UN rights expert urges Honduras to increase efforts to curb violence News
UN rights expert urges Honduras to increase efforts to curb violence

[JURIST] A UN humans rights expert on Friday urged [press release] the government of Honduras to increase its efforts to put a stop to an “internal displacement epidemic” caused by organized and gang violence throughout the country, as well as a failing criminal justice system. Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons Chaloka Beyani [official profile] said at the end of his first official visit to Honduras that internal displacement is an “invisible epidemic” that affects entire communities touched by the violence, most notably children and young people. He stated:

Children are recruited by gangs and used to carry drugs or weapons or as “flags” or lookouts. Parents feel that the only option to escape the influence and threats of gangs and crime is to leave their homes and eventually their country. … It was evident to me after visiting centres for returned migrants in San Pedro Sula and Omoa that the protection measures that currently exist, while positive, are wholly inadequate to meet protection needs of those at risk, particularly of those who were internally displaced by criminal gangs prior to fleeing Honduras.

He further noted that women and young girls are extremely susceptible to this, as they experience threats, intimidation and sexual violence as a weapon of control by gang members as well as threats to their family members.

Honduras has been experiencing unrest throughout the country for some time now. Earlier this month UN human rights expert Victoria Tauli-Corpuz expressed [JURIST report] concern about the situation faced by the indigenous people of Honduras, specifically in connection with their land and natural resource rights, their lack of access to justice, education and health, and the general environment of violence and impunity affecting their communities. In October Honduran Congressional Vice President Lena Gutierrez began her trial [JURIST report] for her role in the nation’s recent medical sale scandal. The charges include falsification of public documents and fraud against the government by drug sales to the Ministry of Health. In June thousands of protesters marched [JURIST report] in Honduras on calling for the resignation of President Juan Hernandez and demanding an independent investigation into his role in an ongoing corruption scandal.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.

Former communist countries admitted for EU accession

On April 16, 2003, the 2003 Treaty of Accession was signed by 10 countries, admitting them for European Union (EU) ascension. After Malta and Cyprus, eight of the ten new EU nations (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former communist countries. The signing of the treaty in Athens marked the first time that former members of the Soviet Bloc joined the EU.

Learn more about EU expansion from the organization's website.

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