The Lobo administration needs to ensure that government officials stop attacking the credibility of human rights prosecutors, Human Rights Watch said today. President Porfirio Lobo also should direct security forces to cooperate fully with abuse investigations, Human Rights Watch said.

On May 26, 2011, Deputy Secretary of Security Armando Calidonio publicly criticized Sandra Ponce, the head of the Human Rights Unit in the Attorney General’s Office, for opening an investigation into the deaths of seven alleged youth gang members in Ciudad Planeta, near San Pedro Sula. Press accounts said that there was a confrontation with the police and that the alleged gang members were armed. Since Calidonio’s public statements, Ponce has received a number of intimidating messages.

“It’s bad enough that law enforcement agents have been unwilling to cooperate with ongoing investigations into alleged abuses,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “But open hostility by senior government officials puts human rights prosecutors at risk and is absolutely unacceptable.”

Continue Human Rights Watch Press Release here.