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Amnesty International today urged the
new Honduran President to order a full investigation into abuses
committed by the security forces following June's coup d'etat, bring
those responsible to justice and provide reparations to the victims.
Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, who is set to take office on 27
January, was elected in November last year amidst a political crisis
that saw President Manuel Zelaya ousted by military-backed right wing
politicians in June.
Amnesty International today urged the
new Honduran President to order a full investigation into abuses
committed by the security forces following June's coup d'etat, bring
those responsible to justice and provide reparations to the victims.
Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, who is set to take office on 27
January, was elected in November last year amidst a political crisis
that saw President Manuel Zelaya ousted by military-backed right wing
politicians in June.
Hundreds of people opposed to the coup d'etat were beaten and
detained by the security forces as protests erupted during the
following months. More than 10 were killed during the unrest, according
to reports.
"President Lobo must ensure a fresh start on human rights in
Honduras by ensuring abuses committed since the coup d'etat are not
forgotten and do not go unpunished," said Kerrie Howard, Americas
Deputy Director at Amnesty International.
The organisation also called on Honduran security forces to co-operate with any investigations into alleged abuses.
Since the presidential elections, the Honduran Congress has
discussed the possible introduction of an amnesty law that would reduce
or deny punishment for those responsible for human rights violations.
"Proposals to introduce amnesty measures for human rights violations
are simply unacceptable," said Kerrie Howard. "Failure to sanction
abuses that took place during the coup d'etat could give a green light
to further violations in Honduras."
According to dozens of testimonies collected by Amnesty
International's researchers in Honduras during two visits to the
country, human rights abuses spiralled following the June coup d'etat.
Following the coup d'etat people who took to the streets to
demonstrate their opposition were targets of widespread excessive use
of force by the security forces, including unlawful killings, torture
and ill-treatment, as well as hundreds of arbitrary arrests. The police
and military also widely misused tear gas and other crowd control
equipment.
Human rights activists, opposition leaders and judges suffered
threats and intimidation, media outlets closed and journalists were
censored. There were also reports of security force personnel
committing acts of sexual violence against women and girls.
Noone has been held to account for these abuses and few investigations have been opened as yet.
On 27 November 2009, 32-year-old Angel Salgado was driving home in
the capital Tegucigalpa with three friends when, according to eye
witnesses military, officials fired shots at their car as it drove by
an unmarked check point.
Angel Salgado was hit in the head by a bullet. He lost control of
the vehicle, which then crashed and injured several bystanders.
According to eye witnesses, military personnel began cleaning the
scene of evidence immediately after the incident took place. After
passing five days in a coma, Angel Salgado died in hospital on 2
December.
On 14 August 2009, a police officer sprayed lawyer Nicolas Ramiro
Aguilar Fajardo directly in the face with an unknown chemical spray,
temporarily blinding him. At the time, Nicolas was trying to stop the
police officer from beating a colleague.
Background Information
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales was forced from power on 28
June 2009 and expelled from the country by a military backed group of
right-wing politicians led by Roberto Micheletti, former president of
the national Congress.
A de facto government headed by Roberto Micheletti remained in power
until the end of the year. President Zelaya returned clandestinely to
the country and took up residency in the Brazilian Embassy in
September.
Despite the failure of political negotiations mediated by the
Organization of American States to restore the elected government, in
November the de facto authorities proceeded with elections, Porfirio
Lobo of the National Party won 88% of the vote and takes office on 27
January 2010.
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the "urgent need" for Israel to "de-escalate violence on all fronts."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
While Israel argues that its invasion of Syria does not violate a 1974 armistice agreement between the two countries because the Assad dynasty no longer rules the neighboring nation, Dujarric said Guterres maintains that Israel must uphold its obligations under the deal, "including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the cease-fire and stability in Golan."
Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
Other countries including France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel's invasion, while the United States defended the move.
"The Syrian army abandoned its positions in the area... which potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing earlier this week. "Israel has said that these actions are temporary to defend its borders. These are not permanent actions... We support all sides upholding the 1974 disengagement agreement."
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," he said. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together."
Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
"The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on Earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies," he told Jacobin. "It will take a political revolution in this country to get Congress to say, 'You know what, we're here to represent ordinary people, to provide quality care to ordinary people as a human right,' and not to worry about the profits of insurance and drug companies."
Asked about Thompson's alleged killer—26-year-old Luigi Mangione, whose reported manifesto railed against the nation's expensive healthcare system and low life expectancy—Sanders said: "You don't kill people. It's abhorrent. I condemn it wholeheartedly. It was a terrible act. But what it did show online is that many, many people are furious at the health insurance companies who make huge profits denying them and their families the healthcare that they desperately need."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system," he continued, noting the tens of thousands of Americans who die each year because they can't get to a doctor.
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
Sanders—one of the few members of Congress who regularly talks about Medicare for All—isn't alone in suggesting that unsympathetic responses to Thompson's murder can be explained by a privatized healthcare system that fails so many people.
In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
"You condemn the murder of an insurance executive who was a father of two kids," he said. "At the same time, you say there's obviously an outpouring behavior of people whose claims are being denied, and we need to reform the system."
Two other Medicare for All advocates, Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also made clear to Business Insider that they oppose Thompson's murder but understand some of the responses to it.
"Of course, we don't want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents," said Ocasio-Cortez. "We also don't want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis, and people are led to just some of the worst, not just health events, but the worst financial events of their and their family's lives."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
After facing some criticism for those comments, Warren added Wednesday: "Violence is never the answer. Period... I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder."
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of Reporters Without Borders.
Reports released this week from two organizations that advocate for journalists underscore just how deadly Gaza has become for media workers.
Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
Bruttin added that "many of these reporters were clearly identifiable as journalists and protected by this status, yet they were shot or killed in Israeli strikes that blatantly disregarded international law. This was compounded by a deliberate media blackout and a block on foreign journalists entering the strip."
When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
Meanwhile, in a statement released Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) announced that at least 139 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began in 2023, and in a statement released Wednesday, IFJ announced that 104 journalists had perished worldwide this year (which includes deaths from January 1 through December 10). IFJ's number for all of 2024 appears to be higher than RSF because RSF is only counting deaths that occurred "on the job or in connection with their work."
IFJ lists out each of the slain journalists in its 139 count, which includes the journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh, who was killed with journalist Mustafa Thuraya when Israeli forces targeted their car while they were in northern Rafah in January 2024.