Leonardo Miranda
2007
oil on canvas
40" x 30"
$3,000 (framed or unframed)

(Purchasing Information)

Honduras

The two communities of Montaña Verde – Planes and Vertientes – are situated in the remote mountains of western Honduras in the municipality of Gracias in Lempira department. The Lenca people of Montaña Verde have struggled for years with local landowners over the title to territory that the Lencas claim as ancestral communal lands. Their fight for communal land titles and protection of the natural resources has placed them in direct opposition to landowners and their powerful allies in Gracias who want to use the disputed land for cattle ranching, logging, or coffee bean cultivation.

On January 8, 2003, Leonardo Miranda, a Lenca rights activist affiliated with the Civic Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations, (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Indígenas Populares), was arrested in Planes and accused of an array of offenses, including the killing of a man named Juan Reyes Gómez. Many of the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, leaving only battery and murder, charges that both men claimed were false. Miranda stated that he was tortured in detention in an attempt to compel him to confess. Following a trial in which defense witnesses were not permitted to testify, he was sentenced in December 2003 to 25 years in prison for murder, based largely on statements by prosecution witnesses that were contradictory and not supported by evidence.

Thankfully, international pressure helped free Leonardo Miranda on August 15, 2006, following a decision by the Honduran Supreme Court in June that acquitted Leonardo of the 2001 murder for which they were wrongfully imprisoned.

(Biographical material provided by Amnesty International)


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