Tegucigalpa, January 29 (RHC)-- In Honduras, U.S.-backed President Juan Orlando Hernández was inaugurated for a second term over the weekend amid massive protests denouncing widespread alleged voter fraud in the November 26th election.
Protest organizer Mario Almendarez told reporters that despite the repression by Honduran police, the demands for a new election would continue. He added that voters cast their ballots and “defeated the narco-dictator, who had all the state’s money, yet we defeated him, and he is taking power by relying on the armed forces and the police.”
The Honduran military has killed dozens of protesters since the contested election on November 26th, in which opposition leader
In related news, nearly 200 demonstrators, including members of religious groups, protested U.S. support for the re-election of
the right-wing Honduran president in front of the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa on Sunday evening.
The peaceful protesters held candles, chanted slogans and sang protest music. Ismael Moreno, a Jesuit leader, said: "We came to the United States Embassy to spark lights in the midst of the darkness of a dictatorship that has the immediate and permanent protection of the United States."