Reporters Without Borders said today that the last vestiges of independent news were under threat after the de facto government signed a decree yesterday banning “unauthorised” public meetings and giving itself the power to close media “damaging public order” “Three months to the day after the 28 June 2009 coup, basic rights and public freedoms are just empty words in Honduras”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. The coup government was trying...

The Aug. 13 editorial " " asserted that it would be "counterproductive" for the United States to let human rights concerns hold up the release of funds to support Mexico's fight against drug cartels. In fact, the opposite is true. Human rights abuses are a major obstacle to Mexico's efforts to strengthen public security and contain drug-related violence. By abusing civilians, Mexican soldiers have contributed to the climate of lawlessness and violence in which drug cartels...

Luis Adolfo Cardona worked as a forklift operator at an American-owned bottling company that packages 50,000 cases of Coca-Cola’s famous fizzy beverages a month. On an unassuming morning, Cardona narrowly escaped death when right-wing paramilitary troops attempted to kill him. Unfortunately, not all labor union activists are so lucky. Isídro Segundo Gil, the gatekeeper and the union’s chief negotiator at another Coca-Cola bottling plant in the small, rural town of Carepa,...

Within a democracy, one cannot give any type of legitimacy to a coup d’etat. For Latin America, this coup in Honduras serves as proof of the extent at which it troubles this region to accept that democracy can only work within boundaries and through laws. (Santiago de Chile)MANUEL ZELAYA, PRESIDENT OF HONDURAS, was exiled to its neighbouring country of Costa Rica. The first question that comes to mind is how to qualify this event. The answer: a coup d’etat. But more importantly,...

To: The Governments of Afghanistan and Iran and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights* We, the undersigned academics from all disciplines from around the world do hereby call upon and demand that the governments of Afghanistan release student Sayed Perwiz Kambasksh and for Iran to release student, Esha Momeni, and Prof. Mehdi Zakeriam Furthermore,we call upon the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to look into these and other apparent human rights abuses and harassments...