International organizations express solidarity with defenders criminalized by the Norwegian company Scatec ASA in Choluteca, Honduras

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press contacts:
Jen Moore, Institute for Policy Studies, jen@ips-dc.org
Karen Spring, Honduras Solidarity Network, karen@hondurasnow.org

Choluteca, Honduras — On November 13, eight Honduran environment defenders will attend a court hearing in the city of Choluteca. The judge overseeing the hearing will determine whether the defenders must continue to appear periodically in court after being criminalized for more than eight years for their peaceful resistance to the “Los Prados” solar energy project. The project is owned by a private Norwegian company, Scatec ASA, and Norway’s state financial institution, Norfund. A formal complaint filed by Scatec led the Public Prosecutor’s Office to bring charges against the defenders for the supposed crime of coercion.

For eight years, since Scatec filed its formal complaint against the defenders that initiated the criminal proceedings, the defenders have regularly appeared in court to comply with the judge’s orders and their conditional release pending trial. This has had enormous economic, social, and psychological costs for the defenders, their families, and their communities, exacerbated by the stagnation of their case in the courts, which has not yet reached the trial phase.

In early 2017, the affected communities began their resistance in defense of their food sovereignty, water, and well-being in the face of the Los Prados project, whose approval was plagued with many irregularities and controversy in the context of the narco-dictatorship of former president and convicted criminal Juan Orlando Hernández. Given that the companies have only managed to operate part of the Los Prados project to date, the communities suspect that they intend to expand it, ignoring local and regional opposition to extractive projects in their territories. The process of criminalization of the defenders is an attempt to silence opposition and curb community organizing.

This is a regional trend, given that Latin America is the region where land defenders are most frequently murdered, criminalized, harassed, and threatened in order to silence their protests.^[1] In this context, Honduras has been one of the most dangerous countries in the region since the military coup of 2009 that gave rise to the narco-dictatorship and that was legitimized with support from the United States and Canada.

At the same time, following the 2022 energy law reforms and highlighting the injustice and structural asymmetry of the legal system, the Norwegian companies launched international arbitration claims for $400 million USD against Honduras to exert pressure in their own interests during the renegotiation of their operating contracts for Los Prados in Namasigüe and Agua Fría in Nacaome.^[2] After completing these negotiations, the companies recently withdrew their claims, but concerns remain about what else they may have agreed to with the government to reach this decision. Meanwhile, the criminalization of the most affected people who have acted with dignity to defend their water, their lands, and their subsistence livelihoods continues.

Our organizations will be closely watching the results of the November 13 hearing, when we hope that the court will give serious consideration to the lawyers’ request made on behalf of the defenders being accused by Scatec.

Honduras Solidarity Network

Institute for Policy Studies – Global Economy Program

TerraJusta

Transnational Institute

Alma de Izote

Calan Institute for Transnational Justice

Ceiba Colectiva

Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN)

Cross-Border Network for Justice & Solidarity

Denver Justice & Peace Committee

References:

^[1] Missing Voices: The violent erasure of land and environment defenders, September 2024. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/land-and-environmental-defenders/missing-voices/

^[2] Supporting Honduran communities affected by corporate assault on Honduras: New data reveals gravity of ISDS claims against Honduras, July 2025. https://ips-dc.org/corporate-assault-on-honduras-new-data-reveals-gravity-of-isds-claims-against-honduras/

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