Lisa Haugaard

“If that kind of barbarity can be directed against the highest-ranking person in the country, what will happen to the rest of us?” asked the activists at COFADEH, the Committee of Families of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, right after the June 28th coup that sent President Manuel Zelaya into exile.  Now the answer to that question can be seen in COFADEH’s hard-hitting October 22nd report, “Statistics and Faces of Repression.”

Despite the Micheletti government’s announced intention following international and national pressure to lift the state of siege, the notice has not yet been published in the official gazette, and rights violations continue.  The de facto government issued a new decree allowing the government’s telecommunications agency to revoke licenses for radio and television stations that transmit messages that promote “social anarchy,” ensuring that censorship can continue.  Police continued excessive use of force against protestors, and some protestors remain in detention. Meanwhile, hopes for dialogue increased as the Organization of American States negotiators arrived, but no end to the crisis is yet in sight.

As international and domestic concern mounts over the suspension of constitutional rights declared by de facto Honduran President Roberto Micheletti on September 26th, the government promises to restore rights, but does not yet act to do so, and human rights violations continue.

On September 21st, President Manuel Zelaya returned clandestinely to Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. Honduran police fired tear gas to disperse Zelaya’s supporters gathered around the embassy. They also launched tear gas at the human rights group COFADEH, where men, women and children had taken refuge after the attack at the embassy.   People detained for violating a newly established curfew are being held at the football stadium, where observers saw people who had been severely beaten. The situation in the capital and elsewhere is extremely tense.