THE COUP D'ETAT, ITS INHERITORS & THE CRIMINALIZATION OF SOCIAL PROTEST

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Posted by Rights Action Team | 0 comments

BELOW: 
* Letter from Miriam Miranda, recently freed Garífuna community leader, illegally captured and wounded yesterday 
* Action Needed  --  Teachers still detained, on trumped up charges

 

Yesterday I was captured in a selective way by agents of the Ministry of security in the middle of a protest around the Garífuna community Triunfo de la Cruz. In the process of being arrested they shot several tear-gas bombs at me which hit me in the abdomen, causing burns on my stomach, afterwards I was assaulted and as the police beat me they cursed with racial insults.

The operation, directed by Sub-Commissioner Víctor Sánchez Bonilla, the one who in the midst of the crowd pointed me out to his subordinates to be the only own captured amongst all the people, demonstrates the strategy by the repressive forces of focus on social movement leaders as military objectives.

It is worth mentioning that upon being captured they took me directly to the Tela jail cell without completing requirements, without medical attention for the burns and the poisoning that I suffered from the tear gas bombs. It wasn't until two and a half hours later that they read me my rights without telling me what they were accusing me of. Later on the Judge on shift informed me that they were accusing me of sedition.

In Honduras the chaos by which the country was subsumed due to the 2009 coup d'etat perpetrated by the judicial and legislative powers and the armed forces, under the instructions of the U.S. right wing and of course the Pentagon, continues.

Despite the plastic smiles of state functionaries and their eagerness to achieve international recognition, the criminalization of social protest has sharpened with the regime of Porfirio Lobo, who with his sinister ways discredits his administration in the eyes of human rights organization.

Thanks to the solidarity and international pressure, pressure from the Garífuna community and of Hondurans conscious of the current crisis, they conceded me "provisional" freedom. The operators of justice of Honduras under pressure saw themselves obliged to carry out their duty.

Nonetheless in the jails of the country are detained countless political prisoners, as is the case of the 18 teachers who in this moment are held by the prison in the capital of the republic.

The intensification of the violence against the popular resistance is part of the methods of security dictated by the Colombian boss Alvaro Uribe, advisor in repression, who a few weeks ago announced a conference in El Salvador about "democratic decurity," to which Mr. Porfirio Lobo and his dolphin Oscar Álvarez punctually agreed. The colombianization of Central America is reaffirmed by the the Mérida Initiative and the militarization that we suffer.

In the midst of the international year of "Afro-descendants," the Garífuna of Honduras are suffering an accelerated expulsion from our territories that we have inhabited for 214 años. At the same time some Afro-righ organizations have allied wtih the repressor regime and are trying to celebrate the territorial evictions happening as much in Africa as in Latin America through a supposed world summit of Afro-descendants that serves as an instrument and make-up for the violence of the current government and its neo-liberal policies.

Through the Assembly of the Peoples of the Land and Sea, carried out in February of this year in the community Durugubuti Beibe, the indigenous and black peoples of Honduras reaffirm the defense of our territory, the right to autonomy, the respect for the right to consultation and the immediate suspension of the construction of the hydroelectric dams in the Patuca river: a death sentence for the Tawahka people and the coutnry.

Thank you very much once again to international solidarity and the movement of all of us, what happened yesterday demonstrates that prompt actions achieve positive results.

For a free, pluri-cultural, democratic, participatory, anti-militarist, anti-racist and anti-patriarchal Honduras, NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY NOW!

Written by: 

Miriam Miranda, General Coordinator, National Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH)

Take action address: 

 

Jorge Alberto Rivera Avilés 
President of the Supreme Court 
T: (504) 2269-3000, 2269-3069 
cedij@poderjudicial.gob.hn

Luis Alberto Rubí 
Attorney General of the Republic 
F: (504) 2221-5667 
T: (504) 2221-5670, 2221-3099 
lrubi@mp.hnsuazog@mp.hn

TEACHER'S NAMES:

Jose Martin Suazo Sandoval 
Jose Francisco Zelaya Ramos 
Denis Nuñez Boherques 
Andres Adalid Romero Padilla 
Donaldo Molina 
Jose Erasmo Chinchilla Melgar 
Jose Rolando Servellon Bonilla 
Marco Antonio Melgar 
Edgar Cobos Gutierrez 
Leaven Arraya 
Walter Urbina Mencia 
Jose Alex Martinez 
Elvis Rolando Guillen Zalaya 
Wendy Jamileth Mendez Ocampos 
Maria Auziliadora Espinosa Chavarria 
Linda Melina Guillen 
Ingrid Lizeth Sierra Mendez 
Nuria Evelin Verduzco Avendaño

What to do?: 

Calls needed: TUESDAY, 9 AM, Hearing for 18 teachers detained last Friday

On Tuesday, March 29, at 9 am (local time in Honduras), the case of the 18 teachers (who were detained last Friday, March 25th) will be held in the Supreme Court. The state wants to charge them with illicit protesting & sedition. Lawyer Benedicto Santos that works with the magisterial colleges to which all teachers are members, will be representing the teachers who have been held at the National Penitentiary since last Friday.

The names of the teachers are below. There are 5 women and 13 men.  The underage youth detained, as far as I know, have been released.

Phone calls are really needed for this case as the Pepe Lobo regime are again criminalizing the teachers that take to the street to defend public education against the ongoing threat of privatization.

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