Dina MEZA

Journalist, human rights defender, and founding member of PEN Honduras Dina Meza faced continuing harassment during the year. Meza’s security situation remained a serious concern. (For details of previous harassment see Case Lists 2017, 2020, 2022, 2023/2024.) 

Dina Meza reported surveillance and threats during 2024. On June 2024, the journalist was threatened by academic authorities with legal action if she did not withdraw articles about a student dispute with their university faculty from the Pasos de Animal Grande digital newspaper. 

Meza, born in 1963, began her work as a human rights defender in 1989 and has worked for various human rights organisations and digital media outlets. In 2014, she was elected President of PEN Honduras. She also runs and writes for the website pasosdeanimalgrande.com, which reports on freedom of expression and human rights in Honduras. She is the author of the Honduras chapter in Vamos a portarnos mal: protesta social y libertad de expression en América Latina (Let’s misbehave: social protest and freedom of expression in Latin America) (2011) and Kidnapped: Censorship in Honduras (2015). She is recipient of the 2007 Amnesty International UK Special Award for Human Rights Journalism Under Threat; the 2014 Oxfam Novib/PEN International Freedom of Expression Award; the 2016 Premio Letras in Periodismo y Derechos Humanos at Festival de Cine y Derechos Humanos de Barcelona; and the 2020 Sir Henry Brooke Award for Human Rights Defenders. She is an Honorary Member of PEN Català.