by Rex Wockner
International News Briefs
Honduran police officer Amado Rodriguez Borjas will spend 10-13 years in prison after being convicted Sept. 9 in a stabbing attack on a transgender woman in Tegucigalpa.
The woman, Nohelia Flores Alvarez, was abducted and stabbed 17 times on Dec. 18, 2008, after she refused to have sex with Rodriguez when he approached her in public, Human Rights Watch said.
"The case was fraught with acts of intimidation, with police, a witness and prosecutors, as well as Nohelia, threatened by anonymous attackers and callers," said HRW researcher Juliana Cano Nieto. "On March 21, unknown men kidnapped Nohelia and threatened to kill her if she continued with the case. She was shot in the arm in the ensuing struggle with the kidnappers but managed to escape."
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ended up providing protection to Flores and some other people involved in the case.
Human Rights Watch says that "nearly every" transgender person it has spoken with in Honduras has told of personal "harassment, beatings and ill-treatment at the hands of police."
