About Repression in Honduras by Jeremy John This powerful video was made by César Silva, a publicist who before the coup in Honduras worked for Channel 8, the State Television Channel. He made this video in collaboration with Edwin Renán Fajardo Argueta. Once the coup happened, and Channel 8 was no longer directed by the Zelaya government, César continued his work as a journalist, but as an individual in collaboration with Edwin. After this video was finished, César and Edwin began traveling around to the barrios in Tegucigalpa, showing the video, and educating people about what happened with the coup. This activity led to both of these young men becoming targets of the death squads. Edwin was assassinated on December 22, 2009. He was found in his apartment hanging from the ceiling, haven been strangled with a piece of wire. There was an attempt to make his death look like a suicide, but it is clear from the evidence that it was a murder. Right after Edwin’s body was found, César was chased down and dragged out of a taxi. He was taken into custody and tortured for about 30 hours. At that point, he was told: “You have an angel out there somewhere, and he has requested that we release you.” And they let him go. At that point César decided that it wasn’t safe for him to remain in the country, so he decided to flee. He has released this video while in exile, and will continue to produce more videos from the raw material which he still has. The footage includes up-close documentation of the repression which has occurred repeatedly over the last seven months. In the video, César is one of the people carrying Isis Murillo, the young man shot in the head by a sharpshooter at the Tegucigalpa airport last July 5th. It strikes right at the heart of claims that there was limited repression carried out by the coup regime. Special thanks to Sofia Jarrin T., who added the subtitles to this video. Please share the video with all of your friends and contacts, and feel free to link to it and embed it on your web sites.
Jeremy John is Technology Director of the Quixote Center. This article was first published on the center’s Web site on 27 January 2010. The Spanish-language version of Repression in Honduras is available at <vimeo.com/8912236>.