Berta Cáceres in Río Blanco, Honduras, joined by other members of the Lenca indigenous community in a ceremony commemorating the comrades killed in the battles between the Honduran government and multinational players. Berta Cáceres spent years leading their struggle until her murder at the beginning of this March. Photograph from the Goldman Foundation, a group devoted to environmental causes. The murder of Berta Cáceres is part of a large and growing number of indigenous and environmental activists being killed in Honduras. The country, one of the most violent on the continent, is home to ongoing struggles over the protection of lands, equality among citizens and respect for native communities. That is why to understand the death of Cáceres, along with too many others throughout the region, you have to look at the wider context in which the violence is occurring. The morning Berta Cáceres was assassinated, her friend Hedme Sierra Castro was at a conference advocating freedom of expression: the Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, Spain. The walls of the collaborative space, where more than 800 anti-censorship activists from around the world were meeting, soon filled with posters paying homage to the indigenous leader and human rights and environmental advocate. “Berta Cáceres was murdered this morning by the Honduras government.” Posters put on display during the Internet Freedom Festival held in Valencia, Spain. Photograph shared by ACI Participa and published with permission. Bertita era muy querida en toda Latinoamérica y una figura muy importante en todo el mundo, como demuestra su reconocimiento post-mortem. Era muy cercana a mi familia desde antes del golpe [de Estado de 2009]. Trabajábamos juntas en defensa de Derechos Humanos en Centroamérica, que es una región barómetro de la impunidad, la falta de protección a la ciudadanía, la falta de rendición de cuentas de las cúpulas de poder, el ataque a los movimientos sociales… Our dear Berta was beloved across all Latin America and she was a very important figure in the world, as evidenced by the recognition she received following her death. She was very close to my family since the coup [of 2009]. We worked together in defense of human rights in Central America, a region that is a barometer of impunity, with a lack of protection for citizens, a lack of accountability in the powerful elite, and attacks on social movements… Hedme Sierra Castro, a systems engineer coming from a well-known family of Honduran human rights advocates, has been working since 2009 in digital security with a gender focus. Her organization ACI Participa is dedicated to helping women's groups, journalists, indigenous peoples, farmers, the LGBT community, and other human rights advocates to protect themselves from the surveillance and persecution that are increasingly taking place on digital channels: Todos estos grupos tienen en común que son de riesgo, vigilados y perseguidos por el Estado y otros grupos. What all of these groups have in common is that they are at risk, monitored and pursued by the state and other groups. The assassination of Cáceres and other activists in the region can be better understood with an eye on the political context of Honduras. The story of Hedme and her family is another case in point. Hedme and her relatives constitute an at-risk group, in as much as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights takes certain precautionary measures on their behalf. But that does not necessarily translate into more safety: “Bertita also had [these protections] and that didn't help her at all…” It's all linked to the political events of 2009. In that year, a coup d'état carried out by Roberto Micheletti against the government of Manuel Zelaya sparked large popular protests. However, judicial proceedings against the participants soon followed. Hedme, along with her mother, father and godfather (founder of ACI Participa and the first ombudsman of Honduras) took part and played key roles in the movement. Hedme says the mobilization was an illustration of the inequalities in Honduran politics and showed how, against all odds, the Honduran people who took part gave each other strength: Nos manifestamos, miles de personas de todo el país, durante tres meses consecutivos. El ambiente era festivo. Con gente trayendo merienda para compartir, otros trayendo café, compartiendo todo, donde uno come, comen tres, cuando uno se caía, el resto lo ayudaba. Nos dispersábamos y al poco nos volvíamos a juntar en otro sitio, la calle era un espacio compartido y un vínculo de unión. Eran jornadas enteras como de trabajo, uno salía a las 7 de su casa y no volvía hasta la noche.