Human Rights Organizations Urge U.N. to Set up Office to Promote Human Rights and Democracy in Honduras

Washington, D.C. (August 3)

Prominent Human Rights organizations and defenders of Latin America, last week urged the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to set up an office in Honduras to promote democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.

Honduras has faced a human rights crisis since the overthrow of elected President Manuel Zelaya last year. A March 2010 report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have documented the serious human rights violations that followed the June 28, 2009 coup, including killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, excessive use of force against demonstrators, and severe and arbitrary violations of freedom of expression.  All of these abuses have resulted in impunity; not surprisingly, the abuses continue, despite the November 2009 elections that brought President Lobo to office in January.

In a letter to Judge Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, thirty five organizations emphasized the fragile state of democracy in Honduras and the importance for the entire region of addressing the institutional weaknesses that have allowed human rights violations to proliferate in the past year.

“Maintaining and stabilizing democratic methods for changing governments is vital for the region,” the letter said. The United Nations High Commissioner’s office is uniquely suited to providing support for the strengthening of institutional independence and the rule of law as well as monitoring the human rights.

The above mentioned report also laid bare the institutional weaknesses that have undermined democracy and allowed human rights violations to proliferate in Honduras.  In a variety of countries, including Colombia and Mexico, the establishment of an office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has proven an effective tool for institutional reform, the protection of human rights monitors and members of civil society, and close scrutiny of the human rights situation.

As the organizations recalled “The coup in Honduras set a very dangerous precedent for the hemisphere,” therefore the establishment of an office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras will be a necessary step to strengthen the protection of human rights and prevent further violations.