 2023, health protocols were developed to strengthen care of children and adolescents. In 2023, 30 training courses were carried out for penitentiary staff on restorative justice and guardianship of juvenile offenders with a human rights approach by the Public Prosecutor's Office.
The State recognised migration as a human right. To respond to the serious crisis of migrants in transit through the country, the National Congress approved a migratory amnesty, which benefited migrants in an irregular situation, exempting payment of the administrative penalty for irregular entry. A Migrant Care Centre was also created in the city of Danlí, which received a significant number of migrants daily. The Directorate for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons had managed to assist 331 people in 2022, 352 in 2023 and 57 so far in 2024.
Regarding reparations for victims of serious human rights violations, the State had approved the law for the reconstruction of the constitutional rule of law; established 24 March as the National Day for the Right to Truth and Justice; created programmes of memory, truth, reparation, justice and non-repetition; and established the Museum of Memory and Reconciliation and the National Centre for Historical Memory. In addition, in 2022, the President signed an agreement for the purpose of investigating violations of human rights and land tenure. The Commission on Agrarian Security and Access to Land was created in June 2023.
While considerable challenges remained in the prevention of torture and other forms of inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment, substantial progress had been made by the State of Honduras under the leadership of the Government of President Xiomara Castro. There was unprecedented genuine political will towards the protection of human dignity and the strengthening of the rule of law.
Questions by Committee Experts
CLAUDE HELLER, Committee Chair and Country Co-Rapporteur, said that the Committee recognised the State's efforts to address the multiple challenges it faced in the area of human rights, including through the establishment of various national institutions and laws. The Committee welcomed the State's openness to international scrutiny from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Universal Periodic Review and Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. The central human rights problem that Honduras faced lay in its high rates of violence associated with regional patterns of drug trafficking, the growth of organised crime, extreme poverty, and the social exclusion of large sectors of the population, as well as the prevalence of impunity stemming from corruption and weak institutions.
Some civil society organizations had expressed concerns that definitions of torture within the Criminal Code were not fully aligned with the Convention. The Code did not address the commission of the crime by private individuals, nor did it address the denial of the right to food and other needs as a form of torture. Penalties also needed to be made commensurate with the physical and mental suffering that the act caused. Why was the crime of torture not included in the Military Code? What progress had been made in advancing the draft law on preventing, investigating, punishing and eradicating torture?
Monitoring visits to detention centres had found that fundamental legal safeguards were not respected by police in the first hours of arrest. Eight out of 10 detainees reportedly suffered violations of fundamental rights. However, there was no national register of torture cases and few sentences had been issued for the crime. From 2017 to 2023, only 10 cases had been prosecuted. The National Commissioner for Human Rights reported that it received 564 complaints of violations of human rights in 2022. It had reported acts of torture in several police stations in the country, including electric shocks, the extraction of nails, second- and third-degree burns due to the detainees' exposure to the sun, the obligation to sleep naked on the floor, and beatings at night. The Commissioner had reportedly had difficulties accessing detention centres since the military took control of them. Could the delegation comment on this situation?
The National Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment had received 305 individual and collective complaints about alleged violations of human rights, including suspected cases of torture. What follow-up had it conducted? The National Committee reportedly lacked the budget to strengthen its presence outside of the State capital. What measures were in place to increase its budget?
The Committee welcomed that a new Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General had been appointed. Their inclusion in the National Defence and Security Council created an opportunity for meddling in their tasks. Would the State party consider changing the make-up of this Council?
Progress had not been made in investigations of various human rights violations in the 1980s, the 2009 coup d'état, and the 2017 post-election crisis. Perpetrators continued to go unpunished. What was the status of the law on victims of human rights violations between 1980 and 1993, and the planned international commission against corruption and impunity in Honduras? In 2023, Congress repealed decrees that prevented prosecutors from obtaining key documents in investigations and investigating the misuse of public funds. These were important steps.
Last year, more than half a million people passed through Honduras, the highest recorded level of migrants to date. The number of migrants was overwhelming the State's capacity to respond. Over 45 per cent of migrants came from Venezuela in 2023. About 400 Hondurans left for Guatemala on a daily basis, generally with the aim of reaching the United States. Migrants were at risk of displacement, murder and other human rights violations. Gang violence was contributing to a large number of people becoming internally displaced. The Government, in March 2023, adopted a law to bolster support for internally displaced persons. What was the status of implementation of this law?
In November 2022, President Xiomara Castro declared a national emergency in regions with high crime levels, suspending the rights to freedom of association, assembly and movement, and allowing the National Police in cooperation with the Military Police to carry out arrests and searches without a warrant. The Committee was concerned about the recurrent use of the state of emergency, which had been renewed 10 times since 2023 and extended to the country's 18 departments. There had been human rights violations allegedly committed in the context of the state of emergency. Could the delegation comment on this? The police carried out around 24,500 illegal detentions, and more than 16,000 raids, while the military police made 1,333 arrests. Why was a register of detainees not kept, and why did the State party continue to enforce the state of emergency?
At least 23 people had been killed and 60 injured in the context of the 2017 post-election demonstrations, with elements of the security forces reportedly responding with excessive force. What judicial follow-up had been carried out into these serious events? Eighty per cent of homicides had reportedly not been investigated. Was the State party considering adopting a comprehensive security policy with a human rights perspective? The National Observatory against Violence had recorded 575 violent deaths of children, most of them with weapons in public spaces. Minors were reportedly tortured and killed in a policy of "social cleansing" by organised crime death squads, which also recruited children by force. How was the State party addressing this situation?
The penitentiary system faced structural problems stemming from overcrowding, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and the penetration of organized crime. In 2009, the prison population was 11,167 inmates, but in September 2023, it had increased to 19,557 inmates. The country's 25 prisons had a capacity of only 14,780 people. How did the State party plan to address overcrowding? In 2024, the Government announced that a new maximum-security prison would be built to house high-risk inmates on Swan Island. It would be impossible for public and private defenders to visit such a facility. Had the consequences of this plan been assessed? Prisons reportedly had deplorable conditions, with lack of hygiene, poor water quality and availability, lack of food and sunlight, shortage of dormitories, and lack of access to medical care. In December 2019, at least 46 people had been killed and many injured as a result of violent events in prisons. How was the State party investigating these incidents and working to prevent human rights violations in prisons?
What was the status of the 2018 draft law on reparations for victims of human rights violations? Was Congress considering passing legislation to regulate private security companies? Why had there been no claims filed or rulings ordering compensation to victims of torture since 2009? What compensation would be offered for the victims and relatives of the inmates who lost their lives in the Comayagua fire?
From 2014 to 2017, a total of 141 human rights defenders were killed. Most cases continued to go unpunished. Between January and August 2023, 236 human rights defenders were harassed, threatened or attacked. At least 13 were killed in that period, higher than the total number in 2022. What was the State party's policy on such attacks? How was it responding to violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex and indigenous persons?
NAOKO MAEDA, Committee Expert and Country Co-Rapporteur, said the Committee took note of the State party's efforts to combat torture. The Committee welcomed that the budget of the Interagency Commission for the Prevention of Commercial and Sexual Exploitation had been increased by 72 per cent in 2020. Could the delegation provide updated information on anti-trafficking legislation? The Committee welcomed the State party's plan and strategy to combat commercial and sexual exploitation from 2016 to 2022. Had the plan been updated? How many persons had been prosecuted for trafficking in persons? Why was the conviction percentage in cases of trafficking in persons less than 30 per cent?
There was a high level of violence against women in Honduras and persistent impunity for such acts. Violence against women was addressed in the 2017 reform of the Penal Code. Cases of this crime were rarely tried, however. How many cases of violence against women were there in the reporting period? What measures were in place to amend the Penal Code to make the penalty for femicide commensurate to the crime, and to ensure that perpetrators were prosecuted? How was the State working to investigate sexual abuse and harassment of girls and ensure that victims had access to free legal aid, counselling and rehabilitation?
The Committee welcomed the signing of executive agreement number 75-2023, through which the free promotion, use, access, sale and purchase of the emergency contraceptive pill in Honduras was guaranteed and promoted. Why was there limited access to the pill and to health insurance coverage for it?
There was a lack of training on international forensic medical standards such as the Istanbul Protocol for prison staff and medical staff. How would the State party improve training for these officials? There were cases of threats and harassment of medical staff by the Forensic Medicine Directorate. How would the State party ensure the separation of medical staff from public ministries?
In many cases, alleged perpetrators of torture were not separated from their duties during investigations, allowing them to threaten complainants and influence investigations. Judges also often did not order investigations after complaints from victims. Why was this? What financial resources were available to the Special Human Rights Prosecutor's Office? How many investigations had it initiated?
It was commendable that the State party has prepared the bill on comprehensive reparation for victims of human rights violations caused by actions or omissions attributable to the State. What was the status of this bill, and had victims already been provided with reparations?
The Committee had received reports that children deprived of liberty were often subjected to violence and were held in inappropriate facilities where they had a lack of access to education and rehabilitation programmes. What measures had the State party taken to ensure the Beijing Rules were respected and to establish alternatives to detention for juveniles in accordance with the Tokyo Rules? The minimum age of criminal responsibility was 12. Did the State party plan to raise this to the internationally accepted standard age of 14? How many cases of torture and ill treatment of children had been reported to the authorities, and what punishments were issued to perpetrators?
What measures were in place to establish a mechanism to monitor residential centres for persons with disabilities and prevent torture in such facilities? How did the State party ensure that no women were subject to forced sterilisation?
Another Committee Expert welcomed the State's large delegation. Honduras was one of the few countries in the world with a complete ban on abortion. What was the Government's position on the Constitutional reform of 2021? Could future amendments to the Constitution be made? The crime of parricide, a form of homicide, was sometimes used to punish abortions. What was the position of the State's agencies on this interpretation? Were international human rights treaties applicable and binding domestically?
One Committee Expert said that conditions in psychiatric institutions were concerning. Was independent monitoring of these institutions carried out? Did they have a complaints mechanism?
Responses by the Delegation
The delegation said the National Congress had set up a commission to review the Criminal Code to bring it in line with international standards and adapt the definition of the crime of torture. A debate had been held on a decree to establish a national register of detainees and a body to follow-up on the recommendations of treaty bodies. A draft reform of criminal offences related to violence against women was also being prepared.
The opposition party had opposed legislation amending the total prohibition of abortion. The State party would continue to work with the opposition in this area. Abortion could not be confused with parricide; these were different crimes and were tried as such.
A draft law had been prepared that sought to provide truth, justice and reparation to the victims of crimes occurring between 1980 and 1993. The Government believed that the draft would become law very soon. A draft law on rights violations against migrants in transit was also being considered.
The National Secretariat for Defence did not tolerate crimes of torture by its officials. Military law did not cover the crime of torture, but this did not exempt members of the armed forces from responsibility. They were tried in ordinary courts and suspended from their duties when a complaint was lodged. There were detailed registers of detainees of the military, allowing for human rights violations to be identified immediately. In 2022, around 44,000 military personnel had participated in training on human rights, an increase from 2021. Gender units had been created within each military body. A feasibility investigation was underway into the proposed Swan Island detention facility to ensure that it protected the human rights of persons deprived of liberty.
All international standards impacting national legislation needed to be respected and considered by judges. The State was working to increase transparency in the selection process for judges, magistrates and prosecutors.
The State party was working to identify pre-trial detainees who could not access lawyers and detainees with medical conditions and was seeking to implement alternatives to pre-trial detention where possible.
To reduce overcrowding in detention centres, a decongestion table including the State party and civil society representatives had been established. The table had reviewed cases with a view to granting parole and releases; 135 people had been definitively released through these efforts, and many more were being processed for parole. The State party was working to prevent self-governance of prisons and had established over 2,000 vacancies in maximum security prisons to reduce overcrowding. Military police had found and confiscated automatic weapons, pistols, hand grenades and ammunition in prisons, without wounding inmates or sustaining casualties. Police were trained on the proportionate use of force.
