An attorney for the Aguán peasant movement, the spokesperson and the official negotiator for the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán, MUCA, were arbitrarily detained by the National Police at 2:30 this afternoon in Tegucigalpa. A human rights defender was beaten as she attempted to provide first aid to campesinos that were repressed in front of the Supreme Court of Justice. Eleven others were also violently detained.
Attorney Antonio Trejo and leaders Jonny Rivas and Vitalino Álvarez of MUCA were transported on patrol vehicle M1-42. In addition, attorney Marlen Cruz, of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras, CODEH, was beaten with excessive force by four riot police under the command of officers Montoya and Bonilla of the National Police directed by Commissioner Juan Carlos Bonilla, recently appointed by the regime of Porfirio Lobo Sosa.
In addition, dozens of children and women attempting to seek refuge in the STIBYS headquarters (Union of Beverage Workers) in the neighborhood of Las Brisas, Comayaguela, were attacked by riot police with batons and tear gas inside the building.
Carlos H Reyes, president of STIBYS, denounced the arbitrary penetration into the union headquarters and demanded that Porfirio Lobo stop attacking the effects of the problem and to address the causes. This marks the second consecutive day that police have violently attacked with brutality and excessive force, protestors requesting an audience with the president of the judicial system to address the legal corruption and the land tenure conflict in the Aguán valley.
COFADEH issues an urgent call to the international community to demand respect for the physical integrity and life of the 15 people detained this afternoon.
Bertha Oliva
General Coordinator Cofadeh
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