Radio Progreso Commentator Castro Rosales Joins High Profile Jesuit Priest and Honduran Delegates for U.S. Speaking Tour

Media contacts:
Jan Dragin, Dragin Communications, for UUSC, 24/7, 011 339 236-0679

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

*** EDITORS, PRODUCERS: Boston events below are open to media. … Ely Castro Rosales available for interviews on request, with translator … Human rights groups’ spokespersons hosting Castro Rosales also available for comments.

Certain securities may be requested for media interviews, to protect Honduran delegates’ safety on their return to Honduras. Profiles of the delegates and Honduran radio station Radio Progreso available here.

BOSTON/CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — May 03, 2018 —Ely Castro Rosales, commentator on human rights with independent Honduran radio station Radio Progreso, will speak in Boston May 11 – 15 on the ongoing human rights crisis, lawlessness, corruption and violence that continue to roil the region and drive thousands to flee for asylum in Mexico and the United States.

Castro Rosales’ Human Rights at Risk presentations in Boston are part of a delegation of Honduran activists scheduled to visit nine major U.S. cities May 11 through May 18. Among the delegates also is high profile Jesuit priest Father Ismael Moreno, SJ. Known in Honduras as Padre Melo, Moreno is founder of Radio Progreso/ERIC (Equipo de Reflexión, Información y Comunicación).

The Honduran delegates — staff members of Radio Progreso, human rights defenders and victims of violence and suppression in their country — will fan out across the U.S., speaking in Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, California, Chicago, Illinois, Houston, Texas, Spokane, Washington, St. Louis, Missouri, El Paso, Texas, Baltimore, Maryland, and ending May 17 and 18 in Washington, D.C. 

The delegation is calling for an end to U.S. military support for their government, which gained power through elections widely viewed as fraudulent. They hope to raise U.S. awareness of the growing repression, violence and human rights crisis in the country, exacerbated by the affirmation given by the U.S. government to the November re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernández, despite widespread allegations of fraud.

Castro Rosales, Father Moreno and Radio Progreso staff have received death threats for their public actions and broadcasts reporting on conditions in Honduras.

Honduras is presently viewed as one of the most dangerous places globally for human rights advocates, LGBT individuals, journalists and environmentalists.

Delegation in the midst of U.S. decision on Honduran TPS

The group’s U.S. tour is slated to the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s final decision expected Friday, May 4 to extend or end the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) in this country of some 86,000 Hondurans — and the administration’s actions in stalling entry for an estimated 200 Central American asylum-seekers who arrived from a caravan Sunday April 29 at the San Ysidro port of entry between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, California.

Boston Honduran rights events open to public

Castro Rosales will speak and hold dialogues in Greater Boston venues, open to the public and to media, at:

Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston
637 Cambridge Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02135
Saturday, May 12, 2018
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET

Church of the Covenant Council Reception
Church of the Covenant
67 Newbury St, Boston, Massachusetts 02116
Sunday, May 13, 2018
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM ET
Open to all who attend church that day. Weather permitting, reception may be held outdoors; call (617) 266-7480 for final locale.

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
689 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
1:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET
 
First Parish Church
382 Walnut Street, Brookline, Massachusetts 02445
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET

The Greater Boston delegation events are organized by Centro Presente, a Massachusetts Latin American immigration organization, human rights organization Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice, and by associates of Sisters of St. Joseph, Brighton, the Boston Church of the Covenant and Church of the Covenant Mission and Advocacy Committee, Jamaica Plain.

The Honduran delegation’s nine-city U.S. tour is sponsored by Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Silver Spring, Maryland, the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, Oakland, California and the SHARE Foundation El Salvador and Berkeley, California. The SHARE Foundation and Sisters of Mercy are national organizers for the U.S. tour. José Artiga is Executive Director of SHARE El Salvador’s Berkeley office.

For more information on the U.S. delegation’s national tour itinerary, locations and delegates, see: share-elsalvador.org. For further Boston venue information, contact Kathleen McTigue, Director, Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice, (617) 301-4362, or email: kmctigue@uucsj.org.

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BACKGROUND

In January of this year, during continued protests and unrest following Honduras’ contested presidential re-election, Rev. Kathleen McTigue, director of the Boston-Cambridge based Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice, joined 50 interfaith and social justice advocates in a delegation to Honduras. The delegation, responding to requests for accompaniment by Honduran religious leaders who had received death threats, inspired the May Honduran delegation to the U.S.

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