Police officers subjected him to harassment in the torture room in the DNIC

MONDAY, 21 DECEMBER 2009 14:19 DINA MEZA

Yovany Emerson Martinez

A torture cell functions in the National Crime Investigation Squad, DNIC, according to the account of a victim who managed to survive after he pulled out a nail, was beaten up in  different parts of the body, besides putting a hood with pepper spray and strong light against his eyes to take away his vision, as in the terrible years of the National Bureau of Investigation, DNI.

About 20 soldiers entered the home of Emerson Martinez on November 28th  in a  neighbourhood in Tegucigalpa, a day before the spurious elections and proceeded to quill to his wife who is seven months pregnant, to her parents and two children who are  seven and eight years old , who were in the house, all were placed in the room, while the soldiers came to search and seize  money, his  bank card, cell phone papers, including the affected's property .

Emerson is a young leader of the National Resistance Front who coordinated the Security and Discipline Committee and joined the actions that the organization carried out since June 28th  when military forcibly took   the country after raiding  constitutional President Manuel Zelaya Rosales' home , as part of the actions of the coup against him.

Martinez noted that he managed to survive, yet his house is guarded by two officers who remain in the DNIC motorcycles without license plates and the fear of meeting this time with death, does not even go to the grocery store to buy because they can kill him and get away with it by passing his murder as an act of common criminals or involved in drug trafficking to justify the action.

The action was November 28 in conjunction with DNIC policemen who used five vehicles for the operation, three car tourism type, a Toyota double cabin with no license plates and a patrol of that body of research to which they covered the number and had no plates.

He said that to force him into the patrol they put a hood with pepper spray on his head that caused his skin to burn to the point that he thought it was going to  fall out of his face.
I went to the DNIC of Villa Adela, where I got all kinds of humiliation and torture, they took  a nail out of my finger with a concrete club, beating me with a particular club, they hit me in the fingers and the side while I was asked who were the  young resistance leaders, showing me their photos, and asked me about   explosives being placed  in different parts of the capital,  he pointed  out that his torturers were five police officers of that entity.

"They never took off their hoods until they stopped beating me, the one who pulled out my nail did not remove his hood and in the torture room there was another young man  whom I know and who is also a  leader of the resistance, his family told methat  to him it went far  worse than me, torture was applied to him in  the most terrible ways, " he said.

For Emerson, that was one of the worst experiences that happened in his life, the fear that  his life is at risk puts his family  in  distress, who have also been threatened by these police officers, "I am under threat, they're chasing me  in motorcycles and cars without license plates, I do not know with what intentions, because from the moment I was left free it is because there is nothing I  owe them, so I do not know with what intentions they  have continued surveillance in my house where you get two agents of the DNI on motorbikes without number plates, I  never had a problem with  law nor have I been in a gang  so  that this happens to me . "

The agents took out the nail DNIC with a metal pole

His arbitrary detention could never  be found in books of detainees from the DNIC, he remained as disappeared, when human rights organizations asked for him they  were shown the cells which obviously were  not the torture cells, for they are located on another floor. To reach it you have to climb stairs, but since they are  hooded detainees can not see the road.

Along with the repression against him and his family he  must face the trauma that  this situation has left especially in the two small children, "they can not see a military because they are afraid, have been wetting the bed, following of terror, can not sleep at night because if they hear a noise they become very frightened, my family is very upset because we are seeing how people are disappearing. "

Emerson's  assessment of this situation is that the de facto government through law enforcement seeks to lower the resistance's moral .

On June 28th when the coup happened,  I joined the actions against the coup, although at first I disliked President Zelaya because I was with Pepe when he won the election, but after the reforms I  was convinced I was doing right and was willing to go to vote in the fourth ballot.

But little information circulating about the coup has  generated outrage and pain because he loves his country and was identified with resistance.
Hence the need, in his view, of the National Constituent Assembly, which is the gateway to several changes that Honduras needs, including the elimination of the Armed Forces, since they are  unnecessary and constitute  an unnecessary expense to the country, a civilian police but formed with human rights and principles, not a police force that tortures people.

For Emerson there  are the young who must integrate the National Constituent Assembly because they are leaders in the barrios and colonias, those who police  kills and disappears. "The Constituent Assembly will ask for  the blood of martyrs like Isis Obed, Wendy, Peter Magdiel, all were  young and their blood will not go unpunished."

The DNIC was created by the pressure of Honduran society and especially human rights organizations for the dismantling of the National Bureau of Investigation in charge of torturers who were responsible for torturing hundreds of people who passed by that state agency, many failed to get out alive and are part of the over 184 missing in the 80's  in Honduras.

But in the DNIC there  were slowly slipping torturers and human rights violators who were trained at the School of the Americas to execute different forms of torture, applied to the detainees. Today there is not much difference between the dreaded agents investigating the 80s and now.

Restructuring is urgently needed  and the police clearance is not meeting the objectives for which it was created but is simply an extension of the repressive ID, thereby violating the right to personal integrity as arriving detainees .