Patricio Vindel, the Executive Director of OPROUCE, an LGBT rights organization in northern Honduras, received several text messages threatening his life last fall. The situation escalated dramatically on January 22, when unidentified individuals broke into the organization’s yard and spray painted, “Patricio, you are going to die” on the office wall.
Anyone targeted by graffiti such as this would have cause for alarm. Unfortunately, the situation is much worse for Vindel because of the pattern of homophobic violence in his country. According to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), at least 31 LGBT individuals were murdered in Honduras—a small country with a population roughly the same size as that of New York City—from June 2009 to January 2011. A report by the Honduran government’s own Human Rights Commissioner found that at least 20 LGBT people were murdered in 2010 and 2011.
