Coup regime continues the repression

TEGUCIGALPA, September 23.— The coup government forces’ repression of Honduran citizens demonstrating in support of the constitutional president, Manuel Zelaya today led to the death of a young man, the looting of businesses and markets and numerous riots despite the curfew, EFE reports.

Early this Wednesday, groups of citizens defied the authorities in at least 50 different locations in incidents that left one person dead and 113 people detained, according to official information. The police and army, using tear gas and rubber bullets, also repressed a demonstration approaching the area surrounding the Congress building.

Meanwhile, President Zelaya informed AFP that the Brazilian embassy, where he is located, is the target of electronic interference that is preventing telephone communications and that the coup government has installed ultrasound machines to distress people in the building.

"That electronic equipment affects and inflames the brain. We have been attacked (with these sound waves) in the last 24 hours but a district attorney arrived and they are now dismantling them," he added

Juan Barahona, general coordinator of the National Front against the Coup, emphasized the pacific nature of the anti-coup struggle and urged people to maintain order and discipline in order to prevent actions by provocateurs.

Chanting slogans like "The people, united, will never be defeated" and "Forward, forward, the struggle is constant," a thick human column of more than one kilometer in length moved down the city streets.

In the Villanueva district, demonstrators were blocked by a strong contingent of riot police backed up by the army but, after through tense negotiations, managed to advance slowly to the nearby Palmira neighborhood.

The police eventually halted their march a few blocks from the Brazilian embassy.

During a demonstration there, campesino leader Rafael Alegría announced the Front’s creation of a commission of dialogue and asked the crowd to move to the Parque Central and await further instructions.

When most of the demonstrators had left the area, a firecracker exploded a few meters from the riot police, who immediately responded by launching tear gas grenades.

The protest in the Parque Central, in Tegucigalpa’s historic quarter, was cleared later on when police arrested an undetermined number of people.

PRESSURE ON ANTI-COUP MEDIA

The coup regime has been exerting constant pressure on the media covering the peaceful resistance against the coup, as is the case with Radio Progreso, Carla Rivas, a journalist from this radio station, reported.

In an exclusive statement for the National Radio Coordinating Committee from Tegucigalpa, she said that the pressure has intensified since Monday, when the news came out that President Zelaya was in the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital.

Radio Globo was also off the air at several points yesterday due to power cuts, because the army is controlling the electrical distribution center.