Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Anti-Coup Activists in Honduras Still Facing Human Rights Abuses




Anti-Coup Activists in Honduras Still Facing Human Rights Abuses

Reports are emerging from Honduras that critics of last summer’s coup are still facing grave human rights abuses even after the election of President Porfirio Lobo last month. According to the website World War Four Report, Julio Funes Benítez, a local leader of the anti-coup National Resistance Front, was shot dead on Monday. On Friday, Hermes Reyes, a cultural worker with the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice, was abducted by three presumed paramilitary gunmen and beaten and tortured before he was released hours later. Also on Friday, assailants broke into the home of Porfirio Ponce, a vice president of the beverage workers union and a leader of the National Resistance Front. Also last week, two male and two female members of the civil resistance were kidnapped and held for three days. All four were beaten, and the women were raped. The captors reportedly said the assault was “un saludo de Pepe”—a greeting from Pepe, the nickname of President Lobo.

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