As a result of the illegal coup to depose then Honduran President, Manual Zelaya, in 2009, in which the U.S. played an under-handed role, Hondurans have endured multiple assassinations, kidnapping, and brutal suppression of their basic human rights. The horrors continue in that poor, lawless country, in which unionists, journalists and ordinary citizens who have continued to fight for basic human rights, have been targeted for threats, arrests, kidnapping and outright assassination. Eighteen journalists have already been killed, 25 have received death threats, 4 have been kidnapped and tortured, and 37 other attacks on journalists recorded.
One such journalist, Gilda Silvestrucchi, who hosts a radio program, has, within the last twenty days, been personally threatened. She dared to interview two opponents of a pending new mining law. Not only have anonymous callers informed her, right after her interviews, that she was to be murdered, but they threatened to kill her children as well.
The Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (Cofadeh) has put out an international alert asking the world to demand that she receive protection from Honduran government officials. Their alert gives details:
On January 3, 2012 while on her way to work at the radio program Gilda was followed. On January 20, 2012, her mother received a phone call from a male voice requesting information regarding the routine of Gilda Carolina Silvestrucchi including what time she arrived home, where she was during the day and where he could find her. The unknown caller questioned the mother under the pretense of knowing the exact time when she could be found at home.
Today, January 23, 2012 at 9:30 a.m. she received approximately five calls on her cell phone from the number 94 83 42 03. The first question from the unknown caller was if she was the owner of the cell phone, the caller then said “We know that you have three children, that the oldest is 15 years old, that you are on the street with your 7 year old child, and that the oldest is in your home caring for the one year old. We are going to kill you.”
When the call ended, Gilda called her younger daughter who informed her that an unknown person had called asking for Gilda and her whereabouts. The subject then called Gilda’s daughter two more times.
On that day, Gilda Silvestrucchi had hosted Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos and Pedro Landa on her program as guests to speak about problems related to mining in the Siria Valley and the maneuvers of members of Congress to approve the new Mining Law.