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The government agreed to “extend the state of emergency for another 45 days” and “expand from 75 to 123 the municipalities that will be intervened,” said a statement. According to President Xiomara Castro, the measure is having “good results.” Human Rights organizations denounce “the suspension of constitutional guarantees.”
Castro imposed the measure on December 6 to confront the gang members, mainly from Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, who terrorize the neighborhoods. The state of emergency “has allowed the identification and capture of members of these criminal structures that profit” from extortion, arms and drug trafficking, vehicle theft, homicides, femicides and money laundering, he assured.
The “state of exception” originally governed 89 neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa and 73 in San Pedro Sula. The first extension also extended the measure to another 73 municipalities and in the second it is extended to 123 “because now [los criminales] move from urban to rural areas,” he stressed.
The order authorizes the police to “detain the persons that they determine and consider responsible for associating, executing, or having links in the commission of crimes and crimes.”
The president highlighted on that occasion that the offensive is focused above all on combating extortionists, “one of the main causes of migration and the closure of medium and small businesses,” especially carriers.
But not everyone approves of the state of exception. “What we are currently experiencing in Honduras is a suspension of constitutional guarantees,” denounces Berta Oliva, coordinator of the Committee of Families of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH).
“This government assumed a truly destroyed power, especially in terms of the rule of law, and therefore assumed a criminal structure that worked and still works. I long for Honduras to return or to resemble a democratic state again, a rule of law,” Oliva told RFI.
In a report presented on the first day of the year, the Secretary of Security pointed out that Honduras closed 2022 with a homicide rate of 35.79 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest in 16 years in one of the most violent countries in the world.
The report, which attributes the reduction to the implementation of “new security strategies”, indicated that 1,371 gang members were captured last year, in addition to 307 dismantled criminal gangs dedicated to the sale of drugs, extortion and other crimes that affect criminal violence. (with AFP)
