February 29, 2012
February 29, 2012
Two human rights activists in the Lower Aguán region in Honduras received a death threat on 22 February. Wilfredo Paz is the spokesperson of the Permanent Observatory of Human Rights in the Aguán (Observatorio Permanente de Derechos Humanos del Aguán), a group that monitors human rights violations in the Aguán region. He is also a… [Read more…]
February 18, 2012
Honduras has become a human rights disaster. The country now has the world’s highest murder rate. And impunity for political violence is the norm. For all this, the United States deserves a good deal of the blame. I was pleased to see the New York Times recently publish a hard-hitting op-ed by Dana Frank that… [Read more…]
February 18, 2012
A La Voz de los de Abajo delegation of 8 people is in Honduras (February 14-22) to accompany the campesino movement and to support the Internacional Encuentro por los Derecho Humanos en Aguan February 17-19. We are traveling with compañeros and compañeras from the National Center for Rural Workers (CNTC) and will be sharing ourexperiences and the stories of… [Read more…]
February 16, 2012
by Dana Frank Tuesday night, February 14, at least 357 prisoners died in a fire at La Granja penitentiary in Comayagua, Honduras, in one of the worst prison fires in the past century. The fire, though, is only the latest deadly outcome of the larger politically-driven firestorm that is Honduras today. The Comayagua fire must… [Read more…]
February 16, 2012
Honduras has begun the grim task of identifying the victims of Tuesday’s prison fire, that is now known to have killed 355 people. Lorries took the bodies from the jail in Comayagua to the mortuary in Tegucigalpa, 100km (60 miles) away. Relatives have travelled to the capital to wait to recover the remains of their… [Read more…]
February 14, 2012
TEGUCIGALPA (14 February 2012) – United Nations Special Rapporteur Margaret Sekaggya said* today that human rights defenders in Honduras continue to suffer extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, death threats, attacks, harassment and stigmatization, and called on the Honduran Government to urgently establish a protection programme. “Honduras faces serious challenges in combating violence and… [Read more…]
February 11, 2012
This is the first of a two-part series about the roots of violence in Honduras. Honduras is hot, mountainous and about the size of the state of Louisiana. According to the United Nations, the Central American nation is also the world’s most violent country. A mix of drug trafficking, political instability and history has contributed… [Read more…]
February 3, 2012
COPINH alerts the national and international community of new arbitrary actions of the national police in Honduras that put the physical integrity of 13 leaders of the Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan (Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán), MUCA, who were detained tonight at 9:50pm. This acion was taken by police who maintain a police checkpoint in… [Read more…]
February 3, 2012
“There is a war here in the Aguán,” says Juan, surveying the distant fields of African palm from the vantage point of his recently planted field of beans and corn. A young Honduran farmer, wearing a beaten cowboy hat and a bandana bearing the name “National Front for Popular Resistance,” Juan lives in an encampment… [Read more…]
January 26, 2012
Gilda Silvestrucci Brussels, 26 January 2012 (ITUC OnLine): Gilda Silvestrucci, a member of the Journalists for Life and Freedom of Expression group, received death threats by telephone on 24 January. The ITUC firmly condemns the constant threats against journalists who dare to exercise their profession. Gilda Silvestrucci was among the women who headed the call… [Read more…]
January 26, 2012
by Dana Frank IT’S time to acknowledge the foreign policy disaster that American support for the Porfirio Lobo administration in Honduras has become. Ever since the June 28, 2009, coup that deposed Honduras’s democratically elected president, José Manuel Zelaya, the country has been descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss. That abyss is in good part the State… [Read more…]
January 24, 2012
Miami Herald, Editorial The recent withdrawal of America ’s Peace Corps volunteers from Honduras is one more sign that the security situation in that Central American country has deteriorated to crisis levels not seen since the civil wars of the 1980s. The country is quickly turning into a disaster zone. After the tide of civil… [Read more…]
February 27, 2012
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