By: Mica Rosenberg and Gustavo Palencia, Reuters, October 19, 2009
Honduras’ de facto government relaxed restrictions on protests and opposition media on Monday as crisis talks dragged into a third week with no agreement on toppled President Manuel Zelaya’s return to power. Micheletti promised to lift the emergency measures on October 5 after strong international criticism, but the decree was only finally reversed in the official gazette on Monday.
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Honduras: Stop blocking human rights inquiries
By: World Press, October 19, 2009
The international community should strongly back the efforts of prosecutors in the human rights unit of the Honduras Attorney General’s office to investigate army and police abuses in Honduras and to overturn a decree by the de facto government that severely restricts freedoms of speech and assembly, Human Rights Watch said. The organization also called on the international community to oppose any amnesty for human rights violations as part of the transition back to democratic rule.
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Delegation probes human rights abuses in Honduras
By: Google News, October 18, 2009
A delegation from the Organization of American States arrived to look into possible human rights violations in Honduras since the June 28 coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya. The three-member delegation, whose identities are kept secret for security reasons, will for two weeks meet with top officials of interim leader Roberto Micheletti’s administration and those opposing the coup, a human rights official said.
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Honduras talks on despite deadlines
By: Al Jazeera, October 17, 2009
Talks to resolve Honduras’s political crisis have continued past the deadline with the issue of ousted president Manuel Zelaya returning to office still hampering progress. Roberto Micheletti, the de facto leader who removed Zelaya from office, was still resisting international pressure on Friday to reinstate him.
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The young Honduran revolution
By: Upside Down World, October 15, 2009
In this documentary, Johannes Wilm shows his conversations with students fighting against the military coup in Honduras. Wilm went to Honduras to film the opposition to the coup in early August 2009, and he happened to be there on the 5th of August, when police clashed with 3000 students in the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH).
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PROTEST AND REPRESSION IN IRAN
Iranian-American academic gets 12 years for unrest
By: Nasser Karimi, AP, October 20, 2009 A special court formed after Iran’s post-election unrest has convicted an Iranian-American academic and sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison, state media said Tuesday. Kian Tajbakhsh was the only American in an ongoing mass trial of alleged Iranian opposition members and reportedly faced charges including espionage, contacting foreign agents and acting against Iran’s national security. Washington has repeatedly denounced Tajbaksh’s arrest. Read full article… Tehran’s Azad University rises against Iran’s coup government Press group calls for pressure on Iran to free jailed journalists Iran: Remembering friends who remain behind bars Iran: Rename the streets for Neda Iran: Maziar Bahari released Iran cleric warns against planned opposition rally Iran talks- Shadows of Iraq, legitimacy of regime Interview with an Iranian blogger
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AFRICA
Politically motivated abuse rampant in Zimbabwe
By: Zim Online, October 19, 2009 The European Union (EU) presidency, Sweden, has taken a swipe at Zimbabwe’s human rights record, saying politically motivated abuse still exists in the southern African country. The EU presidency, in a statement at the weekend, also expressed deep concern about last week’s indictment and subsequent detention of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s top ally Roy Bennett. Read full article… MDC boycotts unity government Opposition official’s trial on hold in Zimbabwe MDC boycotting Zimbabwe cabinet Guinea junta lifts protest ban Guinea ministers resign over bloody rally Guinea: Military rule must end South Africans join millions worldwide in “Stand up and take action against poverty” |
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NORTH AMERICA
US: A broken health care system- real reform in jeopardy
By: Mobilize for Health Care, October 18, 2009 On September 29th in New York City, the Mobilization for Health Care for All launched a national campaign of “Patients Not Profit” sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care. We want the real “public option”: Medicare for All, a single payer plan that cuts out the profit and puts patients first. Together, through this campaign, we can turn the tide and win the fight for health care for all. Watch the video…
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CENTRAL AMERICA/CARIBBEAN
Yoani Sánchez: Virtually outspoken in Cuba
By: Cuba Study Group, October 17, 2009 Yoani Sánchez is a 34-year-old Cuban writer, editor and linguistics scholar who last week became the first blogger to win one of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes given by Columbia University for journalism that advances inter-American understanding. Her two-year-old blog, filled with personal observations and sardonic social commentary from Havana, is called Generación Y; it now gets more than 14 million page views a month, routinely inspires thousands of comments and can be read in an English version. Internet access is tightly limited in Cuba, and Ms. Sánchez has often had to play cat-and-mouse with the authorities to make her writings available, either inside Cuba or outside of it. And when the Cabot awards were announced, she was denied an exit visa to travel to New York to receive hers, a process she chronicled on her blog. Read full article… Puerto Rico: Reflections on the national strike
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By: Sam Ferguson, Truthout, October 18, 2009
Buenos Aires’ Comodoro Py judicial building is situated far from the city’s municipal core, sandwiched between the city’s busy bus terminal and the country’s main port. Long distance buses and semis go rumbling by on a 12-lane road outside. The building is a nine-story, concrete behemoth surrounded by seven-foot high, temporary, riot-control fencing. It is about three times as wide as it is high, with rickety, rusting air conditioners dotting the gray, imposing facade. Behind closed doors lining the dirty corridors of this house of justice, the largest human rights case against Argentina’s dictatorship is being investigated.
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Columbia: Indigenous peoples demand respect
By: John Catalinotto, Workers World, October 16, 2009
From Alaska to southern Chile, Indigenous people all over the Western Hemisphere demonstrated in protest on Oct. 12-the anniversary of the day Christopher Columbus’ ships landed on a Caribbean island and began to introduce all the evils of European early capitalist colonial society to this half of the world. In Colombia, more than 25,000 members of Indigenous communities went into the streets to protest against the injury to their rights and to demand respect for the cultural traditions of their peoples. The demonstrations, which were to continue until the next weekend, called for the “freeing of Mother Earth” from capitalist plundering and an end to the war in Colombia.
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Venezuela: Dissenting students ask embassies to support IACHR visit
By: El Universal, October 15, 2009
A group of Venezuelan dissenting students on Thursday appeared in the embassies of Colombia, Argentina, Panama and Chile to deliver a document seeking support for their proposal that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights pays a visit to Venezuela to ascertain alleged human rights violations. Luis Magallanes, a student at Carabobo University, said at the Colombian Embassy that they are confident that the Colombian government will make efforts to drive the IACHR visit to Venezuela.
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Media wars in Latin America
By: Ivan Briscoe, Open Democracy, October 12, 2009
Latin America is cleaving into two, with an abyss opening up in its centre. Yet it still manages to share between its polarised political segments some practical techniques in bullying and throttling. The 200 tax-inspectors sent by a left-leaning government to rummage in early September 2009 through the stationery of Argentina’s main newspaper sent shivers through the country’s press. The jackboots later that month on the stairs of Radio Globo in Honduras showed how a proper dictatorship would do the job of cutting off a media outlet, under the aegis of an impromptu state of siege.
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