Maybe it's not a good idea to try and purge non-governmental organizations like C-Libre and FIAN after all.
It just might get you in trouble.
Today Juan Orlando Hernández met with representatives of several unnamed non-governmental organizations and his Minister of Human Rights, Justice, Government, and Decentralization, Rigoberto Chang Castillo.
Afterward, a communique read by his chief of staff, Reinaldo Sanchez, ordered a review and restructuring of the Unidad de Registro y Seguimiento de Asociaciones Civiles (URSAC), the unit that just a few days ago tried to cancel the registration of 5,429 NGOs claiming deficiencies in their filings.
The goal of the review and restructuring will be to have better control over the NGOs and to modernize the handling of NGO authorizations and the filing of required reports.
The government also walked back the cancellation of those 5429 organizations, ordering a new review of each one's files.
Sanchez noted that the government was aware of the importance of the role played by civil society and the NGOs in strengthening Honduras's democracy and diminishing economic inequality.
Clearly, someone wasn't on the same page...
Oops!
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
Honduras to Seek $1 Billion in Loans, Visit IMF.
Wilfredo Cerrato, Honduras's Finance Minister, told the assembled press on March 7 that Honduras will seek to place $1 billion in bonds in the international market in 2015, and that he would head a delegation traveling to Washington, DC later this month to learn what conditions must be met for Honduras to re-establish a borrowing agreement with the IMF, which he also hopes will be in place sometime in 2015.
The Honduran press only covered one part of this story. Can you guess which?
The international press primarily reported on the bonds story, though some did lead with the IMF trip. Cerrato told them the bond placement was specifically to convert short term high interest internal debt issued by the Honduran banks to long term, lower interest, international bonds. Two year high-interest bonds will be replaced by 10 year lower interest bonds.
This kind of short term debt was largely shunned until Roberto Micheletti Bain, head of the post-coup de facto government, was forced to make deals with Honduran banks in 2009 because no international placement of bonds was possible after the coup.
That use of Honduran banks, that benefits the upper class of Honduras which owns them, continued under Porfirio Lobo Sosa. So government debt payments went from $65.8 million per year in 2008, to a yearly debt payment of $789.6 million when Lobo Sosa left office in January 2014.
The Hernandez government projects that the 2014 debt payment will reach $930 million (!) with the borrowing it must do this year to balance the budget.
But that story is not being publicized by the Honduran press.
Instead, they chose to report only on the visit to the IMF to learn about the necessary conditions for arranging a new loan agreement. Cerrato told the press that he projected a new agreement could be signed this coming April. One wonders what that optimism is based on, since Honduras has not formally spoken to the IMF yet, and the Hernandez government has not yet begun to achieve the financial goals they set for themselves.
Honduras successfully placed $1 billion in bonds in two sales in 2013, and the proceeds from those bonds were used to pay down some of the more egregious short term loans and finance the Lobo Sosa government deficit spending for 2013. With debt service reaching nearly $1 billion by the end of this year, the Hernandez government will find itself trapped continuing to seek external financing, if it wants to avoid an austerity budget even harsher than what seems to be in the works.
The Honduran press only covered one part of this story. Can you guess which?
The international press primarily reported on the bonds story, though some did lead with the IMF trip. Cerrato told them the bond placement was specifically to convert short term high interest internal debt issued by the Honduran banks to long term, lower interest, international bonds. Two year high-interest bonds will be replaced by 10 year lower interest bonds.
This kind of short term debt was largely shunned until Roberto Micheletti Bain, head of the post-coup de facto government, was forced to make deals with Honduran banks in 2009 because no international placement of bonds was possible after the coup.
That use of Honduran banks, that benefits the upper class of Honduras which owns them, continued under Porfirio Lobo Sosa. So government debt payments went from $65.8 million per year in 2008, to a yearly debt payment of $789.6 million when Lobo Sosa left office in January 2014.
The Hernandez government projects that the 2014 debt payment will reach $930 million (!) with the borrowing it must do this year to balance the budget.
But that story is not being publicized by the Honduran press.
Instead, they chose to report only on the visit to the IMF to learn about the necessary conditions for arranging a new loan agreement. Cerrato told the press that he projected a new agreement could be signed this coming April. One wonders what that optimism is based on, since Honduras has not formally spoken to the IMF yet, and the Hernandez government has not yet begun to achieve the financial goals they set for themselves.
Honduras successfully placed $1 billion in bonds in two sales in 2013, and the proceeds from those bonds were used to pay down some of the more egregious short term loans and finance the Lobo Sosa government deficit spending for 2013. With debt service reaching nearly $1 billion by the end of this year, the Hernandez government will find itself trapped continuing to seek external financing, if it wants to avoid an austerity budget even harsher than what seems to be in the works.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
NGO Purge
On his way out of the government, Áfrico Madrid, Interior Minister under Porfirio Lobo Sosa, saw the final step in a long-brewing confrontation in which he has been engaged.
That step? abolishing his opponents-- more than 10,000 NGOs.
Friday La Gaceta published a decree revoking the legal status of 5429 NGOs. The Unidad de Registro y Seguimiento de Asociaciones Civiles (URSAC), a part of the Interior Ministry, issued the decree that revokes the permission of these NGOs to operate.
This comes slightly more than a month after Madrid revoked the legal status of another 4800 NGOs in mid January.
Honduras reportedly had about 16,000 NGOs at the start of 2013. So altogether, these two decrees succeeded in abolishing more than half of the NGOs in the country.
That makes it a little harder to figure out who this campaign was really targeting and why.
We would remind readers that back in 2010, the Honduran Congress passed a law to define the characteristics of an evangelical Christian church, declared unconstitutional in 2012, that advanced Madrid's agenda to abolish evangelical churches he felt were "fringe" groups.
According to the decree published this week, the named institutions failed to comply in some way with a previous decree 770-A-2003 regulating NGOs, which gave a 30 day window for every NGO to supply an annual activities report, a financial report, indicate its officers, and so on.
What does the abolishment of these NGOs translate to, in practice?
They can no longer sign contracts or hold bank accounts.
They are ordered to liquidate any property and goods held, and donate the proceeds of that liquidation to a still extant NGO with a similar goal.
All Honduran banks and government agencies were notified of the loss of rights of these 5,429 NGOs. In 30 days, their bank accounts will be frozen by the government, and any remaining assets seized.
This is not just a matter of eliminating a few small and inconsequential groups that were struggling.
Among the NGOs cancelled was the Asociación Comite por Libre Expresión (C-Libre), the most visible group monitoring press freedom in Honduras, composed of of journalists and others.
Hector Longino Becerra, president of the organization, said that the action against C-Libre was part of an attack on organizations that are critical of the government. Becerra said that all of C-Libre's paperwork with URSAC was complete and up to date, and he possessed the receipts to show the filing was done on time.
In the wake of the Friday publication of La Gaceta, Jorge Montes, head of URSAC, claimed Saturday that the NGOs still had 30 days to make things right and avoid cancellation.
That claim is hard to understand since the published law reportedly cancels the legal right to exist of the named NGOs. Montes claims that each NGO's legal representative will be notified in 30 days of the cancellation if, prior to that, their paperwork is not brought up to date.
He emphasized three kinds of reports that need to be filed: a report on activities; a financial report that indicates what money the group holds, where it came from, and where and how it will be spent, and where the NGO's assets are; and an up-to-date list of officers.
The Civil Society Group that advises the government is disturbed by all this and has requested a meeting with Rigoberto Chang Castillo, current Interior Minister, and thus the head of URSAC.
They stated:
Their point: the Honduran government isn't doing that when 62% of the country's legally established NGOs are disestablished by the government.
We couldn't agree more.
That step? abolishing his opponents-- more than 10,000 NGOs.
Friday La Gaceta published a decree revoking the legal status of 5429 NGOs. The Unidad de Registro y Seguimiento de Asociaciones Civiles (URSAC), a part of the Interior Ministry, issued the decree that revokes the permission of these NGOs to operate.
This comes slightly more than a month after Madrid revoked the legal status of another 4800 NGOs in mid January.
Honduras reportedly had about 16,000 NGOs at the start of 2013. So altogether, these two decrees succeeded in abolishing more than half of the NGOs in the country.
That makes it a little harder to figure out who this campaign was really targeting and why.
We would remind readers that back in 2010, the Honduran Congress passed a law to define the characteristics of an evangelical Christian church, declared unconstitutional in 2012, that advanced Madrid's agenda to abolish evangelical churches he felt were "fringe" groups.
According to the decree published this week, the named institutions failed to comply in some way with a previous decree 770-A-2003 regulating NGOs, which gave a 30 day window for every NGO to supply an annual activities report, a financial report, indicate its officers, and so on.
What does the abolishment of these NGOs translate to, in practice?
They can no longer sign contracts or hold bank accounts.
They are ordered to liquidate any property and goods held, and donate the proceeds of that liquidation to a still extant NGO with a similar goal.
All Honduran banks and government agencies were notified of the loss of rights of these 5,429 NGOs. In 30 days, their bank accounts will be frozen by the government, and any remaining assets seized.
This is not just a matter of eliminating a few small and inconsequential groups that were struggling.
Among the NGOs cancelled was the Asociación Comite por Libre Expresión (C-Libre), the most visible group monitoring press freedom in Honduras, composed of of journalists and others.
Hector Longino Becerra, president of the organization, said that the action against C-Libre was part of an attack on organizations that are critical of the government. Becerra said that all of C-Libre's paperwork with URSAC was complete and up to date, and he possessed the receipts to show the filing was done on time.
In the wake of the Friday publication of La Gaceta, Jorge Montes, head of URSAC, claimed Saturday that the NGOs still had 30 days to make things right and avoid cancellation.
That claim is hard to understand since the published law reportedly cancels the legal right to exist of the named NGOs. Montes claims that each NGO's legal representative will be notified in 30 days of the cancellation if, prior to that, their paperwork is not brought up to date.
He emphasized three kinds of reports that need to be filed: a report on activities; a financial report that indicates what money the group holds, where it came from, and where and how it will be spent, and where the NGO's assets are; and an up-to-date list of officers.
The Civil Society Group that advises the government is disturbed by all this and has requested a meeting with Rigoberto Chang Castillo, current Interior Minister, and thus the head of URSAC.
They stated:
It is the responsibility of the state to create an enabling environment for the functioning of civil society organizations and to keep watch over the unfettered right to free association.
Their point: the Honduran government isn't doing that when 62% of the country's legally established NGOs are disestablished by the government.
We couldn't agree more.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
News Flash: Honduran Police in the Pocket of Drug Dealers
A reporter for Channel 5 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras reportedly tweeted a picture yesterday of sworn testimony given by a suspended judge that he says links the brother of President Juan Orlando Hernández to a Colombian arrested in a marijuana growing operation and high tech drug lab in the department of Lempira.
We don't agree with the inferences being drawn. There clearly is a pervasive penetration of drug money throughout Honduran society, but the standards for guilt in Honduras too often rest on rumor and innuendo.
On January 30, the Honduran police and military shut down a drug operation in La Iguala, Lempira that consisted of a very large suite of greenhouses being used for growing marijuana and opium poppies. It also contained what was described as a high tech drug lab.
During the raid, police arrested a Colombian citizen, Rubén Dario Pinilla.
This was not the first time Rubén Dario Pinilla had been arrested in Honduras on drug related charges. On the 25th of July of last year, he was arrested in the same town along with another Colombian, Fredy Hernán Roldán Jiménez. They were found to be growing 73 pot plants, with 2440 seedlings alleged to be pot plants growing in the same greenhouses on the same property.
That case came before judge Francisco Rodríguez in the city of Gracias a Dios in the department of Lempira, and the judge dismissed the charges against both Pinilla and Roldan Jimenez on July 31, 2013.
Both were represented in court by the law office of Tony Hernández, brother of President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Since then, the police involved in the initial arrest, the police chief in La Iguala, and the judge who heard that July, 2013 legal case against the two Colombians, have all been suspended and are being investigated to see if they have ties to the drug-growing operation or have done anything illegal.
What was publicized this week was a picture of one page of the deposition of the judge who released Pinilla in the 2013 case, conducted by the Public Prosecutor's office. It gives us the judge's claims-- which we can say from the outset will predictably be designed to assign responsibility for this failure of the justice system somewhere else.
A reporter can tweet that this shows that Tony Hernandez was involved in this drug case, but all it actually shows is that, as legal systems in Honduras allow, the defendants even in controversial issues are entitled to legal representation.
The judge's answers to other questions on the single page of testimony released seems to suggest that he freed the defendant because the police failed to supply all the necessary documents to build a case against Pinilla. The page starts in the middle of a response by the judge to a question we cannot see, but that must deal with the legal documents because his response is that "I personally, in all the analysis of the file, this documentation doesn't appear. The deposition continues:
The implication is that this omission might have been deliberate. But that points not at the defense, but the police investigating officer.
That would not be surprising. But it makes for a far less scandalous story: police in the pocket of organized crime is an old story, not news.
We don't agree with the inferences being drawn. There clearly is a pervasive penetration of drug money throughout Honduran society, but the standards for guilt in Honduras too often rest on rumor and innuendo.
On January 30, the Honduran police and military shut down a drug operation in La Iguala, Lempira that consisted of a very large suite of greenhouses being used for growing marijuana and opium poppies. It also contained what was described as a high tech drug lab.
During the raid, police arrested a Colombian citizen, Rubén Dario Pinilla.
This was not the first time Rubén Dario Pinilla had been arrested in Honduras on drug related charges. On the 25th of July of last year, he was arrested in the same town along with another Colombian, Fredy Hernán Roldán Jiménez. They were found to be growing 73 pot plants, with 2440 seedlings alleged to be pot plants growing in the same greenhouses on the same property.
That case came before judge Francisco Rodríguez in the city of Gracias a Dios in the department of Lempira, and the judge dismissed the charges against both Pinilla and Roldan Jimenez on July 31, 2013.
Both were represented in court by the law office of Tony Hernández, brother of President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Since then, the police involved in the initial arrest, the police chief in La Iguala, and the judge who heard that July, 2013 legal case against the two Colombians, have all been suspended and are being investigated to see if they have ties to the drug-growing operation or have done anything illegal.
What was publicized this week was a picture of one page of the deposition of the judge who released Pinilla in the 2013 case, conducted by the Public Prosecutor's office. It gives us the judge's claims-- which we can say from the outset will predictably be designed to assign responsibility for this failure of the justice system somewhere else.
Prosecutor's Office: Asked so that you can say: do you have any knowledge of these Colombian persons paying money either to the lawyers, the judge and the police to be put at liberty?
Judge: I personally in no moment had physical contact or communication with Rubén Pinilla and Hernán Jimenez. The only time I saw them was in the arraignment when they were represented by the law office of Tony Hernandez, brother of the president of the republic of Honduras, and by the lawyer José Antonio Madrid Corea. Of the thing that they talk about in the newspapers, I don't know anything about who they gave money to, the mechanisms used to give them money, persons involved, and I did not receive money from the two accused and I ask you to investigate me.....you should also investigate to see if at any time I went to the local prison in Gracias, Lempira, to talk to the two accused and I give you my cell phone number [redacted by me] to see if I ever had contact with them in the dates they were deprived of their liberty, from July 24 to 31 in 2013....
A reporter can tweet that this shows that Tony Hernandez was involved in this drug case, but all it actually shows is that, as legal systems in Honduras allow, the defendants even in controversial issues are entitled to legal representation.
The judge's answers to other questions on the single page of testimony released seems to suggest that he freed the defendant because the police failed to supply all the necessary documents to build a case against Pinilla. The page starts in the middle of a response by the judge to a question we cannot see, but that must deal with the legal documents because his response is that "I personally, in all the analysis of the file, this documentation doesn't appear. The deposition continues:
Prosecutor's Office: Asked so you can say: in the initial hearing did you interrogate the agent Pablo Albarenga about the facts just mentioned?
Judge: if I personally had had in the administrative file the said paperwork on the actions carried out by the agent Pablo Albarenga, I would have asked the questions related to those aspects, but it did not exist.
The implication is that this omission might have been deliberate. But that points not at the defense, but the police investigating officer.
That would not be surprising. But it makes for a far less scandalous story: police in the pocket of organized crime is an old story, not news.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Moody's Cuts Honduras Credit Again
Moody's Investor Service cut Honduras's credit rating from B2 to B3 today.
Honduras now has a rating equal to that of the Congo and Argentina.
The reason: the widening fiscal deficit of the Honduran government. Moody's places Honduras's credit rating as tied for the worst rating in Central America:
Moody's describes Baa as a low risk investment, Ba as a somewhat risky investment, and B as a risky investment.
Porfirio Lobo Sosa was supposed to get the government budget under control in 2013, but he didn't. Instead, he let it balloon out of control, and the deficit went from 5.9% of Honduras's gross domestic product to 7.7 % of the GDP.
This news comes as Juan Orlando Hernandez celebrates his first 30 days in power, and amid reports that in general, investors are counting on him to turn the fiscal deficits around.
They just don't believe Honduras will achieve the goals his administration has set.
Honduras now has a rating equal to that of the Congo and Argentina.
The reason: the widening fiscal deficit of the Honduran government. Moody's places Honduras's credit rating as tied for the worst rating in Central America:
Costa Rica Baa3
Panama Baa2
Nicaragua B3
El Salvador Ba3
Honduras B3
Guatemala Ba1
Moody's describes Baa as a low risk investment, Ba as a somewhat risky investment, and B as a risky investment.
Porfirio Lobo Sosa was supposed to get the government budget under control in 2013, but he didn't. Instead, he let it balloon out of control, and the deficit went from 5.9% of Honduras's gross domestic product to 7.7 % of the GDP.
This news comes as Juan Orlando Hernandez celebrates his first 30 days in power, and amid reports that in general, investors are counting on him to turn the fiscal deficits around.
They just don't believe Honduras will achieve the goals his administration has set.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Slight Improvement in Homicide Statistics
The Observatorio de Violencia of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH) announced over the weekend that 2013 closed out with 6,757 homicides, yielding an average of 79.7 homicides per 100,000 population or about 18.5 homicides per day.
That's consistent with their prediction that Honduras would close out the year with a homicide rate of 80 per 100.000 population. Its also a clear improvement over the previous year, when the homicide rate was 85 per 100,000 population. Honduras's most violent year was 2011, when there were 92 homicides per 100,000 population.
Aruturo Corrales, the Security Minister, however, is not satisfied.
He would have you believe that Honduras improved even more. He claims his new "official" statistics recorded a homicide rate of 75.1 per 100,000 population, or about 17 per day.
As we have previously indicated, the problem with his "official" statistics is that he changed the definition of homicide, and the way the information is collected, so that his data cannot be compared with any previous data about the homicide rate in the country. Corrales relies on the police to collect and evaluate the data but will not make the data publicly available for independent evaluation. The Observatorio de Violencia, on the other hand, uses a publicly auditable set of procedures to collect and evaluate the homicide data for Honduras, and their data and procedures are available.
It's a case of "trust me" statistics versus auditable statistics.
Corrales resents being challenged on his sleight of hand with statistics, so much so that he is threatening to create his own official Observatorio de Violencia that would be part of the Security Ministry.
He also claims Honduras is on track to reduce the homicide rate to 30 per 100,000 population by the end of this year. That would be quite astonishing.
Like a bad statistician, Corrales keeps trying to present short-term statistics as if they represent a lasting change in homicide rates. Accordingly, he claims the current homicide rate, over the last 37 days (!) is 14 per day.
For some reason, Corrales thinks the fact that homicides are mostly concentrated in just a few municipios (like San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, and Tegucigalpa) makes the security situation better. True enough: but then, the majority of the population is also concentrated in those few municipios.
Migdonia Ayestas, the Director of the real Observatorio, says the state should think carefully about how it invests its scarce resources, but that even if they do create their own Observatorio de Violencia, the current one at the university will continue.
Julieta Castellanos, Rector of UNAH, added:
Ultimately success will not be measured by statistics, but by how safe the Honduran people feel. The bad news is that regardless of the source of current homicide statistics for Honduras, it still has the highest homicide rate in the world.
That's consistent with their prediction that Honduras would close out the year with a homicide rate of 80 per 100.000 population. Its also a clear improvement over the previous year, when the homicide rate was 85 per 100,000 population. Honduras's most violent year was 2011, when there were 92 homicides per 100,000 population.
Aruturo Corrales, the Security Minister, however, is not satisfied.
He would have you believe that Honduras improved even more. He claims his new "official" statistics recorded a homicide rate of 75.1 per 100,000 population, or about 17 per day.
As we have previously indicated, the problem with his "official" statistics is that he changed the definition of homicide, and the way the information is collected, so that his data cannot be compared with any previous data about the homicide rate in the country. Corrales relies on the police to collect and evaluate the data but will not make the data publicly available for independent evaluation. The Observatorio de Violencia, on the other hand, uses a publicly auditable set of procedures to collect and evaluate the homicide data for Honduras, and their data and procedures are available.
It's a case of "trust me" statistics versus auditable statistics.
Corrales resents being challenged on his sleight of hand with statistics, so much so that he is threatening to create his own official Observatorio de Violencia that would be part of the Security Ministry.
He also claims Honduras is on track to reduce the homicide rate to 30 per 100,000 population by the end of this year. That would be quite astonishing.
Like a bad statistician, Corrales keeps trying to present short-term statistics as if they represent a lasting change in homicide rates. Accordingly, he claims the current homicide rate, over the last 37 days (!) is 14 per day.
For some reason, Corrales thinks the fact that homicides are mostly concentrated in just a few municipios (like San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, and Tegucigalpa) makes the security situation better. True enough: but then, the majority of the population is also concentrated in those few municipios.
Migdonia Ayestas, the Director of the real Observatorio, says the state should think carefully about how it invests its scarce resources, but that even if they do create their own Observatorio de Violencia, the current one at the university will continue.
Julieta Castellanos, Rector of UNAH, added:
Corrales claims all that we do is repeat the numbers that they publish; nonetheless, the data that they process is less than the number of events registered each day and UNAH cannot publish a report that doesn't certify how the data were compiled....I think that he (Corrales) wants the number to be decreasing and we as academics cannot say what isn't true.
Ultimately success will not be measured by statistics, but by how safe the Honduran people feel. The bad news is that regardless of the source of current homicide statistics for Honduras, it still has the highest homicide rate in the world.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Cell Phone Blocking versus Cell Phone Interception
Honduras has embarked on a very stupid program of forcing its cell phone providers to block calls from within the 23 prisons in Honduras.
It's not that the idea is necessarily bad. But the implementation they chose is exceptionally stupid.
The Honduran Congress under Porfirio Lobo Sosa passed a bill that requires cell phone providers to block any calls from prisons. This is not something that is done easily in a standard cell phone base station and requires special programming (and probably required the purchase of that capability from the base station provider).
The idiocy comes from the fact that the law specifies that for each prison location, no cell phone be able to complete a call, text message, or Internet connection within a one kilometer circle around the prison.
The Honduran Congress definitely shouldn't have specified a technical solution to what recognizably is a problem for their desired management of the prison population. But they did, and they chose the worst possible solution for the Honduran populace that lives near the prisons.
It probably bears emphasis that in Honduras, prisons are often located in densely populated areas surrounded by housing.
The residents of these cities and towns living within one kilometer of the prisons targeted are suffering because their cell phones don't work, either. That means no emergency service calls for medical help, no fire protection, no calling the police to report a crime in progress.
In some cases the congressionally mandated solution wipes out the telecommunications capabilities of businesses. And the affected zone is not actually limited to the mandated one kilometer: people living 2-3 km away from the prison in Gracias a Dios cannot use their phones.
Why? Because the system works by geolocating each phone and determining its distance from the prison. This is not always an accurate process.
Arturo Corrales, the Security Minister held over from the Lobo Sosa administration, strongly supports the law, and today said
But who defines the "common good" being served here?
There's an awful lot of people who can no longer use their cell phones despite a legitimate right to do so.
Cell phone jamming has been proposed as a possible alternative technology, but in trials around the world, it has a mixed record of success. If there's a cell tower near the prison, it can easily swamp the jamming signal, and managing the tuning of the jammers is time consuming and requires ongoing attention.
The Honduran military already has this capability and deployed it in 2009 during the coup if Corrales wants to try it.
The technological solution that's most appropriate for what Honduras wants to achieve is called "managed access".
In this system, the prison would establish a small cell phone base station to provide a radio umbrella over the prison. That umbrella can be tuned fairly accurately to only affect the prison population.
When a cell phone connects to the system, the system determines if it is an authorized cell number. Authorized cell phones are then connected to the commercial services. Unauthorized cell phones simply stop working.
Such systems are available from multiple vendors and have successfully been used in US prisons.
Corrales alludes to efforts to study possible technological solutions that might limit blocking to just the prison, but in the meantime, Honduran citizens with legitimate rights to use a cell phone will continue to suffer because Congress inappropriately specified a technological solution it did not understand.
It's not that the idea is necessarily bad. But the implementation they chose is exceptionally stupid.
The Honduran Congress under Porfirio Lobo Sosa passed a bill that requires cell phone providers to block any calls from prisons. This is not something that is done easily in a standard cell phone base station and requires special programming (and probably required the purchase of that capability from the base station provider).
The idiocy comes from the fact that the law specifies that for each prison location, no cell phone be able to complete a call, text message, or Internet connection within a one kilometer circle around the prison.
The Honduran Congress definitely shouldn't have specified a technical solution to what recognizably is a problem for their desired management of the prison population. But they did, and they chose the worst possible solution for the Honduran populace that lives near the prisons.
It probably bears emphasis that in Honduras, prisons are often located in densely populated areas surrounded by housing.
The residents of these cities and towns living within one kilometer of the prisons targeted are suffering because their cell phones don't work, either. That means no emergency service calls for medical help, no fire protection, no calling the police to report a crime in progress.
In some cases the congressionally mandated solution wipes out the telecommunications capabilities of businesses. And the affected zone is not actually limited to the mandated one kilometer: people living 2-3 km away from the prison in Gracias a Dios cannot use their phones.
Why? Because the system works by geolocating each phone and determining its distance from the prison. This is not always an accurate process.
Arturo Corrales, the Security Minister held over from the Lobo Sosa administration, strongly supports the law, and today said
the common good is above the good of individuals.
But who defines the "common good" being served here?
There's an awful lot of people who can no longer use their cell phones despite a legitimate right to do so.
Cell phone jamming has been proposed as a possible alternative technology, but in trials around the world, it has a mixed record of success. If there's a cell tower near the prison, it can easily swamp the jamming signal, and managing the tuning of the jammers is time consuming and requires ongoing attention.
The Honduran military already has this capability and deployed it in 2009 during the coup if Corrales wants to try it.
The technological solution that's most appropriate for what Honduras wants to achieve is called "managed access".
In this system, the prison would establish a small cell phone base station to provide a radio umbrella over the prison. That umbrella can be tuned fairly accurately to only affect the prison population.
When a cell phone connects to the system, the system determines if it is an authorized cell number. Authorized cell phones are then connected to the commercial services. Unauthorized cell phones simply stop working.
Such systems are available from multiple vendors and have successfully been used in US prisons.
Corrales alludes to efforts to study possible technological solutions that might limit blocking to just the prison, but in the meantime, Honduran citizens with legitimate rights to use a cell phone will continue to suffer because Congress inappropriately specified a technological solution it did not understand.
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