Tag Archives: human rights

Gay Hondurans Tested

From U.N. chambers to the halls of the State Department, global pressure on countries to protect the rights of gay people and transgender people is rising.

For Josue Hernandez, the new emphasis can’t come fast enough.

The 33-year-old gay activist bears the scar of the bullet that grazed his skull in an attack a few years ago. He’s moved the office of his advocacy group four times. Still, he feels hunted in what is arguably the most homophobic nation in the Americas.

“We are in a deplorable state,” Hernandez said of gays in Honduras. “When we walk the streets, people shout insults at us and throw rocks. Parents move their children away.”
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Protests in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa

Human rights organizations, church representatives, store owners, businessmen, lawyers, and others joined journalists in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa to demand justice for the targeted group.

The most recent murder of radio journalist Luz Marina Paz has sparked outrage among citizens across Honduras, who are seeing cold blooded murder being used as a remedy to quiet those who exercise their right to free speech.

Signs were held at the march such as, “Truth is not killed by murdering journalists.” Protesters condemned the crimes and threats against media personnel, and demanded the government put a stop to these attacks.

Congress has attempted to band-aid Honduras’s crime wave by passing two measures, the first one would be implemented temporarily, for a period of six months, and prohibits more than one person on the same motorcycle. The other is a far more stringent assault on the freedom of speech, and allows for officials to wiretap and record conversations of suspected criminals.

President Porifiro Lobo is currently out of the country, but upon his return, must decide if he will sign the bills into law.

Aguán Dispute Hinders Foreign Relations

The reported killing of 23 Honduran farmers in a dispute with the owners of UN-accredited palm oil plantations in Honduras is forcing the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) executive board to reconsider its stakeholder consultation processes.
In Brussels, the Green MEP Bas Eickhout called the alleged human rights abuses “a disgrace”, and told EurActiv he would be pushing the European Commission to bar carbon credits from the plantations from being traded under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Several members of the CDM board have been “personally distressed” by the events in Bajo Aguán, northern Honduras, according to the board’s chairman, Martin Hession, who said they had “caused us great difficulties.”

“Plainly, the events that have been described are deplorable,” he told EurActiv. “There is no excuse for them.”

But because they took place after the CDM’s stakeholder consultations had been held, and fell outside the board’s primary remit to investigate emissions reductions and environmental impacts, it had been powerless to block project registrations.

Another board member told EurActiv that Aguán was a “hot potato,” which struck at the heart of the emissions trading scheme’s integrity. “We all regret the situation extremely,” he said.

READ MORE: (From Euractive.com