NACLA Update 8/20/09 - Human Rights in Honduras/Health Care in Bolivia

New on nacla.org

Human Rights Groups Criticized for Silence on Honduras: An Open Letter
by Dana Frank, Greg Grandin, Forrest Hylton, and John Womack
While both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were quick to condemn the illegal coup d'etat of June 28 and the human rights violations that occurred over the following week, which helped shine the spotlight of international media on these abuses, the absence of statements from your organizations since the week following the coup has contributed to the failure of international media to report on subsequent abuses.
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Bolivia Prescribes Solidarity: Health Care Reform under Evo Morales
by Jason Tockman
The first time Mario Terán faced a doctor from Cuba, he killed him. He heard Che Guevara utter his famous last words: "Shoot, coward; you are only going to kill a man," and in October of 1967, in a small schoolhouse in rural Bolivia, Sergeant Terán fired a round of bullets into the revolutionary's body. Forty years later, Terán walked into a medical clinic staffed by Cuban physicians. Disguising his identity, he requested medical attention. His cataracts were corrected, his sight restored.
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International PEN Protests Sentencing of Guatemalan Publisher
by Rapid Action Network
The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN (WiPC) protests the one-year prison sentence and fine handed down to publisher Raúl Figueroa-Sarti on 6 August 2009 for alleged copyright infringement. Figueroa is currently under house arrest and there are concerns for his safety. There are significant concerns that the case against Figueroa has been brought in retaliation for his publication of books on human rights abuses in Guatemala. The WiPC is therefore calling for the case against the publisher to be dropped and for him to be allowed to return to the USA, where he is resident.
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