Zelaya supporters protest one year after Honduras coup

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BNO News

Zelaya supporters protest one year after Honduras coup
January 28, 2011

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS (BNO NEWS) — Supporters of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Thursday demonstrated in the main cities of Central American nation, exactly one year after the coup.

Demonstrators called on the government to stop the rising prices of fuel, utilities and food as well as removing the charges against Zelaya to allow his return without having to appear before the courts.

In Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, members of the National Front of Popular Resistance People caused traffic problems. Teachers’ organizations and peasants, who demanded land titling in northern Honduras, joined the protests.

From the early hours, police were deployed nationwide, especially in Tegucigalpa, to prevent clashes.

Read more: http://www.islandcrisis.net/2011/01/zelaya-supporters-protest-one-year-after-honduras-coup/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Honduras Human Rights Abuses Worse One Year After President Lobo Took Office

Published on Thursday, January 27, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Honduras Human Rights Abuses Worse One Year After President Lobo Took Office
by Bill Quigley and Pam Spees

In recent remarks on U.S.-Latin American relations made at the Brookings Institute, Arturo Valenzuela, a State Department official with responsibility for the region, commented that Honduras, two years removed from a coup that U.S. officials on the ground called illegal, had “made significant progress in strengthening democratic governance… promoting national reconciliation...” Viewing the situation on the ground here in Honduras, one can only wonder where the Assistant Secretary is getting his information. In fact, as President Porfirio Lobo Sosa approaches the anniversary of his first year in office, the reverse is true. Gross violations of human rights directed against activists, opposition leaders and journalists reveal a government that is far removed from democracy and a nation that is far from reconciling.

Only two days after Valenzuela’s remarks, a resistance leader named Juan Chinchilla was abducted at gunpoint by masked men in police and military uniforms. After suffering two days of being burned, beaten and interrogated he was able to escape in the night. In an interview after his kidnapping, Chinchilla stated that his interrogators had numerous surveillance photos of himself and other resistance leaders. Indeed, reports of political murders, kidnappings and torture are common here and resistance leaders report constant surveillance. While there are no official counts, we have learned of 36 activists and leaders murdered since Lobo took office. At least 50 other people were killed in political violence for simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. In addition, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reports it received information that the children of anti-coup forces were being kidnapped, attacked and threatened as a strategy to silence the resistance.

Unprecedented violence against journalists is not an indicator of democratic governance and reconciliation. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), eight journalists were killed in the first half of Lobo’s first year in office, prompting Reporters Without Borders to name Honduras the most dangerous country in the world for journalists.

Another disturbing development in the wake of the coup has been an increase of violence directed against LGBT activists, many of whom are associated with the opposition to the coup and have played a vital organizing role in the resistance. The pattern is continuing in 2011. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission reported that since the beginning of January three transgendered people were murdered. Since Pam has been in Honduras two more murders of members of the LGBT community have been reported.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/27-12

[roody]

2. The coup was well over one year ago. The news got the one year

anniversary event wrong.

[clixtox]

3. Coup in Honduras was on June 28th, 2009 N/T

[Judi Lynn]

4. Looks as if the article meant to say one year of Lobo's presidency....

Honduran leader marks 1st year amid protests
Associated Press
2011-01-28 02:44 AM

President Porfirio Lobo has completed his first year in office with greater international recognition, as well as persistent domestic protests by opponents who support ousted former leader Manuel Zelaya.

Lobo says the world isolated Honduras following the June 2009 coup that ousted Zelaya. But he says the country's increasing recognition since then "makes me view the future with optimism."

More than 100 countries now recognize Honduras.

Zelaya says that Lobo's first year has yielded "results that are discouraging and negative."

Zelaya supporters marked Lobo's first anniversary Thursday with marches in the capital to demand constitutional reforms. Zelaya is living in exile in the Dominican Republic.

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1498891&lang=eng_news

[UTUSN]

5. ...

Manuel Zelaya talks on his mobile phone within the Brazilian embassy while his white cowboy hat is held by a bodyguard, Boris Muños. Photograph: Esteban Felix/AP

[Judi Lynn]

6. Honduras Human Rights Abuses Worse One Year After President Lobo Took Office

Bill Quigley.Legal Director, Center for Constitutional Rights; Professor, Loyola New Orleans
Posted: January 27, 2011 02:14 PM

Honduras Human Rights Abuses Worse One Year After President Lobo Took Office

In recent remarks on U.S.-Latin American relations made at the Brookings Institute, Arturo Valenzuela, a State Department official with responsibility for the region, commented that Honduras, two years removed from a coup that U.S. officials on the ground called illegal, had "made significant progress in strengthening democratic governance... promoting national reconciliation." Viewing the situation on the ground here in Honduras, one can only wonder where the Assistant Secretary is getting his information. In fact, as President Porfirio Lobo Sosa approaches the anniversary of his first year in office, the reverse is true. Gross violations of human rights directed against activists, opposition leaders and journalists reveal a government that is far removed from democracy and a nation that is far from reconciling.

Only two days after Valenzuela's remarks, a resistance leader named Juan Chinchilla was abducted at gunpoint by masked men in police and military uniforms. After suffering two days of being burned, beaten and interrogated he was able to escape in the night. In an interview after his kidnapping, Chinchilla stated that his interrogators had numerous surveillance photos of himself and other resistance leaders. Indeed, reports of political murders, kidnappings and torture are common here and resistance leaders report constant surveillance. While there are no official counts, we have learned of 36 activists and leaders murdered since Lobo took office. At least 50 other people were killed in political violence for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In addition, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reports it received information that the children of anti-coup forces were being kidnapped, attacked and threatened as a strategy to silence the resistance.

Unprecedented violence against journalists is not an indicator of democratic governance and reconciliation. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), eight journalists were killed in the first half of Lobo's first year in office, prompting Reporters Without Borders to name Honduras the most dangerous country in the world for journalists.

Another disturbing development in the wake of the coup has been an increase of violence directed against LGBT activists, many of whom are associated with the opposition to the coup and have played a vital organizing role in the resistance. The pattern is continuing in 2011. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission reported that since the beginning of January three transgendered people were murdered. Since Pam has been in Honduras two more murders of members of the LGBT community have been reported.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/honduras-human-rights-abu_b_814968.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. Hondurans Protest Government Policies

Saturday 29 January 2011
Hondurans Protest Government Policies

Tegucigalpa -Popular organizations staged marches and blocked streets in several Honduran departments on Thursday to condemn policies of the government of Porfirio Lobo, on occasion of his first year in power.

A march started at the Francisco Morazan Pegadogical School to demand the end of repression and the return of former constitutional president Manuel Zelaya, toppled by a coup on June 28, 2009.

Thousands of people gathered outside the Supreme Court of Justice and National Congress to demand punishment against those responsible for institutional crisis.

In San Pedro de Sula, the countryâ�Ös second largest city, farmers and other sectors grouped by the National Peopleâ�Ös Resistance Front (FNRP) blocked a bridge linking the city to El Progreso. The road to Tela was also blocked in Atlanta department.

The demonstrators repudiated the killing of farmers in Aguan Valley and the Supreme Court of Justiceâ�Ös ruling declaring unconstitutional a decree approved during the government of Zelaya authorizing peasants to farm land left idle.

More:
http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/january/29/centralamerica11012903.htm