Sunday, July 12, 2009

JOURNALISTS FROM TELESUR & VENEZUELA DETAINED BY COUP GOVERNMENT IN HONDURAS

VTV and Telesur Journalists arrested by De Facto Regime in Honduras

On Saturday night, reporters and correspondents from Telesur and Venezolana de Television (VTV) were arrested by the de facto regime in Honduras.

During the arrest, the journalists were subjected to a review of their documents, under threat of expulsion from Honduras by police loyal to the dictatorial government.

They were freed after the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, intervened.

The Telesur team is currently being protected by the Venezuelan embassy in Honduras while the VTV team will return to the hotel where they were originally staying, though still under the threat of expulsion this afternoon.

The coup forces that arrested them told them to leave country because "there is nothing for them to report on in Honduras".

The coup in Honduras is consolidating more each day, as failed "negotiations" continue in Costa Rica and Washington stalls, giving space for the de facto regime to gain political ground internationally. Last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, representatives from the coup regime were received warmly by the US Congress. On Friday, Congress held hearings on the Honduran coup, inviting - of all people - war hawk Otto Reich to provide expert testimony on the situation. A group of US congressmembers are promoting a resolution to support the coup and recognize the de fact regime. Unfortunately, President Zelaya has been either "captivated" by the Department of State or simply believes that his political future depends on his subordinate position towards Washington, since yesterday he made statements on Telesur excusing the US Government from any role in the coup.

But the US Government role is evident and amply documented. See all my prior posts! (and more to come...)

5 comments:

Hudson said...

The combination of recent actions of the dictatorship is alarming: popular lider Roger Bados was killed, jornalists are being arrested and expelled, under the promise that ``this is going to be ugly (eso se va a poner feo)''. The suspension of the curfew seems to be a distracting "action" for more repression with the press silenced.

Zhandra said...

Esto es lamentable, aunque previsible. Habían más bien tardado mucho...

Espero con ansias tus post. Felicitaciones nuevamente

Roger Milbrandt said...

Today’s news from Honduras is terrible indeed: journalists from Telesur and VTV have not only been detained and searched but, according to Agencia Venezuela, sent out of the country after being held at police headquarters in the custody of masked agents; more searing is the report that two leaders of UD (Democratic Unification) - Iván Bados and Ramón García - have been assassinated.

We should not lose sight of the good news however: many remaining Honduran journalists have boldly asserted that the mistreatment of their Venezuelan colleagues clarifies the anti-democratic character of the Micheletti misgovernment; despite the physical elimination of two of their leaders, protestors once again flooded Central Park in Tegucigalpa.

As well, we ourselves should somehow protest against the leading media outlets of the West who are orgasmic over the suspension of the Honduran curfew and silent (so far at least) about the assassinations and press repression. Had the latter occurred in Venezuela, they would have been blazingly reported as soon as (perhaps even before) they actually occurred.

Hudson said...

``Eso va a se poner feo''...

Two left-wing liders killed Saturday.
VTV and teleSUR expelled Sunday.
No more international reports Monday...

Very, very sad.

jack said...

angryamerican.cafebabel.com/en/