Eyewitness from Honduras

[Joanne98]

We went to San Pedro Sula on Tuesday, August 4, the day after a peaceful rally in the Central Park had been brutally attacked by National Police. We interviewed a number of people who were victims of that attack and other human rights violations in San Pedro Sula. Most poignant was the testimony of a woman whose son had been disappeared.

On Thursday, some of us went to the town of Juticalpa, capital of the department of Olancho. We visited David Murillo, who is in prison there. David’s son, Isis Obed Murillo Mencias, 19 years old, was killed by an Armed Forces sniper a month before, while attending the big rally at the Tegucigalpa airport awaiting the return of President Zelaya. Zelaya’s plane was prevented from landing. When we arrived at the prison, David’s daughter, Rebecca, was outside. She had brought food for him because the food in the prison is very bad. Rebecca and her mother, Silvia Mencias, had moved from Tegucigalpa to Juticalpa to be near the prison, so that they could bring food. They left the smaller children in Tegucigallpa in the care of Rebecca’s 17-year-old sister. Rebecca was able to join us in visiting her father, even though it was not a regular visiting day. We had come with his lawyer.
David Murillo had gone to the COFADEH office to receive assistance in filing charges because of the killing of his son. Within two hours of leaving the COFADEH office, he was detained and imprisoned. The charge against him is for a minor violation relating to an incident two years before which required him to make a monthly report. He had stopped making the reports when he moved to Tegucigalpa. He is convinced that the real reason for his imprisonment is that he has a strong voice to speak out against injustice. He had been active in efforts against deforestation and water privatization. He had been an Evangelical minister.

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http://www.laprogressive.com/2009/08/14/eyewitness-from-honduras/