In the morning of August 27^th Margarita Murillo was on her way to cultivate a piece of land in Villanueva, Cortes in the Northern part of Honduras. There she was met by three men wearing ski-masks and shot down on the spot.

Margarita Murillo is the most high-ranking member of the opposition formed in Honduras after the 2009-coup to be killed. At the moment of her death she was coordinator of FNRP, the National Front of Popular Resistance, in the Cortes- department. She was also a founding member of the party LIBRE of which she was a pre-candidate in the process of the 2013 elections.

During her life she was an outstanding peasant organizer and representative for which reason she even had to spend time in exile in the late 1980s. As from the moment of the 2009-coup she was engaged in the opposition and was a member of the political leadership of FNRP.

She was supposed to meet in the National Reform Institute, INA, this week presenting a case to legalize land of peasants from her region. As members of her family lately has been hit by repression. Honduras today is governed by a still more militarized and criminal cast that is able to act with almost totally impunity. Several hundred members of LIBRE and FNRP have been killed the later years.

Margarita Murillo was a rare political leader: always a part of base, principally peasants and women, ready to assist others and with a very clear political mind. This was also evident in her contact with parties of the European Left.’

We condemn deeply this coward assassination and ask for an international pressure on the Honduran government to solve this crime and have both the intellectual and actual killers brought to justice.

European Left extend our deep-felt condolences to the family of Margarita Murillo and our solidarity to the FNRP and LIBRE in this situation.

August 29^th, 2014.