Posted: Thursday, 24 September 2009

President Ken Georgetti wrote Minister Peter Kent (Minister of State for the Americas) expressing deep concern at news of violent human rights abuses committed by the coup regime of Honduras outside the Embassy of Brazil where democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya is currently lodged. After careful review of the official Canadian Communique on the return of President Zelaya to his homeland, Georgetti said he was “discouraged to see that Canada is abandoning its traditional commitments to human rights and democratic governance in relation to the Honduras crisis.”

The CLC letter states:

• Canada should join with OAS members in strong condemnation of large scale repression of civilians outside the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa and around the country.
• Canada should strongly condemn the coup regime’s attack on freedom of speech, of occupying and cutting the electricity to the television station Channel 36, and blocking the signal to radio station El Globo and imposing another curfew.
• Canada should demand the immediate return of the Honduran military and police forces to their barracks, that the curfew be lifted and democratic safeguards and civil liberties be reinstated.
• Canada should demand that the coup leaders immediately release all protesters incarcerated since the June 28 military-backed coup began and support President Zelaya in his call for a rapid and peaceful return to democracy.

As the second largest international investor in Honduras, Canada’s voice carries considerable weight. Now is the time to speak out and clarify to the world exactly what Canada stands for.

Read the original letter.

For more information.