|
Tegucigalpa, Dec 15 (IANS/EFE) Dozens of members of Honduras' gay and lesbian community gathered outside the Attorney General's Office in this capital to protest the slayings of 58 gays and lesbians this year. The community wants to see 'the murders solved and justice done', spokesperson Jose Zambrano told reporters. Human rights continue to be violated in Honduras, where 'there is no respect for sexual diversity' and an absence of genuine democracy, Zambrano said. Gays and lesbians in Honduras are daily subjected to harassment, discrimination, arbitrary arrest, torture and murder, the protesters said. An association representing AIDS patients and people infected with HIV has recently held demonstrations to publicize the killings of some of its members and to demand that President Porfirio Lobo's government find and prosecute the perpetrators. Honduras, which experiences an average of 20 homicides a day, has become the most dangerous country in Central America in the 2 1/2 years since the overthrow of president Mel Zelaya. Hours before the protest by the gay and lesbian community, police beat and tear-gassed journalists during a march to the presidential palace to highlight the slayings of 17 of their colleagues since January 2010, when Lobo took office after winning an election organized by the junta that ousted Zelaya. --IANS/EFE rd
| 
