One opposition journalist threatened, another pursued by coup general (Honduras)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reporters Without Borders

One opposition journalist threatened, another pursued by coup general
Published on Monday 26 September 2011.

The concern that Reporters Without Borders expressed about Honduras’ readmission to the Organization of American States is as relevant as ever after the emergence of new media cases involving two TV journalists – Mario Castro Rodríguez and Edgardo Antonio Escoto Amador – who opposed the June 2009 coup and who have information about it.

“The Cartagena Accord is dead and national reconciliation is impossible if censorship, repression and murder continue to be the response to needed information about the coup and its continuing consequences,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The relative protection that Mario Castro is getting and Edgardo Escoto should be granted is necessary but not enough. These cases must be investigated thoroughly even if senior active or retired police and army officers are involved turn out to be implicated.”

“The OAS and the rest of the international community should quickly remind the Honduran authorities of their duty to combat impunity. In this regard, we regret the postponement of the visit by Margaret Sekaggya, the UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders, which was supposed to take place from 27 September to 4 October. It must rescheduled before the end of the year.”

100 threats
Producer of the programme “El Látigo contra la Corrupción” (Lashing Corruption) for Globo TV in Tegucigalpa, Castro told the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), Reporters Without Borders’ Honduran partner, that he has received around 100 messages since 8 September warning him of his imminent death. Although he and his brother, fellow journalist Edgardo Castro, are receiving government protection at the request of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, he fears for his safety and even his life.

Read more: http://en.rsf.org/honduras-one-opposition-journalist-26-09-2011,41054.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Honduras: police arrest more Aguán campesinos

Honduras: police arrest more Aguán campesinos

Submitted by Weekly News Update on Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:16. According to human rights organizations in Honduras, between 200 and 600 soldiers and national police agents raided the campesino community of Rigores in the northern department of Colón on the afternoon of Sept. 19. Residents reported that security forces broke into homes, destroying belongings and hitting both adults and children. There was also a report of homes being set on fire, and being menaced by low-flying helicopters. Two minors were arrested: 15-year-old Darwin Leonel Cartagena and 16-year-old Santos Bernabé Cruz Aldana, the son of local campesino leader Rodolfo Cruz. As of Sept. 20 the community had still not learned where the youths were.

This was the second raid on the Rigores community in three days, in what has been dubbed "Operation Xatruch II." On Sept. 16 soldiers and police arrested 21 people (not 40, as we reported, following our sources). The detained campesinos, who were released later, said the police treated them cruelly during their captivity, threatening to kill women and children if they returned to their homes and to murder human rights activists who supported the campesinos. The Rigores community is one of a number of communities and organizations that have been struggling for years in the Lower Aguán Valley for land currently held by large landowners; as many as 51 campesinos have died in the conflicts in the region over the past two years. (Red Morazánica de Información, Sept. 20 via Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, Honduras; Adital, Brazil, Sept. 20)

The attacks on Rigores appeared to be in retaliation for the deaths of a soldier and a police agent near there on Sept. 16 in what the authorities said was an ambush of a patrol vehicle by guerrilla forces. Campesinos denied from the beginning that there was an ambush and suggested that a drunken soldier accidentally detonated a grenade inside the vehicle. Vitalino Alvarez, a spokesperson for the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), told Honduran media that the road is straight where rebels allegedly ambushed the patrol vehicle and that there aren't enough trees and bushes there to provide cover for attackers. Alvarez says he went to the hospital right after the attack and saw injuries that were consistent with a grenade explosion, not an assault with rifles. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog, Sept. 20)

http://ww4report.com/node/10363