PBI-Honduras accompanies ASOPODEHU at Independence Day protest march

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has posted, “On the 15th of September, PBI-Honduras Project accompanied ASOPODEHU to the observation of a protest march commemorating 198 years since the independence of Honduras.”

On September 16, the BBC reported, “Riot police and anti-government protesters clashed in Honduras on Sunday, as the country marked its independence from Spain, declared in 1821.”

“President Juan Orlando Hernández presided over an official parade at the national stadium in the capital, Tegucigalpa, while ex-President Manuel Zelaya led the opposition’s march in another part of the city.”

“The protesters demand the resignation of the president, who has been accused by prosecutors in the US of accepting money from drug cartels in his 2013 campaign. He denies the allegation.”

That BBC news report concludes, “Mr Hernández was re-elected to a second term in 2017 in polls which his opponents said were fraudulent.”

The group PBI-Honduras accompanied, ASOPODEHU, is the Association for Democracy and Human Rights in Honduras, an organization headed by journalist Dina Meza.

Its mission (translated from Spanish) is “to accompany victims of violations of their fundamental human rights, with emphasis on vulnerable groups: journalists, social communicators, women, youth, indigenous people, blacks and the community of sexual diversity.”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied Meza since May 2014.