HONDURAS: Democracy cannot be built on top of Impunity – Adolfo Perez Esquivel
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International Commission of Truth Commissioners arrive in Honduras
Tegucigalpa. The Commissioners of the Commission of Truth (Comisión de Verdad – CDV – in Spanish) have arrived in Honduras to accompany the information collecting work of in-country staff, hold bilateral meetingsinternational institutions, and meet with the Supreme Court of Honduras in order to better understand their versions of events in Honduras since the Coup d’État on June 28, 2009.
Honduras: the Human Rights Emergency Continues
Below is a summary of the human rights violations that took place on Wednesday, March 30th across Honduras during the day-long national civic strike.
Open Letter in Support of the Commission of Truth signed by 127 organizations
In March and April, the Commission of Truth is sending mobile teams throughout the county to collect new testimony and update over 2000 cases already documented by human rights organizations. The Honduras Accompaniment Project is coordinating international accompaniment for the Commission mobile teams and offices in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula.
1980s World Court suit against US may be refiled
President Daniel Ortega stated on March 10 that Nicaragua reserves the right to reopen its 1980s lawsuit against the United States before the International Court of Justice at The Hague (World Court). The US did not recognize and never complied with the Court’s 1986 ruling that it was illegal for the US to mine the harbor at the Port of Corinto and to prosecute the Contra War to overthrow the Sandinista Revolution. The World Court ordered the US to pay reparations, estimated at that time to be US$17 billion. Ortega said that in today’s dollars that would be US$58 billion.
Honduras Update, March 18th 2:00PM: One teacher has died in hospital in Tegucigalpa as a result of injuries following police repression
Ilse Ivania Velázquez Rodriquez, a teacher who was allegedly hit in the head with a projectile tear gas canister fired by police then struck by a vehicle, has died in Hospital Escuela in Tegucigalpa as a result of her injuries. Ilse Ivania was peacefully participating in a protest including representatives of teachers unions, parents of school-aged children, primary, secondary and post-secondary students, popular organizations and members of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP).
Honduras Update: Police and Military pursue citizens in the street and seriously injure a woman with police vehicle
The Honduran Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared just released this statement that following the violent eviction of teachers from the National Teacher’s Pension Institute (Inprema) police and military are pursuing protesters in the street with tear gas and a tank with some kind of orange coloured chemical, which they believe has two functions: to overwhelm protesters with the toxins in the gas and to identify them with the orange colour so that they can be apprehended even after running away.
Honduras Accompaniment Project Update: Police repress protesters across the country
As this is being written, at 11:00 AM on March 18, 2011, police and military are violently evicting teachers from the National Teacher’s Pension Institute (INPREMA), which they have been occupying for two weeks protesting the new General Education Law, which teacher’s associations believe to be a legal mechanism to move towards the privatization of all levels of education in Honduras, and demanding the government pay a debt of approximately 1,500 million lempiras (approx. 80 million USD) which it owes the pension fund.