Report from a contact involved in popular struggle and human rights movement in Tegucigalpa, Honduras received Monday June 29th at 11:04pm.
 
Reportaje de un contacto del movimiento civil y de derechos humanos en Tegucigalpa, Honduras el Lunes 29 de Junio recibido a las 11:04 de la noche. - Español abajo
 
Greetings,
 
 
Today has been a very tragic day for our country. The army's violent repression continues against the demonstrators protesting peacefully for the restoration of constitutional order and democracy in Honduras.

After weeks of public debate and protest, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved an amendment to the constitution to ban marriage between same-sex couples and same-sex couples’ ability to adopt a child.  This amendment was proposed in the final hours of the current Legislative Assembly session, which ends April 30th.

“Marriage is only for men and women, born that way.  It remains consecrated in our country that this is not possible for same-sex couples,” (El Diario de Hoy, 30 April 2009) announced Rodolfo Parker, the major proponent of the amendment.

by Alexandria Soleil and Maggie Von Vogt

On April 20, 2009, various organizations and individuals from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community of El Salvador rallied in front of the Legislative Assembly to protest an unwarranted attack on their civil rights. Legislative Assembly Deputy Rodolfo Parker has reignited efforts to pass an amendment that would specify that marriage only be between a man and a woman and deny same sex couples the right to adopt a child. Activists from various NGOs and LGBT networks joined to demonstrate their presence and present a counter-amendment that would expand constitutional rights in the country rather than deny them.

By Alexandria Soleil and Maggie Von Vogt

Salvadorans marked party flags on their ballots Sunday during nationwide legislative and municipal elections. The local press is focusing on the capital where right-wing ARENA won the mayor seat from the left-wing FMLN. Nonetheless international media report that the FMLN won a majority of legislative seats.

So far, all political parties have accepted results peacefully, but irregularities in the voting process have raised concerns in several municipalities. The Center for Exchange and Solidarity (El Centro de Intercambio y Solidarididad, CIS), which coordinated an international electoral observation mission, reported several concerns with the way voting developed throughout the country.

by Alexandria Soleil and Maggie Von Vogt

On January 18, 2009, El Salvador will hold its sixth municipal and legislative elections since the 1992 signing of the Peace Accords.  This year national politicians and international officials are aiming for the most transparent and clean to date, but popular sectors criticize the electoral system and predict that past problems are likely to occur again.  A September 2008 poll executed by the University Institute of Public Opinion at Central American University José Simeon Cañas (IUDOP) found that 55% of those surveyed believe there will be fraud in January’s election.

(Articulo originariamente publicado en Upside Down World:

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1568/1/)

Full article originally published by Upside Down World:

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1567/1/

The campus of the University of San Carlos, Guatemala City, rich with a history of youth and student movements, was the site of the The Third Americas Social Forum from October 7-12 12, 2008.  People from a wide variety of social movements throughout the Americas attended the forum, participating in workshops, marches, and cultural events towards the goal of connecting and strengthening movements for justice and liberation in the face of neoliberalism, imperialism, and capitalism.

According to forum organizers, “The 3rd ASF will embrace the range of struggles, proposals, and experiences that have been strengthened, renewed or emerging over this rich period of common searching that has been taking place across the continent. It will stimulate stronger interconnections and aim to create more effective spaces for self-guided construction of shared platforms for emancipation… Overcoming geopolitical divides, peoples of the continent are moving toward an ever more shared identity between South and North, and between the different regions of the Americas. The struggles are growing closer and stronger in solidarity, as peoples who are confronting capitalism, imperialism and patriarchy.”