By Ida Garberi
July 5, 2010
No one should ever get used to torture, to human rights violations.
When my colleague Dina Meza, journalist of ‘Defenders of Human Rights Online” for COFADEH (Committee for the Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras) called me on the phone to tell me that for the umpteenth time that Edwin Espinal Róbelo had been taken by the police without any charge, tortured, insulted and threatened with death, a huge rage grew within me.
What does the coup regime want from him? What is their problem? Can’t they understand that a soul as bold as Edwin’s can’t be turned to betrayal, or bought? That they try to do this after having taken the life of the person he loved with all his heart, having brutally destroyed a future family, having murdered the woman of his dreams, Wendy Elizabeth Avila?
Edwin is paying for the fact of having participated in the peaceful Resistance movement, of supporting the political preparation of his neighborhood, but above all of having been an eyewitness to the murder of Francisco Alvarado, brutally killed by three police in Edwin’s suburb ‘Flor de Campo’, on the 22nd of September 2009. That same night his car was raked with threatening gunshots.
And four days later the teargas of the murdering gorillas asphyxiated his wife Wendy, when they deployed around the Brazilian Embassy while Mel Zelaya was sheltered there.
From that day hence the life of Edwin was totally destroyed, shattered, broken … but he kept his head up, kept up the peaceful struggle on the side of the Resistance with one more motivation; not to let the killers of Wendy sleep in peace. There will be no forgetting and forgiving for them.
I believe the coup-masters fear his spirit, his example, and his ability to react to all the arrests (now there are more than ten, and none of them with a valid excuse) and in spite of all, he didn’t go into exile, and he didn’t lock himself into his room and cry.
When I arrive at my office of COFADEH, my heart warms: Edwin is sitting on a chair, in pain, blinded by toxic gas spray, and noticing my presence by my voice. I am fierce with the impotent rage I feel. I can’t and never will understand unprovoked violence.
He tells me that the stopped him at 11.30 pm for drunk driving. When the police detained him he was standing outside the car chatting with a friend. He wasn’t even sitting behind the steering wheel. I’d like to add here that he is virtually a teetotaler!
“The officer who made the arrest is called Vargas. He is new to the neighborhood, but with him were the three police I had reported as killers”, Edwin tells me.
“When I declared that I wouldn’t accept being detained for any reason, Vargas sprayed gas in my eyes and the others began to beat me up and threw me into the patrol van”, Edwin continued.
When we arrived at the station the police of Belen began to torture me with electric shock treatment. They put a gun to my ears and fired shots from it. It feels as though your brain is being shaken up”, Edwin tells me.
Thanks to the reports of the neighbors who were present at the arrest and the questions taken by the colleague Dina Meza, and above all, the fact that the coordinator of COFADEH Bertha Oliva personally went to the Police Station, we were able to find Edwin Espinal alive.
Dina tells me that the police were very cynical, making fun of her and joking about Edwin’s delicate health. “They laughed in my face and threatened me, saying that if they hadn’t killed me this time, they would the next; that the police would kill off all the Resistance because they knew we all hated anyone in uniform” Edwin confided to me.
And I ask, I wonder; when will the Inter-American Commission of Washington truly respect the preventative measures that they advocate? How can one respect a police force which is committed to persecute the same citizens that they should genuinely be protecting from crime?…
Translated by Fry Warwick
http://www.resistenciahonduras.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=516:honduras-the-truth-will-out-in-spite-of-ongoing-tortures&catid=103:human-rights&Itemid=352
Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2010 1:56 AM
Subject: Urgent Action Against Illegal Detention and Tortures – COFADEH
Urgent Action
The Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (Cofadeh), expresses its total repudiation and preoccupation by the illegal detention followed by tortures that Edwin Spinal Róbelo was subject to at the hands of agents of the Preventive National Police.
The 30th of June at 11:30 p.m. Edwin Spinal Róbelo was in his neighborhood, La Flor del Campo, Tegucigalpa, when five policemen from the police station of Flor del Campo, headed by the agent Vargas arrived asking Edwin for his driving license. Edwin responded by showing his identity card, which was the document he was required to carry because he was not driving and therefore did not need to demonstrate his driving license. Immediately they began to beat him and agent Vargas sprayed him in the eyes with pepper spray and applied an electric baton to different parts of the body, especially the legs and ears.
He was then forced to board a patrol vehicle in which they drove in erratic directions in different streets for 45 minutes, during the journey they threatened him by saying that he was a communist, a Zelayista and “to abandon that shit of the Resistencia”, after threatening him and taking pictures, he was transferred to the Cuarta Police Station; before being lowered from the patrol vehicle he was pushed with the intention of causing him to lose his balance and fall, the police also repeatedly sprayed pepper spray and proceeded to put him in a cell. When they applied the pepper spray, a police officer said that the gas would kill all civilians – Edwin lost his young wife, Wendy Elizabeth Avila of pulmonary congestion after breathing pepper spray on 22 September 2009 during the repression and suspension of constitutional guarantees. At the police station he was informed that he was detained for being for drunk and disorderly. Edwin Róbelo does not drink alcohol. He was released at 10:30 a.m. on July 1, 2010 through the intervention of the Coordinator of Cofadeh.
Background:
Edwin Róbelo Espinal has been the subject of multiple captures since the military coup, all following the same pattern of abuse. On November 14, 2009, was arrested by police during the vehicle convoy of the Resistencia de Colonia San Miguel de Tegucigalpa, on this occasion, the police, without reason began beating and arresting demonstrators that had remained at the end of the convoy; as Edwin asked for what reason they were being abused, eight officers took him by the shirt and handcuffed him putting him in the patrol vehicle. He was driven along with another protester to the Cuarta Police Station where they were accused of spray painting walls with slogans of the Resistencia. The young man who was also arrested could not read or write. He remained detained for six hours, during which time
he was threatened with charges of sedition.
Edwin has also received several threatening calls on his cell phone which usually occur at nightime.
On October 7, 2009, he was attacked with rubber bullets while participating in a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa. On February 25, 2010, police took photographs of the license plates of his car while he attended a demonstration of the Resistencia. In the first week of April 2010, the police threatened motorcyclists of the Resistencia, Los Patriotas, of which Edwin forms part of, that if they went out on motorcycles they would be repressed and during the march they took photographs of the motorcycle license plates that were parked in the parking lot of the STIBYS. The marches continued Los Patriotas continued supporting with their motorcycles.
On 10 April, after the march, Edwin gave his motorcycle and helmets Ebenor Gerson Vilchez and his girlfriend. In Comayagüela City, between the Second and Fourth Street, an unknown vehicle struck the motorcycle that Gerson was driving. Due to the severity of the injuries he died 40 minutes later.
Request
COFADEH makes a call to national and international community to:
Demand that the Honduran authorities guarantee the safety of Edwin Róbelo Espinal Young, to carry out a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into the acts of intimidation, illegal arrests and torture that violate fundamental human rights of Edwin Róbelo, to make public the results and bring those responsible for these acts to justice.
Ensure the safety of all people exercising their right to association and free expression.
Direct their communications to the following authorities:
Jorge Alberto Rivera Avilés
Presidente de la Corte Suprema de Justicia
Tel (504) 269-3000 269-3069
Mail: cedij@poderjudicial.gob.hn
Luis Alberto Rubí
Fiscal General de la República.
Fax (504) 221-5667
Tel (504) 221-5670 221-3099
Mail: lrubi@mp.hn
suazog@mp.hn
Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras
(Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras)
C O F A D E H
Barrio La Plazuela, Ave. Cervantes, Casa No. 1301. Apdo. Postal No. 1243, Tegucigalpa, M.D.C., Honduras, C.A.
Tel/Fax (504) 220-5280 / 220-7147
E-Mail: cofadeh@sdnhon.org.hn
www.cofadeh.org
