Coup's Impact on Honduran Women

[struggle4progress]

Margaret Knapke | October 22, 2009
Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus

... The Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) began investigating abuses immediately after the coup, searching hospitals and jails. Their July 15 report documents 1155 human rights violations during the first two weeks of the coup. These include 1046 illegal detentions, 59 beatings, 27 assaults on reporters and the independent press, and four executions. Three of those killed are named: Isis Obed Murillo Mencías (19-years-old), Gabriel Fino Noriega (radio-journalist), and Caso Ramon Garcia.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued their first and most comprehensive report on the Honduran crisis on August 21. Consistent with COFADEH's findings, the IACHR charged the coup government with "disproportionate use of public force, arbitrary detentions, and the control of information aimed at limiting political participation by a sector of the citizenry" ...

Salvador Zuniga, of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), believes the June coup was prompted in part by a socially conservative religious reaction to feminist organizing around reproductive rights. "What I can say is that the feminist compañeras (companions or comrades) are in greater danger than any other organization," he says ...

.. Irma Villanueva .. told Radio Progreso how she had been arrested at a recent demonstration and then raped by four policemen. One of the rapists implied they were punishing Villanueva for her political activity .... Honduran Feminists in Resistance, a group formed immediately after the coup, reported .. on September 3 that they had documented 19 cases of rape committed by Honduran police ...

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6518