18 Xiomara Zelaya (leftist) supporters murdered in run-up to Honduran election...

[Peace Patriot]

Democracy Now 11/15/13

"Both candidates are claiming victory in Honduras’ disputed presidential election. The race has pitted Xiomara Castro, wife of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, against right-wing candidate Juan Orlando Hernández. According to election officials, with more than half of precincts reporting, Hernández has won 34 percent of the vote, while Castro has 29 percent. Castro’s husband, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted in a U.S.-backed coup in 2009. The campaign has been marred by violent attacks in a country with the highest homicide rate in the world. At least 18 members of Castro’s Libre party were murdered in the runup to the election, more than all other parties combined. We go to Honduras to speak with Adrienne Pine, an assistant professor of anthropology of American University, and Edwin Espinal, a community organizer who has survived harassment and torture by police. "This election, I think for most Hondurans, represents the possible overturning of the coup, finally," Pine says. "People, in Xiomara Castro, have seen a leader … It is impossible to overstate the amount of hope, excitement, and organization people have been engaged in leading up to these elections." We also hear from Zelaya and leading Honduran human rights activist Bertha Cáceres, who has been in hiding for two months."

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/25/honduras_presidential_elections_in_dispute_as

The clips and interviews that follow this intro say that this Honduran election was basically shit, due to the pervasive murder, violence, repression and intimidation by the U.S.-supported fascist shitheads in charge and their fascist death squads. The last (s)election was run by the U.S. State Department and the International Republican Institute, et al, and the shits (s)elected in that shit are running this shit.

I didn't want to say it before--didn't want to predict bad news, just in case the U.S. had decided on honest elections in Honduras this time, for corporate strategic reasons (what else?)--but I certainly thought to myself that Xiomara had no chance, no chance at all in this U.S./fascist-run, bloodsoaked country. I just hoped, ya know, the way one hopes...

Poor Honduras! Gawd! What terrible crimes our government has committed there, in the past and recently, and this week. All for transglobal corporate and "military-industrial complex" profit.

The good news is that Xiomara is still on her feet--alive, and fighting the good fight--and that Mel has pledged the country's resistance movement to peace. So many of these brave Hondurans have been killed--a teacher shot in front of his students, a protest leader beheaded and his body left in the road as a "lesson" to all--or raped, or unjustly imprisoned, or beaten, or tear gassed to death (as with the wife of one of the interviewees above), or fired or blacklisted from jobs, and on and on! And still they pledge peaceful resistance! Wonderful people, the Honduran resistance and its leaders!

[Mika]

1. More 'Murican freedom spreadin'.

Like this ...

STONING FOR ADULTERERS MAY BECOME LEGAL AGAIN IN AFGHANISTAN
>> Death by stoning for convicted adulterers is being written into Afghan law, a senior official said on Monday, the latest sign that human rights won at great cost since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 are rolling back as foreign troops withdraw.

"We are working on the draft of a sharia penal code where the punishment for adultery, if there are four eyewitnesses, is stoning," said Rohullah Qarizada, who is part of the sharia Islamic law committee working on the draft and head of the Afghan Independent Bar Association.

Billions have been invested on promoting human rights in Afghanistan over more than 12 years of war and donors fear that hard won progress, particularly for women, may be eroding.

Human Rights Watch reports that they saw a draft provision of the law which states that if a court finds that a couple engaged in sexual intercourse outside of legal marriage, both the man and the woman would be sentenced to “stoning to death if the adulterer or adulteress is married.” And if the “adulterer or adulteress is unmarried” the sentence shall be “whipping 100 lashes.” <<

Read more: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/25/21609525-stoning-for-adulterers-may-become-legal-again-in-afghanistan

[Bacchus4.0]

2. right, its the US fault that Afganistan is stuck in the 8th century n/t

s

[Mika]

3. So, you agree. Operation Enduring Freedom hasn't worked.

A rare moment.

[Bacchus4.0]

4. was the goal of OEF to change the cultural practices of the Afganis?

Then it was a complete failure. Should have never been attempted. They were in the 8th century before the invasion, and they are still there. maybe the 7th century now. You can't change the culture of a people by the point of a gun.

[Mika]

6. Wow. 2 posts in a row that we agree with.

[Bacchus4.0]

7. hey we're on a roll! how about no bases in Latin America either

or just about anywhere else. Korea is ok, NATO countries since they signed on. That should do it. Just imagine all that money we could invest in health care or anything else back home without all those bases around the world.

[Bacchus4.0]

5. Castro claimed victory even before the votes were counted

A bit pretentious don't you think? Based on her own party's exit pollings (which differed from other exist polling numbers)



Antes de darse a conocer los datos de las actas, Xiomara Castro se había proclamado como la nueva presidenta del país a partir de sus propios sondeos a pie de urna, muy distintos de los que ya adelantaban varios medios locales y que eran un calco a lo que posteriormente anunciaría el TSE.



http://www.abc.es/internacional/20131125/abci-zelaya-comicios-honduras-201311250305.html

[Judi Lynn]

8. The parasitic power grabbers who control Honduras now don't intend

to allow democracy, apparently. They aren't going to give the country's people a chance to climb out of misery during their lifetimes, as long as the U.S. keeps supporting their vicious little cabal in its seizure of control over the lives of GOOD people, keeping them paralyzed with fear, killing everyone who tries to throw light, bring help to the struggling citizens.

It's the kind of nightmare one would never believe could happen in broad daylight. All with the loving support of U.S. citizens' hard-earned taxdollars to make life easier for those at the top of this bloody little fiefdom.

Yes, it's certainly good Xiomara Castro still lives, knock on wood. Clearly she's a lucky woman up to now, as they wouldn't think twice about murdering her, too, unfortunately. She has real courage.

[Zorro]

9. She's a sore loser

[Judi Lynn]

10. She's a populist candidate whose supporters the right-wing murdered. n/t

[roody]

11. Please inform yourself.

[Judi Lynn]

13. That has never been her image, not once. n/t

[Zorro]

14. Except for now

Duh.

[Judi Lynn]

12. The people of Honduras aren't going to drop the subject,

and they're not going to accept this grotesque abuse from the criminals who've stolen their government.

[Judi Lynn]

15. 4 LIBRE Party Members Killed in 7 Days, As Election Fraud Challenges Grow in Honduras

4 LIBRE Party Members Killed in 7 Days, As Election Fraud Challenges Grow in Honduras
Monday, December 2, 2013
Posted by Rights Action Team | 0 comments..

Sent: Sunday, December 1, 2013
To: Presente Honduras
Subject: Another murder of a LIBRE activist

We were on the COFADEH (Committee of Family Members of the Disappeared) radio show on Radio Globo when they received the news of Jose Antiono's death. This makes 4 LIBRE members killed in the past 7 days. The victim was Jose Antonio Ardon known as Emo 2 (for his resemblance to the beloved resistance figure Emo who was also murdered). He was part of the famous motorcycle group Motorizada of the Resistance who always accompanied Xiomara, and LIBRE. He was ambushed by 4 gunmen and hit 4 times, about a block away from his home. Berta Oliva of COFADEH denounced this and the other murders on the radio show and expressed her grave concerns for the period that is opening up in Honduras now.

Honduras Candidate Makes Case for Election Fraud

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras
December 1, 2013, By ALBERTO ARCE Associated Press

The opposition presidential candidate in last week's elections in Honduras is citing allegedly altered tally sheets, ballots cast by dead or absent people, and inadequate monitoring of polling stations in her bid to have a recount of a vote she calls fraudulent.

Xiomara Castro's call for her supporters to pour out in the streets to demand a vote-by-vote recount of last Sunday's election threatens further political instability for this poor Central American country. Castro's husband, former President Manuel Zelaya, was ousted in a 2009 coup that left the country polarized.

Honduras' electoral court has declared conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez, of the ruling National Party, the election winner. The court says he received 37 percent of the votes compared to 29 percent for Castro, with 96 percent of the votes counted. Six other candidates shared the remaining votes.

Voting was monitored by missions from the European Union and Organization of American States, which concluded that the election process was transparent despite irregularities including a faulty system for issuing poll workers' credentials and electoral lists in which people who are either dead or who left Honduras long ago could account for up to 30 percent of registered voters.

More:
http://www.rightsaction.org/action-content/4-libre-party-members-killed-7-days-election-fraud-challenges-grow-honduras

[Judi Lynn]

16. Adding one more to the list of murdered supporters of Xiomara Castro:

Globo correspondent killed amid continuing polarization
Published on Monday 9 December 2013.
.
As controversy continues over the results of last month’s presidential election, a provincial reporter has become the third journalist to be gunned down in Honduras since the start of the year.

Juan Carlos Argeñal, a local correspondent for national broadcaster Radio y TV Globo, was shot dead outside his home in the southeastern municipality of Danlí on 7 December.

The two other journalists slain this year also worked for the Globo media group. They were programme director Anibal Barrow, kidnapped and killed on 24 June, and cameraman Manuel Murillo, who was killed on 24 October.

“Globo is one of the few national broadcasters to criticize the June 2009 coup d’état,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Its staff and reporters in the field have paid a high price for this for the past four years. It has included military occupation of their premises, confiscation of their equipment and targeted murders. The mere fact of working for Globo exposed Argeñal to danger.

~snip~

His murder could also be linked to his well-known support for Liberty and Refoundation, the party led by Xiomara Castro, a candidate in the 24 November presidential election and wife of Manuel Zelaya, the president ousted by the 2009 coup.

http://en.rsf.org/honduras-globo-correspondent-killed-amid-09-12-2013,45577.html

[center]

Juan Carlos Argeñal



The truth isn't killed by murdering journalists.[/center]