Strangers in unlicensed vehicles persecuting leaders from Movement of Women for Peace Visitación Padilla

by Dina Meza

In two vehicles without license plates and tinted windows, strangers chased Gladys Lanza, National Coordinator, and Merly Eguiguren Coordinator of Organization of the Movement of Women for Peace Visitation Padilla, after they left the facilities of  Channel 36, on Monday May 10, where they had participated in a program where they discussed domestic violence in Honduras and the case of journalist Armando Villanueva.

The Movement Visitación Padilla accompanies Magda Flores  in her quest for justice before the complaint that she has done denouncing the violence she has suffered for five years by journalist Armando Villanueva,  whom she  denounced last  Friday because of new episodes. See story on case .

Gladys Lanza denounced to defensoresenlinea.com that when she and Eguigure left   channel 36, a white minibus was parked outside the media's facilities and when they got inside  the vehicle that would take them to their homes, that car  followed them  a long way.
 

We thought we had lost it, but soon another car followed us, that is to persecute us they used two cars, this puts at risk our lives, she said.
 

Gladys Lanza has been the victim of constant harassment since the coup against the people of Honduras and President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, on June 28,  2009.
 

Cars without license plates prowl around her home and firing is  made late at night or at dawn near the gate of her house. At Easter a man who used two cars was vigilant and even drove the car on the sidewalk of Lanza's house, "I thought he would shoot me at that moment"  she said  while she stated that she  does not know how she is telling the story.
 

 Last July, Lanza reported to the Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, COFADEH, that she was  harassed by Billy Joya, a member of the Death Squad 3-16, during the 1980's, during  the coup the security advisor of  dictator Roberto Micheletti and during the current regime has been denounced for engaging in repressive actions in the Lower Aguan against peasants pf the Aguán Unified Movement. See Lanza's complaint to COFADEH.
 

The IACHR requested to take necessary measures to ensure the life and physical integrity of Lanza through the extension  decided on July 24, 2009.  On October 05, 2009, these   measures were agreed on at the Ministry of Security, but not implemented, a new meeting for them to be put into practice took place onApril 21  2010, but there is no indication  that this State agency  fulfills its responsibility. The beneficiary asked patrols in the streets around her home and in the headquarters of the  Visitación Padilla Women's Movement ,which  is still pending to be done.
 

Meanwhile, Merly Eguiguren was the subject of an illegal detention on November 26 after leaving a restaurant for dinner.Police captured her and took her to  the El Manchén police station, then sent her to the Metropolitan Police where she was put to a cell and released until the next day after eight at night, by national and international pressure. See background case


 In a communiqué sent to the State of Honduras, on  July 03 2009, "the IACHR also reiterated that, with  regard to the provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights  all necessary measures should be adopted to ensure the life and physical integrity of human rights defenders. "
 

However measures have not been taken, instead  defenders and human rights in the country have been subject to threats, persecution, imprisonment and harassment, which not only violates the  resolution of the IACHR, but the Declaration on Human Right Defenders adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 09 1998. Defenders Declaration :


Journalist Nahum Palacios had precautionary measures granted by the IACHR, but the State of Honduras  never implemented them, the constant threats he would be subject to didn't  move the Ministry of Security, which  is responsible for implementing them and  strangers ended up killing him on Sunday March 14th.  The criminals inferred him  about 28 shots from AK-47 before reaching his home in the neighborhood of Los Pinos Tocoa in the department of Colon, when he was driving his vehicle. Palacios was with another person who was seriously injured.  He was  Director of  Aguán's Channel 5.
 

 In Honduras there are more than 150 people with these measures, but the lack of accountability by the State keeps   many of them at risk, which is why  the COFADEH has been documenting the IACHR on these facts.

Source: http://www.defensoresenlinea.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=735:desconocidos-en-vehiculos-sin-placas-persiguen-a-dirigentas-de-visitacion-padilla&catid=81:muj&Itemid=197