Anti-Fraud Protesters Face Police Repression in
Honduras as Juan Orlando Hernandez Desperately Clings to Power
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – Just before midnight on Wednesday, a
crowd of several thousand anti-fraud protesters in Honduras - including
numerous young children - was tear-gassed repeatedly by a military police tank
and riot police outside of the INFOP – the building where all of the ballots
and tally sheets from last Sunday’s elections are being stored and counted.
The incident took place three tense days after national
elections left both sides claiming victory, but official initial results
pointing to a five percentage point victory for the Opposition Alliance Against
the Dictatorship’s candidate Salvador Nasralla. After several days delay,
numerous irregularities and unexplained transmission outages, Wednesday
afternoon official results began to show a slight advantage for the incumbent
Juan Orlando Hernandez. With the electoral tribunal announcing that a final
result would be released at 3am, thousands began to gather outside the site of
the ballot-counting to protest against the attempt to steal their victory. When
former President Manuel Zelaya arrived at the scene, the crowd surged forward
and police began tear-gassing the crowd seemingly indiscriminately. Protestors
fled running and clutching cloth to their faces and coughing.
In the chaos, tear gas entered the warehouse and election
observers were forced to flee, raising concerns about unattended ballots in an
election already marked by charges of fraud, vote buying, intimidation, and repression.
Video and photos of the protest and repression available here.
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