Tegucigalpa (AFP) – Police in Honduras fired tear gas at more than 5,000 opposition supporters holding a protest against President Juan Orlando Hernandez in the capital on Friday, during the country’s independence day celebrations.
The demonstrators were expressing their anger at Hernandez’s bid for re-election in November 26 polls, made possible by the supreme court two years ago overturning a constitutional one-term limit for presidents.
They marched behind a banner declaring “the re-election is a fraud.”
Around 400 riot police suddenly deployed around the march, firing volley after volley of tear gas at the demonstrators, the thick cloud forcing them to disperse. Many fled, but some lay on the ground, choking.
One police officer told reporters that “what we are doing is protecting private property,” alleging that the protesters were “breaking windows, signs, walls.”
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Manuel Zelaya, a former president who was deposed in a coup in 2009 when he tried to organize a referendum seen as an attempt to lift the one-term limit, accused the police of putting stone-throwing troublemakers in the march to justify the police action. His party was among those taking part in the march.
The opposition demonstrators later regrouped and continued their march.
The anti-Hernandez protest took place in the center of the city, separate from a government-promoted march of 20,000 people marking Honduras’ independence from Spain in 1821.
Hernandez, a 48-year-old US-educated businessman, is seen as the frontrunner in the presidential election. He took office in 2014.