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Amnesty reports human rights violations in Honduras

More than 350 violent deaths of children and young people were reported during the year.

By IRENE O’BRIEN
‘Governments are betraying their promise of a world order based on human rights and are pursuing a dangerous new agenda’. This is according to Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan. Speaking at the launch of the organization’s 2005’s annual report on May 25th, Ms Khan outlined their assessment of global human rights for 2004.

The report addresses specific human rights issues concerning Amnesty International in 149 countries. It also reflects on the organization’s activities during the year to promote human rights and to campaign against specific abuses of these rights.

Amnesty observe this new ‘agenda’, combined with ‘the indifference and paralysis of the international community’, as failing ‘countless thousands of people in humanitarian crises and forgotten conflicts throughout 2004’.

“The televised beheading of captives in Iraq, the taking of over a thousand people hostage including hundreds of children in a school in Beslan and the massacre of hundreds of commuters in Madrid shocked the world. Yet governments are failing to confront their lack of success in addressing terrorism, persisting with failed but politically-convenient strategies. Four years after 9/11, the promise to make the world a safer place remains hollow,” said The Secretary General.

The report addresses all relevant countries individually summarizing their individual human rights issues. In relation to Honduras the report referred to the many public protests that were held against state corruption, illegal logging and other socio-economic issues. The Public Ministry’s dropping of corruption charges against former President Rafael Callejas in November created a crisis in the ministry. Prosecutors involved were dismissed or suspended and demanding in turn the removal of the Attorney General.

Honduras’ specific human rights issues cited in the document are broken down as follows:

Children and young people:
The authorities again failed to take effective measures to prevent or investigate killings of children and young people. More than 350 violent deaths of children and young people were reported during the year. Although progress was made in investigating a small number of cases, only three convictions resulted.

The anti-gang law introduced in 2003 to deal with crimes committed by youth gangs, which was criticized by human rights groups for severely restricting the right to freedom of association, reportedly led to the arrest of some 1,500 alleged gang members, often simply for having tattoos. The majority of those arrested had not been charged or tried by the end of the year.
In an incident in San Pedro Sula Prison in May, 104 young people were killed after a fire broke out in a cell. All the dead and injured were members of the Salvatrucha gang who remained locked in their cells during the fire. A formal complaint for negligent homicide was presented against the then director of the prison, but the charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.

Fifty-one people, including police officers, soldiers and prisoners, were indicted for their involvement in the deaths of 68 people, including 61 imprisoned members of the M-18 gang, at El Porvenir prison in April 2003. According to the prosecution, the killings were planned by the authorities in the context of a dispute over the supply of drugs within the prison. In December the man who was Prison Director at the time of the incident was found guilty of the deaths; he was to be sentenced in February 2005. Trials were pending for the other accused.

Human rights defenders
Members of human rights organizations faced harassment and intimidation. Andrés Pavón Murillo, President of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (known by its Spanish acronym CODEH), received threatening phone calls and was verbally attacked on television and radio after alleging that members of the government were implicated in human rights violations, negligence and denial of justice following the fire at San Pedro Sula prison in May. Staff at the non-governmental Centre for the Prevention, Rehabilitation and Treatment of Victims of Torture (CPTRT) received death threats in the context of a break-in at their offices.

Despite reports that two of those responsible for the murder of journalist Germán Antonio Rivas in November 2003 had been identified, the authorities failed to apprehend them.

Indigenous people
Indigenous activists were subjected to threats and harassment and two were held as political prisoners.

In May, leaders of the Regional Coordination of Popular Resistance (CRRP) and the Civic Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations (COPINH) in the department of Intibucá were harassed and received death threats. CRRP leader José Idalecio Murillo and seven members of his family escaped unhurt when four men fired shots at their home.

Despite evidence of serious procedural irregularities, an appeal court confirmed the 25-year prison sentence imposed on brothers and COPINH leaders Marcelino and Leonardo Miranda, both of whom were repeatedly tortured in pre-trial detention in 2003. However, in November an appeal to the Supreme Court was upheld and the case was referred back to the Santa Rosa de Copán appeal court. AI was concerned that the two did not receive a fair trial and that the charges against them had been filed in order to punish them for their human rights work.