Letter from Charlie Hinton:

Hi All,

As some of you know, on Sunday January 13th, 2013, Honduran national police arrived at a bar called Anubis, frequented by members of the Sexual Diversity Community in Tegucigalpa. They ordered the bar to close early, well before the legal time limit for bar closings at 2:30am. Erick Martinez left the scene as requested, but returned later to document the incident after receiving a phone call that patrons were being attacked. Erick witnessed and documented several detainees who were subject to police beatings, verbal humiliations, and intimidation because of their sexual orientation. A group of national police assaulted Erick and seized his cell phone that was documenting the police abuse. Erick and two others were arrested and taken to the police post in Barrio El Manchen. During this time the contents of Erick’s phone were erased and his car searched and ransacked with items illegally confiscated. Erick was released by 3pm that afternoon, thanks to the intervention of an attorney from CIPRODEH, the human rights organization where Erick works.

Click title for original on AJE with links, pics:
CHARTER CITIES: NEOLIBERAL VIAGRA

By Belen Fernandez
19 Feb 2013

No sooner was the blatantly colonial charter city project in Honduras declared unconstitutional by the Honduran Supreme Court last year than it found itself back on the agenda. The gist of the project is the creation of free-market enclaves on Honduran territory that are unaccountable to national laws and are instead governed by foreign corporate interests.

Well done, compañeras and compañeros. The commander of one of the worst human rights violators in Honduras—Joint Task Force Xatruch—held a press conference today to complain about getting international phone calls at all hours of the night regarding their illegal detention and harassment of prisoners (which they refer to as hostigamiento y amenazas), and for accusing them of other atrocities. Here is their press communique.

CCR has its new Human Rights Report for last November and December on its Honduras Coup page. Meanwhile, in the news from Thelma Mejia at IPS, the good news that Cold War Policies Revived by Honduran Intelligence Law.

Click title for original article in La Prensa with photo.
Translation by Greg McCain, who notes "MARCA has legally sought title to its land. They were successful in doing so. So much so that their Lawyer, Antonio Trejo, was assassinated by Miguel Facussé's paramilitary death squad."

(El original en español está por debajo del Inglés y en el enlace de arriba)

MARCA: WE ARE NOT AN ARMED GROUP NOR INVADERS

Since the below statement was issued by MUCA yesterday evening, Juan Chinchilla has been released, but has been placed on probation, including a requirement to check in with a local judge weekly and a ban on leaving the country. This is just another example of the ongoing repression, intimidation, and criminalization of campesinos in the Aguán valley by Facussé and other landowners, and the state forces they control.

Continued criminalization of peasant struggle in Lower Aguan

With the clear involvement of state institutions.

For orginial with text at AJE Click Here.

Document - Honduras: Honduran activist receives death threat: Patricio Vindel

UA: 30/13 Index: AMR 37/001/2013 Honduras Date: 7 February 2013

I was on talking head duty following this short segment, titled Honduras economy on brink of collapse: Government in need of funds, with $6bn of foreign debt and internal debt tripling in last three years: