Bad to Worse Human Rights in Honduras

There has not been violence, but the political problems here are terrible. The coup leader, Micheletti, is now pretty much acting like a dictator in running the country and taking away rights as he pleases without the congress voting on anything.

All the curfews have been dictated by him personally, not the congress. Last night, he declared that the right to free speech has been taken away, the right to free assmebly has been taken away, freedom of the press has been taken away, arrests without warrant are now allowed, all acts or speech against the current government or in favor of the ousted president, Mel Zayela, are now illegal and punishable by jail. He announced that the military took over and closed down the radio and t.v. stations that did not support his regime and broadcast info in support of Mel. All newspapers are also prohibited from publishing anything against him and his regime.

What countries of the world does this sound like? North Korea, Iran, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan. Now add Honduras to that list.

Yesterday, the teachers had announced they would strike Monday and Tuesday in opposition to the current government. Striking is speech against the government and they could now be jailed for this, thus school is in session today. This is from the same government that allows teachers to strike about 1/3 of the time normally. Anyone who has read this blog for the past 2+ years knows how often the teachers strike without any repercussions from the government ... up until now. I am glad the kids are in school, but not that it is under threat of arrest of the teachers.

Analogy: Imagine if Obama declared the same in the US. No one could speak against him or his policies or his government. Fox news taken off the air. Rush, Hannity, Olly North all taken off the air and told they will go to jail if they speak anything against Obama. Anyone living in the US who says anything against health care reform can be arrested and jailed because that is speech against the current administrations policies. I wonder how those people who have warmly embraced Micheletti as the democratically appointed president of Honduras would feel about living under his dictated rules in our country.

Saturday, Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica who was mediating with both sides before, trying to resolve the problem, told the AP that he cannot help any further because on Friday Mecheletti refused to allow him and representatives of the Organization of American States to enter Honduras to speak to him. Micheletti responded that it was a misunderstanding and they are free to come here to talk. They came yesterday, Sunday, and at the airport all were refused entry and forced to get back on their plane and leave the country. Micheletti's statement about this was that he was not ready to talk yet.

The international community is now probably going to turn up the heat and sanctions on Honduras. This is a very poor country that is very dependent on foreign aid from all over the world. These people who have been civil and going along with the whims of the current regime, although protesting against it, are going to break if things don't change and they have their basic human rights restored.

Don't worry about me, I don't go out and get involved in any of this political stuff. Though, having been born and living my whole life in a free, democratic country that allows all sides to openly speak their opposition to each other, it is difficult to watch all of this and live under it while the people in charge still claim to be "democratic." They have a lot to learn. The kids and I are all still safe here in the casa. We never went out at night anyway so the curfew has not affected us too much. Church has been cut short and the time moved up because of the curfews, but other than that we have not needed to get out for anything the past few days. We continue to pray for a peaceful resolution of this and restoration of all the human rights lost.