Reports: Honduran Congress to deny civil liberty suspensions (Extra)
Tegucigalpa - The Honduran Congress will reject the executive decree that restricts personal freedom in the Central American country, radio stations reported Monday.
Honduras' de facto government, through a decree announced Sunday, restricted liberties in response to a call by ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya for his supporters to help him return power.
The decree authorizes police to dissolve unauthorized public meetings and demonstrations. The government banned statements violating 'peace, public order or offending human dignity' and authorized the state telecommunications agency Conatel to suspend radio and television broadcasters.
The decree will require legislative ratification because it restricts constitutional liberties.
Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS), said Monday that the measures constitute 'a sort of state of emergency' and would give a free hand to 'those who want to carry out more acts of repression.'
Legislators for the Liberal Party - the Honduran ruling party under both Zelaya and de facto Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti - and the opposition National Party would reportedly reject the decree, as would the Christian Democratic Party.
The independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) spoke out against the decree, arguing that it is counterproductive ahead of the scheduled November 29 presidential election.
Congress Speaker Jose Alfredo Saavedra and the leaders of several party factions were reportedly meeting with Micheletti to let him know they would reject the decree
The Congress calls to repeal the suspension of guarantees and Micheletti said he would consult
hace 46 mins 46 mins ago
Tegucigalpa, Sep 28 (EFE) .- The president of the Honduran Congress, Jose Alfredo Saavedra, today asked the repeal of a decree that from this weekend suspended several constitutional guarantees and the de facto ruler, Roberto Micheletti, said he will consult for make a decision.
"I will consult with the Supreme Court of Justice, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, even if there is opportunity to speak with presidential candidates (...) and make the decision most appropriate to the interests of our country that (.. .) will repeal that decree in the most opportune time, "said Micheletti.
"At the end of this week we're giving solution to this," said Micheletti, to ensure that Parliament accepted the proposal to encourage dialogue.
The de facto government on Saturday issued a decree which suspended for 45 days the freedoms of movement and expression and prohibit public gatherings, among other measures, according to Micheletti, by the call to the "insurrection" by the deposed president Manuel Zelaya.
He recalled that the decree be repealed if a Council of Ministers, the same way it was approved.
Saavedra said they made "a respectful request (...) in the sense of analyzing the possibility of leaving the effect worthless and executive decree to which reference has been made since yesterday and today."
"Everything with the aim to contribute, take this opportunity to promote dialogue in Honduran society," he added.
Covered by the decree published in the Official Gazette on Saturday and released Sunday, the government closed today Micheletti two media and prevented the march of supporters of Zelaya in Tegucigalpa and elsewhere in the country on the day on which serve three months of the coup.
Zelaya, who a week ago is at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, has strongly criticized the suspension of the rights of citizenship that prevent their supporters demonstrate for restitution in the Chair.
(AP) – 11 minutes ago
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The coup-installed government in Honduras is backing off of its increasingly desperate measures to hold onto power. Interim President Roberto Micheletti says an emergency decree restricting civil liberties for 45 days will soon be lifted. He made the statement Monday afternoon, less than a day after his government imposed the emergency order.
Supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya tried to demonstrate in the Honduran capital, but riot police surrounded them and prevented them from marching. They sat down in the street and vowed not to move until their protest was allowed.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — The coup-installed government in Honduras took increasingly desperate measures to hold onto power Monday, suspending civil liberties, silencing dissident broadcasters and facing off with hundreds of protesters in the street.
The interim government of Roberto Micheletti, who took office after a June 28 coup, banned a march in support of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and ringed the protesters with riot police.
But at a meeting in Washington, the U.S. representative to the Organization of American States called Zelaya's return "irresponsible and foolish."
The marchers, many of whom covered their mouths with tape to protest government censorship, sat down in the street and vowed not to budge until they were allowed to demonstrate.
Protest leaders insisted that thousands more Zelaya supporters were trying to join but were stopped from leaving poorer neighborhoods or from traveling from the countryside.
"There is brutal repression against the people," Zelaya told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday from the Brazilian Embassy, where he has been holed up with 60 supporters since sneaking back into the country on Sept. 21.
Protests have seen little violence so far — the government says three people have been killed since the coup, while protesters put the number at 10. But protest leader Juan Barahona said that could change.
"This mass movement is peaceful, but to the extent they repress us, fence us in and make this method useless, we have to find some other form of struggle," he said.
Authorities cited their fear of violence when they issued an emergency decree Sunday that limits civil liberties for 45 days. The decree bans unauthorized gatherings and lets police arrest people without warrants, rights guaranteed in the Honduran Constitution. It also allows authorities to shut news media for "statements that attack peace and the public order, or which offend the human dignity of public officials, or attack the law."
Government soldiers raided the offices of Radio Globo and the television station Channel 36, both critics of the Micheletti government, and silenced both. Afterward, the TV station broadcast only a test pattern.
Radio Globo employees scrambled out of an emergency exit to escape the raid that involved as many as 200 soldiers.
"They took away all the equipment," said owner Alejandro Villatoro. "This is the death of the station."
Two journalists covering the raid for Mexico's Televisa and Guatemala's Guatevision were beaten by security forces, who also took their camera, according to Guatemala's ambassador to the Organization of American States, Jorge Skinner. He asked the InterAmerican Human Rights Commission to intervene.
The OAS held an emergency meeting in Washington on Monday after Honduras expelled members of an OAS advance team trying to restart negotiations between the two sides. Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez said the team had not given advance notice of its arrival.
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley condemned the expulsion.
"I think it's time for the de facto regime to put down the shovel," he said. "With every action they keep on making the hole deeper."
Lew Amselem, the U.S. representative to the OAS, also had harsh words for Zelaya. He said returning without an agreement "serves neither the interests of the Honduran people nor those seeking the peaceful reestablishment of the democratic order in Honduras."
He added: "Those who facilitated President Zelaya's return ... have a special responsibility for the prevention of violence and the well-being of the Honduran people." He did not say to whom he was referring.
The increasingly authoritarian actions by the interim government signaled an abrupt shift in strategy after appealing for foreign support and arguing it ousted Zelaya to preserve democracy.
Only last week, Micheletti argued in a letter to the Washington Post that his government was not a coup, citing as evidence that freedom assembly was still allowed: "They do not guarantee freedom of the press, much less a respect for human rights. In Honduras, these freedoms remain intact and vibrant."
He argued that the international community will have no choice but to recognize a Nov. 29 vote — "the ultimate civil exercise of any democracy — a free and open presidential election."
Zelaya supporters noted that the emergency decree effectively outlaws any campaigning until two weeks before election day.
"If they can't campaign ... what happens then to the electoral solution?" asked protest leader Rafael Alegria.
That prospect drew criticism of the government even from conservative circles. National Party presidential candidate Porfirio Lobo said: "We will not support nor approve anything that restricts freedom of expression."
Analysts called the shift a sign that the Micheletti government is feeling increasingly threatened.
"It certainly shows that they're worried that Zelaya might be able to disrupt the government," said Heather Berkman, a Honduras expert with the New York-based Eurasia Group. "Zelaya's only recourse really is to mobilize people on the streets. I'm sure that Micheletti and the government know that and they're going to do whatever they can to prevent that."
She called it a risky move: "They're damaging their own credibility, and really hurting the economy."
And in a growing diplomatic feud, Micheletti's government on Sunday gave Brazil 10 days to turn over Zelaya for arrest or grant him asylum, presumably to remove him from Honduras. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his government "doesn't accept ultimatums from coup-plotters."
Lopez said Brazil's withdrawal of its ambassador amounted to breaking relations, meaning the Embassy no longer has diplomatic immunity and implying authorities could raid it, though Micheletti has vowed not to do so.
International law expert Michael J. Glennon at Tufts University said such a raid would violate international law.
"One country can't say to another, we're de-recognizing you, this is no longer an embassy," Glennon said. "I'm sure that that kind of subterfuge wouldn't work under international law."
Associated Press writers contributing to this report included Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa and Martha Mendoza and Catherine Shoichet in Mexico City.
"The Real Goal of the 45-Day Curfew is to Torpedo November's Electoral Process"
El Tiempo Staff Editorial
translated by Kristin Bricker
With Executive Decree PCM-M-016-2009, the dictatorial government has taken off its mask and really outdone itself by keeping Honduras and the Honduras people kidnapped through its use and abuse of the State's weapons and its desire to manipulate the Constitution and the laws of the Republic.
This executive decree, signed by the de facto head of state Micheletti in a meeting with his equally de facto cabinet, establishes a curfew for 45 consecutive days, during which practically all rights and individual freedoms are annulled, leaving the Honduran people completely defenseless before the usurpers.
From the moment this dictatorial edict went into effect, inalienable rights such as personal freedom, the right to free thought, the right to organize and meet, the right to free movement, rights to privacy in one's own home, and protections against arbitrary detentions ceased to exist in Honduras.
Honduras is at the mercy of a dictatorship that has tried to enthrone itself against the will of an entire people. Honduras is an international pariah and a State that has been kidnapped by a group of unscrupulous and adventurous politicians, military officials, businessmen, and religious kingpins who have no consciences. They maintain omnipotent power over the government in order to enjoy absolute impunity, privileges, and canonry.
As for freedom of expression, which is fundamental to human coexistence and democracy, article 73 of the Constitution of the Republic states:
Printing presses, radio and television stations, and whichever other means of emitting and broadcasting thought, as well as their components, cannot be confiscated, nor closed, nor can their work be interrupted on the grounds that they are committing a crime in transmitting their thoughts, their responsibilities under the law notwithstanding.
We cite that constitutional article for informational purposes. We know that for a dictatorial, totalitarian government, like that which holds power in Honduras, "the Constitution is pure drivel" and "can be violated as much as is necessary," according to the subculture of the political "class" that has brought our country to the point of complete political, economic, and social disaster.
Article 3.3 of executive decree PCM-M-016-2009 prohibits: "Publication in any media, spoken, written or televised, of information that offends human dignity, public officials, or criticizes the law and the government resolutions, or any style of attack against the public order and peace." All of this, naturally, is according to the dictatorial regime's criteria and in no way according to democratic mentality.
It is obvious, therefore, that with the 45-day curfew--that is, for the duration of the election campaigns--the real goal is to torpedo November's electoral process through a plan to consolidate the dictatorship's power, unmasking the de facto regime's faked determination to support the general elections at the end of the year.
This is because there cannot be an electoral campaign without individual freedoms, without the freedom of expression or transmission of thought, without the freedom of association and the freedom to hold meetings, without free transit and the right to privacy in one's own home, and without protections against arbitrary detentions. That is very clear.
Fuente:narcosphere.narconews.com
The head of congress, Jose Angel Saavedra,
met with Roberto Micheletti and Ramon Velasquez Nassar, vice president of the Congress, Antonio Rivera Callejas, Liberal Party member, and Ricardo Rodriguez, Liberal Party member, to ask that Micheletti rescind the decree issued sunday night.
The Nationalist party has come out and said they will not vote for it when it comes up for approval in Congress.
Radio Globo, broadcasting on the internet from a clandestine studio, reported a few minutes ago that the measure likely will not pass if it comes to a vote in Congress. They cited Jose Azcona as their source.
Update 2:30 PM PDT: La Tribuna reports that the Congressional leadership has met with Micheletti and asked him to rescind the decree suspending parts of the constitution. Antonio Rivera Calleja, a congressman, pointed out that the Executive branch has ways of punishing media that break the law. He said the motiviation for asking Micheletti to rescind the decree was to open a space for dialogue that the country requires.
The vice president of Congress, Ramon Velasquez Nazar, said it would be better if Micheletti rescinded the decree before sending it to Congress for approval.
Jose Angel Saavedra, president of Congress, said that they brought the proposal to the executive branch, and it was up to them to decide if they want to reform or rescind this ordinance.
"We want to foster dialog, we want to send a message to the international and national community that the management of Congress, the heads of the political parties represented in the legislature, we want to contribute to a great dialogue which is what we are hoping for," said Saavedra.
The Battle for Honduras
What happens in Honduras will be decisive for the future of all Latin America. At stake is the chance of defeating the extreme right-wing continental project to deny the impoverished majority in Latin America meaningful political participation and a decent life. Whether in government - as in the United States, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Panama – or in recalcitrant, entrenched opposition as elsewhere in the Americas, the continent's extreme right-wing elites are determined to use Honduras as a laboratory for their continental project. toni solo reports.
