Rights Action - March 29, 2011
Honduras Military-backed Regime Watch
HONDURAS: Miriam Miranda is freed, due to great citizen pressure and activism
THE COUP D'ETAT, ITS INHERITORS & THE CRIMINALIZATION OF SOCIAL PROTEST
By Miriam Miranda
(Miriam Miranda, intentionally fired at with a tear-gas canister, and then singled out and illegally detained, March 28, 2011, in Triunfo de la Cruz, a Garifuna village, North-coast of Honduras)
(After being denied medical attention for hours, the regime authorities finally, under great national and international human rights pressure, finally took Miriam Miranda to a hospital, under regime custody.)
BELOW:
* Letter from Miriam Miranda, recently freed Garífuna community leader, illegally captured and wounded yesterday
* Action Needed -- Teachers still detained, on trumped up charges
* Please re-post and distribute this information
* To get on/ off Rights Action's listserv: www.rightsaction.org
* What to do: see below
FOR MORE INFORMATION, ENGLISH & ESPANOL
Annie Bird, annie@rightsaction.org
Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org
Karen Spring, in Tegucigalpa, spring.kj@gmail.com, 011 [504] 9507-3835
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HONDURAS: THE COUP D'ETAT, ITS INHERITORS AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF SOCIAL PROTEST
By Miriam Miranda, MARCH 29, 2011
http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com/2011/03/letter-from-miriam-miranda-recently.html
(Translated by Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle)
Miriam Miranda writes:
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!
La Ceiba, March 29th, 2011
Miriam Miranda
General Coordinator
National Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH)
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From: presente-honduras-bounces+info=rightsaction.org@lists.mayfirst.org
On Behalf Of Karen Spring
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 12:38 AM
To: Presente Honduras
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.
CALLS NEEDED:
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.hn, suazog@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
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, ENGLISH & ESPANOL
Annie Bird, Washington DC, annie@rightsaction.org
Grahame Russell, Connecticut, info@rightsaction.org
Karen Spring, Rights Action, in Tegucigalpa, spring.kj@gmail.com, 011 [504] 9507-3835
Please forward this information and re-post
To get on/off Rights Action's listserv: www.rightsaction.org