The human rights organization, Amnesty International, issued an alert to the authorities of Honduras and the international community, where they express their concern for the safety and physical integrity of the Honduran teacher Margarita Rosa Vargas, threatened to death in Honduras for participating in the National Front of Popular Resistance . A teacher, who has been an activist of the opposition and has written articles criticizing the coup of June 28, 2009, which established a de facto government in Honduras, has received several death threats, and someone has tampered
her car. A colleague who was also an opposition activist was killed on March 23.
Rosa Margarita Vargas was driving her car towards her hom on April 6, after finishing her working day in the high school where she works as a teacher. A taxi driver told her to stop because there was a problem in her car. Rosa Vargas went straight to a garage where the mechanic said the front right tire had been slashed. The school where she works Rosa Vargas had opened that day for the first time since late March, when another teacher was killed.
Rosa Margarita Vargas was driving her car towards her hom on April 6, after finishing her working day in the high school where she works as a teacher. A taxi driver told her to stop because there was a problem in her car. Rosa Vargas went straight to a garage where the mechanic said the front right tire had been slashed. The school where she works Rosa Vargas had opened that day for the first time since late March, when another teacher was killed.
Rosa had received between April 9 and 12 a series of phone calls from a man who threatened her not to do anything to investigate the murder of her colleague, José Manuel Flores Arguijo, and, if she persisted, or if she continued working for the resistance movement, she would be "eliminated."
Rosa Vargas told Amnesty International that in December 2009, shortly after moving to another house, a neighbor said three men dressed in blue uniforms like the police and with their faces covered by ski masks had appeared in her old house, and had started screaming and kicking the door. They asked the neighbors if Rosa Vargas still lives there, if the neighbors knew where she had moved, and where she worked. Later that same month, according to the story of Rosa, someone loosened the screws on the left wheel of her car while parked at her new home.
Rosa Vargas told Amnesty International that in December 2009, shortly after moving to another house, a neighbor said three men dressed in blue uniforms like the police and with their faces covered by ski masks had appeared in her old house, and had started screaming and kicking the door. They asked the neighbors if Rosa Vargas still lives there, if the neighbors knew where she had moved, and where she worked. Later that same month, according to the story of Rosa, someone loosened the screws on the left wheel of her car while parked at her new home.
Rosa Vargas had received written threats in about five times between October and November 2009: they were left under the wipers of her car. The messages said that Rosa should not write more articles, and that she should stop working with the Resistance movement, otherwise she would be killed.
Write immediately, in Spanish or your own language:
urging the authorities to order, with the utmost urgency, a thorough and impartial investigation into the threats and intimidation against Rosa Margarita Vargas
urging them to act immediately to provide Rosa Margarita Vargas all necessary protection, in accordance with the wishes of the affected.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE MAY 28, 2010 TO:
Mr. Porfirio Lobo Sosa
Presidente de la República
Casa Presidencial
Boulevard Juan Pablo Segundo
Palacio José Cecilio del Valle
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Fax: + 504 232 1666
Title: President
urging the authorities to order, with the utmost urgency, a thorough and impartial investigation into the threats and intimidation against Rosa Margarita Vargas
urging them to act immediately to provide Rosa Margarita Vargas all necessary protection, in accordance with the wishes of the affected.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE MAY 28, 2010 TO:
Mr. Porfirio Lobo Sosa
Presidente de la República
Casa Presidencial
Boulevard Juan Pablo Segundo
Palacio José Cecilio del Valle
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Fax: + 504 232 1666
Title: President
Mr. Luis Alberto Rubi
Attorney General's Office
Lomas del Guijarro, Avenida República Dominicana
Edificio Lomas Plaza II
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Fax: + 504 221 5667
Title: Mr. Attorney General
And a copy to:
NGOs
Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH)
Barrio La Plazuela, Avenida Cervantes, Casa No. 1301
PO Box 1243
Tegucigalpa, HONDURAS
Fax: +504 220 5280 (say, "fax tone)
Attorney General's Office
Lomas del Guijarro, Avenida República Dominicana
Edificio Lomas Plaza II
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Fax: + 504 221 5667
Title: Mr. Attorney General
And a copy to:
NGOs
Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH)
Barrio La Plazuela, Avenida Cervantes, Casa No. 1301
PO Box 1243
Tegucigalpa, HONDURAS
Fax: +504 220 5280 (say, "fax tone)
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives of Honduras accredited to your country. Check with your section office, if sending appeals after the date above.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
José Manuel Flores Arguijo, Rosa Vargas's colleague, was killed by three men in the schoolyard in front of staff and students at the school. He was a prominent member of the Resistance Movement, an opposition alliance, broad-based, consisting of people and organizations that emerged in response to the coup of June 28, 2009. He had written many articles critical of the de facto government established after the coup, and had been writing articles that criticized the current government, elected in November 2009, and in which he highlighted social injustice.
José Manuel Flores Arguijo, Rosa Vargas's colleague, was killed by three men in the schoolyard in front of staff and students at the school. He was a prominent member of the Resistance Movement, an opposition alliance, broad-based, consisting of people and organizations that emerged in response to the coup of June 28, 2009. He had written many articles critical of the de facto government established after the coup, and had been writing articles that criticized the current government, elected in November 2009, and in which he highlighted social injustice.
Rosa Margarita Vargas has written articles and essays in which she criticized the coup; in some of them she also criticized the military for its role in the coup. She has also written recently about the murder of José Manuel Flores and about the defects she has perceived in the investigation into his death.
The democratically elected president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was deposed by the coup of June 28, carried out by a political group backed by the army and led by Congress President Roberto Micheletti. After the coup, the country erupted in widespread discontent, with frequent clashes of the army and police with the protesters. Amnesty International documented human rights abuses carried out by the de facto authorities, such as excessive use of force against demonstrators, arbitrary arrests, restrictions on freedom of expression and harassment of independent members of the judiciary.
A new government headed by Porfirio Lobo took office on January 27, 2010.
The democratically elected president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was deposed by the coup of June 28, carried out by a political group backed by the army and led by Congress President Roberto Micheletti. After the coup, the country erupted in widespread discontent, with frequent clashes of the army and police with the protesters. Amnesty International documented human rights abuses carried out by the de facto authorities, such as excessive use of force against demonstrators, arbitrary arrests, restrictions on freedom of expression and harassment of independent members of the judiciary.
A new government headed by Porfirio Lobo took office on January 27, 2010.
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