Honduras Weekly WELCOM ITSMANIA PINEDA PLATERO

Honduras Weekly would like to welcome Itsmania Pineda Platero as the latest member of our team of writers. Itsmania is a professional journalist who lives in Tegucigalpa. She blogs at Xibalba Arte y Cultura, and she is a vocal defender of human rights and freedom of expression in Honduras, and as such we value her insights on these complex and important issues.

Additionally, Itsmania and her non-profit group, Xibalba, which she founded in 1989, have a tremendous amount of experience working with youths who have become involved with illegal drugs and gangs in Honduras and have suffered discrimination and abuse for the way they dress, think, and act.

Itsmania has tirelessly worked for more than two decades to try and help these young Hondurans by providing educational and job training opportunities for them to re-integrate into Honduran society. Simultaneously, she has courageously fought to protect these individuals against inhumane treatment by authorities.

This expertise with Honduras' troubled youths represents a wealth of knowledge and understanding which Itsmania brings to the table as a writer, and we hope she will liberally share it with our broader English-speaking audience.

We accept that Itsmania's perspectives and opinions may be discomforting to some. But we see this as necessary if what we seek is an honest and open conversation about the problems that plague Honduras. Which we do. Otherwise, we relegate ourselves to living in denial, and then we can never hope to find and implement authentic solutions.

Oh, by the way... Itsmania has been nominated by for the Netizen Prize -- sponsored by Reporters Without Borders and Google -- for her work to fight against government censorship, particularly as it relates to freedom of expression online. Please consider voting for her at www.youtube.com/rsfinternet?x=us-en_showcase_58_7

The Hunger Strike .

• Written by  Itsmania Pineda Platero 
•  
  Oh, by the way... Itsmania has been nominated by for the Netizen Prize -- sponsored by Reporters Without Borders and Google -- for her work to fight against government censorship, particularly as it relates to freedom of expression online. Please consider voting for her at www.youtube.com/rsfinternet?x=us-en_showcase_58_7

A hunger strike is a tool for fighting against violence. It consists of depriving oneself of any type of nutrition in order to reclaim certain rights that have been denied and do away with certain laws or norms that the hunger striker considers illegitimate. A hunger strike can have specific duration or can be unlimited. In the case of the latter, the final outcome would be death from starvation, which would occur 60 to 90 days from the start of the strike. But perhaps some people do know what it is to feel hunger, and so for that reason they cannot understand those who go on hunger strikes or the causes for which they strike. Those of us who are familiar with hunger, we recognize it when we feel it in our stomach. When we experiment with hunger, generally it is not a problem to eliminate it -- assuming, of course, we're able to find something to eat.

 But for many Hondurans, hunger is interminable; it produces cramps in the stomach, back pains, and headaches... your throat has to work harder to swallow saliva. It causes anxiety, insomnia, and it keeps you in a state of anger; you want to forget that it exists. But when hunger turns into pain, you also feel it deeply in your heart. Your heart beats more rapidly. At nights, you want to cry. And when the pain overwhelms you, you get dizzy and start to hallucinate, and you are no longer able to think clearly. Then the pain hits you in your very soul. Your soul feels, it discerns, and it warns. And then your mind begins to plot strange things. For those who never experience hunger, these plots are called "criminal acts".

You steal a chicken, then a cell phone. Since you do not wish to have the hunger pains again, you seek drugs to help you numb yourself. You wish to stop living in poverty, and you start to desire more than you have. Later, you go out and purchase a plasma TV, a laptop computer... so you can be like everyone else. Others might think about possessing a gun... so you can eat more... or a car, even if it means stealing it. Some might think this is not enough and that they have to hurry up and acquire lots of money, hire people to drive you around, or perhaps recruit others to do your bidding and guarantee that one additional tortilla.

Little by little, hunger enables you to get ahead. Many, though, will end up in prison because of that one chicken.

Yet, others will never go to prison because of the money they inherited from their families. Even though they  were so hungry that they consumed everyone else's food, they are blessed because justice never seems to touch them. People look up to them because they are important men in society. These are men who live and can never satisfy their hunger for power. They become blinded, they don't listen, they're unable to smell, they no longer feel pain, they don't converse. They only know how to give orders.

These men will live out their lives crushing those who hunger and thirst for justice. That  hunger, as I said, first manifests itself as pain, then... death. (3/5/13) (image courtesy Internet)


Note: The author is a journalist, blogger, and human rights activist. She is the founder of a human rights group in Honduras called Xibalba known for its work with youth who have become members of gangs. Itsmania Pineda Platero has been nominated for the annual Netizen Prize, sponsored by Reporters Without Borders and Google, for her work to fight against government censorship, particularly as it relates to freedom of expression online.

Editor's Note: Teachers in Honduras sometimes go on hunger strikes to protest government policies or inaction with regard to their demands for payment of their salaries, or because they've been suspended for striking for payment of their salaries. There was a hunger strike by teachers in September 2008. There was another one in May 2011. Parents of students who are unable to attend school because of the teacher strikes also go on hunger strikes. One of these occurred in May 2010.

Honduran Journalist Itsmania Pineda Platero Nominated for Netizen Prize

Two billion people worldwide now have Internet access but a third of them lack access to an Internet that is free and open to all because of government censorship, filtering and online surveillance. Around 180 citizen-journalists, bloggers and other netizens are currently in prison because of their online activity. To support their efforts and to mark World Day Against Cyber-Censorship, Reporters Without Borders and Google award the Netizen Prize every March 12 with the aim of drawing the public’s attention to the need to defend online free expression. Since 2008, this prize has been awarded to journalists, bloggers and other netizens who have made a distinguished contribution to the defence of freedom of expression on the Internet.

To stimulate online interest, the winner of the Netizen Prize will this year for the first time be elected by the Internet public, who are invited to cast their vote online. Nine netizens have been nominated by Reporters Without Borders. We have chosen online news and information providers who have distinguished themselves through investigative reporting, projects or other initiatives which have helped advance online freedom of information and which are likely to inspire fellow netizens around the world.

Up until Tuesday, March 5, Internet users can vote for the nominee they think best represents the fight for online freedom of information by going to the Reporters Without Borders YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/netizen2013

The nominee who has received the most votes will be announced on March 7. The winner will be invited to the award ceremony at Google France’s headquarters in Paris on March 12. The nominees for the 2013 Netizen Prize are: Itsmania Pineda Platero (Honduras), Cheikh Fall (Senegal), Oumarou Mohamed Lamine (Mali), Suren Gazaryan (Russia), Murat Tungishbayev (Kazakhstan), Assen Yordanov (Bulgaria), Huynh Ngoc Chenh (Vietnam), Mosireen (Egypt) and Shiva Nazar Ahari (Iran). (3/4/13) (photo of Itsmania Pineda Platero)

Note: This press release was issued by Reporters Without Borders.

Editor's Note: Itsmania Pineda Platero is an independent journalist, blogger, and human rights activist in Honduras. She reports on the "maras" -- the gangs of extremely violent youth criminals who have spread throughout Central America. A vocal critic of the coup in 2009 that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya and its impact on freedom of information, Mrs. Platero led a peaceful demonstration in front of the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa which the police repressed with violence. After receiving repeated death threats, Mrs. Platero was provided with personal protection arranged by Reporters Without Borders. To vote for Itsmania, go to www.youtube.com/rsfinternet?x=us-en_showcase_58_7