Hondura: Anti-coup protesters charged with sedition

Two dozen supporters of Honduras’ ousted president were charged with sedition in an intensifying crackdown on protests against the coup-installed government.

Protests to demand the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya turned violent in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa this week, with police firing tear gas and demonstrators fighting back with sticks and stones.

Some protesters attacked the vice president of Congress, although he wasn’t injured.

Some 24 demonstrators were charged with sedition and damaging private property, said Melvin Duarte, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office.

Another four were charged with aggravated arson and terrorism in the burning of a bus and a restaurant.

Interim President Roberto Micheletti condemned the clashes as “violent and terrorist” and vowed his government would no longer tolerate street blockades and other disruptions.

Mr Zelaya, a timber magnate who veered to the left midway through his presidency, was ousted by the army on June 28 and flown out of the country.

Mr Micheletti, the former congressional president chosen by politicians to replace Mr Zelaya, has refused to consider reinstating the ousted leader despite worldwide condemnation and the suspension of millions of dollars in US and European development aid.

Mr Micheletti insists Mr Zelaya was legally removed from office through a congressional vote for defying court orders to drop plans for referendum asking voters if they would support rewriting the constitution.

Mr Zelaya’s opponents accuse him of seeking to extend his term in office by removing a constitutional ban on presidential re-election, as his ally Hugo Chavez has done in Venezuela. Mr Zelaya, whose constitutional four-year term ends January 27, denies that was his intention.

Protest leader Eulogio Chavez accused the interim government of persecuting demonstrators and denied that the four charged with burning the bus and restaurant committed those acts.

The demonstrators were charged three days before human rights monitors from the Organisation of American States are scheduled to arrive in Honduras.

Days later, several Latin American foreign ministers are due to visit the country in an effort to jump-start stalled negotiations aimed at ending the crisis.