Honduras
Executive Summary
Honduras is a constitutional, multiparty republic. The most recent national and local elections were held in November. Voters elected Xiomara Castro of the LIBRE Party as president for a four-year term scheduled to begin in January 2022. International observers generally recognized the elections as free and fair.
The Honduran National Police maintain internal security and report to the Secretariat of Security. The armed forces, which report to the Secretariat of Defense, are responsible for external security but also exercise some domestic security responsibilities in support of the national police and other civilian authorities. Some larger cities have police forces that operate independently of the national police and report to municipal authorities. The Military Police of Public Order report to military authorities but conduct operations sanctioned by civilian security officials as well as by military leaders. The National Interinstitutional Security Force coordinates the overlapping responsibilities of the national police, military police of public order, National Intelligence Directorate, and Public Ministry during interagency operations. Civilian authorities at times did not maintain effective control over security forces. There were credible reports that members of the security forces committed some abuses.
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by government agents ; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including threats to media members by criminal elements and the existence of criminal libel laws; serious government corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence against indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, and against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons.
The government prosecuted some officials who committed abuses, including government corruption, but a weak judicial system and corruption were major obstacles to obtaining convictions.
Organized criminal groups, including local and transnational gangs and narcotics traffickers, were significant perpetrators of violent crimes and committed acts of homicide, torture, kidnapping, extortion, human trafficking, intimidation, and other threats and violence directed against human rights defenders, judicial authorities, lawyers, business community members, journalists, bloggers, women, and other vulnerable populations. The government investigated and prosecuted some of these crimes, but impunity was widespread.
Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process
The law provides citizens the right to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on nearly universal and equal suffrage. The law does not permit active members of the military or civilian security forces to vote. The constitution prohibits practicing clergy from running for office or participating in political campaigns.
Elections and Political Participation
Recent Elections: In November Xiomara Castro of the LIBRE Party won a four-year presidential term in elections that were generally considered free, fair, and transparent. Some NGOs reported irregularities, including late delivery of technology needed to transmit results, late opening of the polls, poll workers with varying degrees of preparation and knowledge of the electoral law and processes, and lack of transparency in campaign financing. International observers acknowledged some of these irregularities but reported they were not systematic and not widespread enough to affect the outcome of the presidential election. Observers noted several significant improvements in transparency procedures, including electoral reforms, an updated voter registry and new national identification cards, and new technology that included a biometric verification system and a preliminary results transmission system.
Participation of Women and Members of Minority Groups: No laws limit the participation of women or members of minority groups in the political process, and they did participate.
Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
The law provides for criminal penalties for corruption by officials, but authorities did not implement the law effectively, and officials continued to engage in corrupt practices with impunity. There were numerous reports of government corruption during the year. A revision to the penal code that entered into force in June 2020 broadly reduces criminal penalties for corruption by officials. Inconsistent, retroactive implementation of provisions of the revised code led to logjams in the legal system and impunity for some of the accused. Backsliding occurred in cases brought during the four-year mandate of the OAS Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras; several of its cases were dismissed or postponed as courts heard appeals based on the new code. The government took some steps to address corruption at high levels in government agencies, including arresting and charging senior officials on COVID-related procurement corruption. The government launched a new Ministry of Transparency in November 2020 to address some of these concerns. Anticorruption efforts remained an area of concern, as did the government’s ability to protect justice-sector officials, such as prosecutors and judges. Civil society continued to criticize the law for classification of documents related to security and national defense, saying it limited transparency and allowed officials to use the classification of documents to obscure wrongdoing.
Corruption: The new trial of former first lady Rosa Elena Bonilla de Lobo on charges of fraud and misappropriation of public funds, originally set to commence in March, was twice delayed for medical reasons. Periodic medical evaluations had not found Lobo healthy enough to proceed. Her most recent evaluation was in August, and the court declared her fit to stand trial in September. Her retrial was scheduled for February 2022.
Marco Bogran, former director of INVEST-H, the Honduran government entity tasked with providing coronavirus pandemic relief contracts to private firms, remained in pretrial detention awaiting his next court appearance, scheduled for January 31, 2022. Bogran was arrested in October 2020 on two corruption charges for embezzling an estimated 1.14 billion lempiras ($47 million) in public funds and funneling a contract for mobile hospitals to his uncle, Napoleon Corrales. He was arrested again in April for separate but related charges.
In January the government funded the opening of a UN Office of Drugs and Crime office to begin a government transparency project and support the drafting of the country’s first national anticorruption strategy.