UN to investigate Honduras HR violations

Honduras: A UN mission will investigate starting Monday the human rights violations in Honduras since the coup d'etat on June 28th against President Manuel Zelaya. The group arrived Honduras on Sunday and ere until November 7th, period in which it will meet representatives of diverse sectors to learn first-hand the situation created after the coup d'etat. It will prepare a report requested by the UN Human Rights Council with the information collected, which will be presented next month to the UN General Assembly.

According to the Committee of relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (COFADEH) since the beginning of the coup more than 15 people died, ten were injured and hundreds were arrested by security forces. This weekend died the union leader Jairo Sanchez due to the bullet wounds suffered during the police repression in a popular demonstration.

"A dictatorship is being established in Honduras", said Andres Pavon, president of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights.

He added that the UN reports will be very useful to maintain their accusations against those who took part in the coup in the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) and in the International Criminal Court. Pavon denounced that Roberto MichelettiA's regime keeps a decree issued some weeks ago in force and under the protection of it, it suspended the individual guaranties and closed the only two media opposed to the coup, Radio Globo and channel 36. During the visit to the country last August, CIDH confirmed the existence of a "pattern of a disproportionate use of force, arbitrary detentions and control of information to limit political participation of a part of the citizenship."

Tegucigalpa, Prensa Latina