The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, the Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and the Unit for the rights of persons LGBTI of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemn the murder of Eric Alex Martínez Ávila, a journalist and defender of the rights of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual population, who went missing on May 5th and was found dead two days later.
According to the information received, on May 7th, members of the community of Guasculile found the body of a young man that was later identified as belonging to Martínez Ávila alongside a highway between the cities of Olancho and Tegucigalpa.
Eric Alex Martínez Ávila worked in the area of public relations, monitoring and evaluation at the Kukulcán Association, an organization dedicated to defending the rights of lesbians, gays, and transsexual and bisexual persons. He was recently named as a candidate for local primary elections of the Libertad y Refundación party, and he was an active member of the Roundtable for Sexual Diversity of the National Resistance Front.
