Groups condemn killings of journalists in Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

Groups condemn killings of journalists in Honduras
April 2, 2010 -- Updated 1100 GMT (1900 HKT)



Family and friends of murdered journalist Joseph Hernandez
Ochoa protest in front of the U.S. embassy in last month.

(CNN) -- Honduras suffered nine months of political turmoil after a military-led coup removed the elected president. Now, it joins Mexico, riddled with drug violence, as the deadliest place for journalists working in the Western hemisphere.

The recent killings of five Honduran journalists have spurred outrage from human rights groups, who say the violence has led to widespread self-censorship in the local media.

~snip~
Jose Bayardo Mairena and Manuel Juarez, journalists for radio stations Excelsior and Super 10, were attacked Friday while driving from Catacamas and Juticalpa, north of the capital Tegucigalpa, CPJ said citing local news reports.

Unidentified gunmen in a vehicle pulled alongside the journalists' car and fired at least 26 times. Mairena died at the scene; Juarez died later in a hospital in Juticalpa.

~snip~
Journalists are among the victims of a wave of terror in Honduras since the June 29 coup.

Three Honduran political activists opposed to the coup were slain last month, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The panel has also reported kidnappings, arbitrary detentions, torture, sexual violations and illegal raids against members of the political resistance.

More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/04/02/honduras.journalist.killings.condemned/index.html

[EFerrari]

1. I sent this article to Barbara Boxer's campaign.

She has been less than stellar on LatAm, sorry to say. Maybe her election wouldn't be so close if she looked into these stories.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Sorry to hear Barbara Boxer's not keeping informed on LatAm. Your message to her should help.

Too many of our Congresscritters have fallen for the same crap fed the general public, or maybe they're afraid it's too huge a job trying to get everyone informed, actually educated on the facts of our national history with every country, all the many millions of people living not in our backyard, but in the same hemisphere.

I always liked her, didn't know she has taken the path of least resistance here.

Didn't you mention you shop at the same grocery store once? That would give some people a start standing on exactly the very same piece of store floor with someone like Senator Boxer. ("Wow, Senator, you eat groceries, too?")

She should be shamed into doing the right thing on Latin America. Only intelligence and self-respect and respect for others separates Democrats from Republicans!

[Judi Lynn]

3. The Sham Elections in Honduras

The Sham Elections in Honduras
By Laura Carlsen
December 14, 2009

Angel Salgado lay brain-dead at the public teaching hospital the day I arrived in Tegucigalpa. On the eve of the November 29 elections, which the Honduran (and world) press later hailed as peaceful and fair, the army shot him in the head for accidentally passing one of the many military checkpoints set up around the city.

On December 2 Angel died, joining scores of other victims of the Honduran coup regime. That same day, the Honduran Congress--emboldened by its public relations victory in the elections--voted against reinstating the elected president, Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from office on June 28 after serving for three and a half years. The vote confirmed Latin America's first successful twenty-first-century coup, and crowned the failure of US diplomacy to restore constitutional order in the impoverished Central American nation.

Honduran National Party candidate Porfirio Lobo won handily November 29 over the runner-up from the badly divided Liberal Party. Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela immediately recognized Lobo as the elected president, hailing the elections as "a significant step in Honduras' return to the democratic and constitutional order after the 28 June coup." The country's coup-controlled press trumpeted the vote as proof that democracy was alive and well in Honduras. The international press endorsed the "generally peaceful" elections, with the New York Times calling them "clean and fair."

The Honduran elections were far from free, fair or peaceful. The coup regime rejected all diplomatic attempts to restore the nation's democracy before holding elections, keeping the constitutional president trapped behind barricades in the Brazilian Embassy. It then pretended that the elections themselves constituted a return to democratic order.

The coup's dictatorial decrees restricting freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of movement held the nation in a virtual state of siege in the weeks prior to the elections. Over forty registered candidates resigned in protest. Members of the resistance movement were harassed, beaten and detained. In San Pedro Sula, an election-day march was brutally repressed.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091221/carlsen

[naaman fletcher]

4. this can't be true

According to the Chavezistas here the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is a fascist front group.