{mini}Printable version

English · Español

26 April 2012 | | |

Bad Living

Honduras: COPINH reports harassment and death threats

Download: MP3 (1 Mb)

On March 31, leader Magdaleno Argueta, coordinator of the Civil Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations in Honduras, received the following message: “To those of you from COPINH who speak nonsense on the radio we should have your tongues cut out. The dam is going to be built no matter what. We will have you killed”.

Jose Saldivar Gamez, of Concepcion municipality, got a phone call on his cell phone and heard an unidentified person say: “Stop hanging out with COPINH, if you go on with this we will kill you”.

These are just two examples of the constant harassment against social activists in Honduras. In this case, the threats were reported by COPINH in a press release issued this week.

The Honduran organization, which is the main actor in the fight against the dictatorship in the country, blames Profirio Lobo’s administration for the “death threats and other atrocities”.

They are also going through a very difficult situation related with the channels to make these warnings. “We reported that our radios Guarajambala and Voz Lenca have been sabotaged several times, as well as our radio La Voz Lenca, which broadcasts from San Francisco Lempira”, they claim.

The young team working at the stations has suffered blackouts and damage to their equipment to the point that officials from the Honduran Electric Measurement Service (Semeh) have explained these actions saying “those guerrilla radio stations of COPINH members criticize too much”.

They also criticized another public body: they claim that the Secretariat of Natural Resources and Environment (Serna) only serves the interests of the oligarchy and the transnational corporations.

In summary, things are not easy in Honduras under Porfirio Lobo’s administration, especially for an organization that is present in a large part of the country and which has strong demands and specific actions. COPINH’s press release says that the organization is against at least 15 projects for the “privatization of rivers, water and energy through corrupt granting of concessions”.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/felipe...

(CC) 2012 Real World Radio

Messages

Who are you?
Your post

This form accepts SPIP shortcuts [->url] {{bold}} {italic} <quote> <code> and the HTML code <q> <del> <ins>. To create paragraphs, simply leave blank lines.

Close

Friend of the Earth

Real World Radio 2003 - 2018 | All the material published here is licensed under Creative Commons (Attribution Share Alike). The site is created with Spip, free software specialized in web publications. Done with love.