A report by the human rights watchdog of the Organization of American States warns of a possible “threat to the life and physical integrity of the Jewish community in Venezuela” due to the Chavez regime’s violations of the political and human rights of its citizens. In a lengthy report publicized in late February, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) accused the government of Venezuela of fostering an atmosphere of “political intolerance” and...

Amnesty International on Friday accused the Mexican government of unfairly imprisoning two indigenous women for the kidnapping of six police officers in 2006 and demanded their immediate release. The two women, who were sentenced to 21 years in prison, are awaiting the outcome of their retrial. Amnesty International has adopted them as "prisoners of conscience". Alberta Alcántara and Teresa González Cornelio have been held in the Centro de Readaptación...

Amnesty International has welcomed the release of a Mexican Indigenous man detained for almost 10 years following an unfair trial for murder. Ricardo Ucán Ceca, from Yucatán, was released on 31 December. He had been imprisoned since June 2000. He understood and spoke little Spanish and could not read or write. During his trial, he was not given an interpreter and his state appointed lawyer did not provide him with adequate defence. Ricardo Ucán claimed he shot...

Before the political crisis blew up in Honduras, Donny Reyes was trying to put his country on the map internationally, working to raise awareness of the abuses and discrimination suffered by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender people. But as the Central American nation slid into political turmoil, human rights were sidelined. “We had started talks with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, with members of the police and some members of the government for the...

Gilda Rivera works in an apparent oasis of calm on a hill in Tegucigalpa. When you are there, among the plants and paintings which decorate the building, it’s hard to imagine the stories she and her organization hear. But some days, an unknown car appears and parks suspiciously in the close vicinity of the offices for no apparent reason and waits, then it leaves. Gilda is the director of the Centre for Women’s Rights (Centro para Derechos las Mujeres), a group that works to...

The recent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Argentina is "deeply troubling," B'nai B'rith International said. This week, swastikas were painted on some 30 graves at a Jewish cemetery in the province of San Luis. “Death to Jews” was also scrawled on the cemetery walls, according to a statement released Wednesday by the organization. In addition, Jewish graves at a cemetery in Buenos Aires were desecrated in early December. Also, the phrase “Argentina is a...

The killing of an HIV/AIDS outreach worker on December 14, 2009, is part of a pattern of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Honduras that seems to have accelerated in the turbulent months since the June 28 coup, Human Rights Watch said today. The organization called on Honduran judicial authorities to open full investigations of all the reported killings, and to provide human rights training for the police and the judiciary about sexual orientation and...

Walter Trochez, 25 years old, a well-known LGBT activist in Honduras who was an active member of the National Resistance Front against the coup d'etat there, was assassinated on the evening of December 13, shot dead by drive-by killers. Trochez, who had already been arrested and beaten for his sexual orientation after participating in a march against the coup, had been very active recently in documenting and publicizing homophobic killings and crimes committed by the forces behind the coup,...

The charge d'affaires in Tehran Argentina, Mario Enrique Quinteros criticized Western media for using the testimony of the anti-Iranian terrorist organization Mojahedin-e Khalq in the case of bomb attack in 1994 of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires. The Western and Israeli media claims that a number of Iranian officials are wanted by Interpol in connection with the AMIA, left 85 dead and injured more than other 300. Iran has denied the allegations and said Alberto Nisman, the...

Carlos Saúl Menem, an ex-president of Argentina who is currently a senator in the South American republic, was accused on October 1 in Buenos Aires of obstruction of justice charges for his alleged part in covering up the so-called "Syrian connection" and Iranian involvement in the 1994 car-bombing that killed 85 people and injured hundreds more at the Jewish Mutual Association of Argentina (AMIA). Also brought to trial were Menem's brother Munir, police officials Jorge...