Damning Statistics on the Police

The Honduran government held a press conference this weekend and gave out copies of the Human Rights report that Honduras filed with the UN this week. It has some damning statistics about how little crime is investigated in Honduras, and therefore why no criminals ever get caught. Remember that these are supposedly the numbers Honduras submitted; they are government sanctioned.

The government report said first that 80% of all crimes are never reported in Honduras. They then said that of those 20% of crimes that are reported, a further 81% are not investigated by the police. That means that only 3.8% of all of the crimes that happen in Honduras are even investigated by the police! The report goes on to state that the police also fail to carry out arrest warrants, that 80% of the arrest warrants issued are never executed by the police! One wonders what they are so busily doing that they can't do their job.

The same report asserts that Honduras has made progress or completed all 129 items in the November, 2010 as part of its Universal Periodic Exam. This includes resolving the case of the dismissed judges mentioned in the previous post. Amnesty International called them on obfuscating their position on the judges in their presentation to the UN this week (at about 18:30 into the video of the session). Almost every comment on the Honduran government's position paper mentioned the lack of any proposal to deal with the incredible level of impunity demonstrated above.

Today, Tiempo reports that the Asociación de Jueces por la Democracia demands Ana Pineda, Honduras's Human Rights minister, step down because she's been ineffective since she assumed office last November. She has not been able to moderate the human rights violations that continue to occur in Honduras.

"Minister Pineda should resign if she has dignity. The death of the teacher (on Friday in Tegucigalpa) is caused by the repression ordered by the government of Porfirio Lobo Sosa.....Minister Pineda is not being realistic. There are serious indications that the government of Honduras has done nothing,"

said the AJD spokesperson.

What it boils down to, is that Ana Pineda talks a good line when it comes to human rights. She's pushed changes in laws, supposedly established a hate crimes investigative unit in the police, and called on Honduran society to be more tolerant of gays, lesbians, and transvestites after the US Embassy issued a statement warning Honduras on its continued ignoring of these hate crimes.

But nothing has changed in Honduras, as the above crime statistics demonstrate. There has been no improvement in the actual lived experience of Hondurans when it comes to the human rights situations that Pineda claims to have resolved. There's still no investigation of hate crimes against the press, or LGBT people. She hasn't even spoken about the problem with paramilitary mercenaries imported by the land owners in Honduras, widely acknowledged as responsible for the majority of the deaths in the Bajo Aguan.

Its all talk; there's no action; Honduras may as well not have an human rights minister for all the effect her office has had on Hondurans.

Those statistics represent lawlessness, impunity. Until that situation begins to improve, all the fine words of the Honduran Human Rights minister mean nothing.

Dismissed Judges Get a Hearing

On Friday, March 25, the Honduran judges dismissed by the Supreme Court over coup related statements, will get a hearing before the Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH), the OAS's human rights body. Giving testimony in the case will be the Asociación de Jueces por la Democracia (AJD) and the Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional (CEJIL) as well as representatives of the Lobo Sosa government.

The hearing is scheduled for 11:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. local time in Washington, D.C. You can watch the hearings live on the OAS website here. Afterwards, the video of the hearing will be posted to their website here.

Human rights in Honduras: IAHCR expresses "deep concern"

The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHCR, CIDH in Spanish) has just issued a press release following its visit this week to Honduras. The summary: the news is not good:

In concluding its visit, the Commission expresses its deep concern over the continuation of human rights violations in the context of the coup d’état that took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009.

Especially troubling to the IAHCR were the reprisals against judges who opposed the coup d'Etat, reprisals that have taken place during the administration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and that demonstrate that his administration has not advanced from the repression of the de facto regime, but continues it:

Of particular concern are the acts of harassment directed against judges who participated in activities against the coup d’état. The Commission met with members of the Association of Judges for Democracy who were dismissed from their posts by the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ). Notwithstanding the formal reasons that could be argued by the Supreme Court, the reasons that motivated the process and the final decision are undoubtedly linked to participation in anti-coup demonstrations or to having expressed an opinion against the coup d’état. The inter-American human rights system has repeatedly underscored the central role of the judiciary in the functioning of a democratic system. It is unacceptable that those persons in charge of administering justice who were opposed to the democratic rupture would face accusations and dismissals for defending democracy. The IACHR urgently calls for a reversal of this situation that seriously undermines the rule of law [emphasis added].

The Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) comes in for pointed criticism for its complicity in not pursuing cases against human rights violations, creating impunity for those responsible:

The Commission was able to verify that impunity for human rights violations continues, both in terms of violations verified by the IACHR and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and those that continue to occur. ... The generalized impunity for human rights violations is facilitated by decisions of the CSJ that weaken the rule of law. In addition to the CSJ’s disputed role during the coup d’état, it subsequently decided, on the one hand, to dismiss charges against the members of the military accused of participating in the coup and, on the other, to fire judges and magistrates who sought to prevent the coup through democratic means. [emphasis added]

The IACHR notes that threats continue under the Lobo Sosa administration against those who are active in protesting the coup and its aftermath:

The IACHR also received information on the threats and acts of harassment that human rights defenders, journalists, communicators, teachers, and members of the Resistance have received. A number of teachers have been subject to threats and harassment because of their activity against the coup d’état. The Commission also received information about threats and attacks directed against journalists to keep them from continuing to do their jobs.

The IAHCR underscored that assassinations of journalists and activists are not credibly explained away as a consequence of some sort of generalized Honduran tendency toward violence:

Without prejudice to the high rate of criminality that in general exists in Honduras, the IACHR believes that the complaints received could correspond to the same pattern of violence that the IACHR reported in Honduras: Human Rights and the Coup d’État, published on January 20, 2010.

The IAHCR noted the continuing pattern of human rights violations against social sectors that have been marginalized since the coup d'Etat, in many cases losing concrete advances made under the Zelaya administration:

Finally, the IACHR would like to state that human rights violations particularly affect those sectors of the population that have been marginalized historically and are most vulnerable, such as children, the LGTB community, women, and indigenous and Garifuna peoples.

The unwarranted dismissals of members of the Association of Judges for Democracy, who are currently staging a hunger strike, have received no attention in the mainstream English language press. The assassinations of journalists have been treated in the English-language press as either an ambiguous case of "violence" by "both sides" in the struggle for Honduran democracy, or even possibly simply due to that generalized Honduran culture of violence that is stated repeatedly and thus presumed. The continuing targeted assassinations of members of the Resistance and their family members, and of environmental activists; threats against anti-mining activists, and slurs against those Roman Catholic clergy who have remained faithful to the call to serve the poor; these incidents are so numerous that even those of us monitoring the situation cannot possibly write about them all.

No, the coup is not behind us. It remains in the hovering shadow of impunity that the authorities in Honduras cast over those who are responsible for the continued violence directed at activists and those who dare to speak out about violations of fundamental rights, and dare to advocate for greater participation in governance by all the people.