Honduras: human rights violations actually news

At long last, after 100 days, a major media outlet takes a straightforward look at the violence of the coup regime. Elisabeth Malkin talked with survivors and with the human rights groups, and "balances" with only a touch of coup propaganda.

The militarized police direct their weapons against not just those who demonstrate against the coup regime, but those who might:

Since Mr. Zelaya’s return, security forces also have been rumbling through poor neighborhoods that are the base of his support. “They are going into neighborhoods in a way to intimidate people,” said Mr. Acevedo, the lawyer. In that time, the center has documented an increasing level of violence. Investigators have seen more than two dozen people with bullet wounds in hospitals, and some detainees have had their hands broken and have been burned with cigarettes, he said.

While the police and soldiers are looking for the activists who have been organizing resistance, the sweep seems to pick up anyone who gets in their way.

Yulian Lobo said her husband was arrested in the neighborhood of Villa Olímpica and accused of having a grenade. “It came out of nowhere,” she said, adding that her husband, a driver, had not been to pro-Zelaya marches.

A most welcome development in New York Times reporting. Of course, nobody's perfect:

...Mr. Micheletti lifted the decree [suspending constitutional rights] Monday.

Not so fast. The repeal supposedly doesn't take effect until published in Honduras' federal register, La Gaceta. As of the end of today, still no publication.

Update: 10:30 pm, 6 October - Olga Osiris Uclés died [Sp.] yesterday from effects of the tear gas police used against demonstrators at Radio Globo on September 30. Via Charles.


[Image at top: boy beaten by police at demonstration at the Mercado Belen in Tegucigalpa, 30 July. Photo from Via Campesina.]