Washington, October 28, 2009 -- An international ecumenical delegation has met with the General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS) and representatives of the U.S. State Department to urge stronger action against human rights abuses in Honduras.

Reports from Pax Christi International and an OAS delegation that visited Honduras October this month reveal wide-spread abuses including intimidation, beatings and rape by government security forces since the June 28 coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya.

"My concern is that the U.S. churches have not paid enough attention to the situation in Honduras, when, in fact, the coup against a democratically elected government is a threat to the stability of Latin America as a whole," said the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches and a member of the delegation.

Kinnamon praised the Obama administration for suspending military and most economic aid to Honduras, "but more attention to the situation is warranted."

Other members of the delegation included the Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, President, North America, of the World Council of Churches; Lic. Noemi Madrid de Espinoza, Vice Moderator of the WCC's Commission of the Churches for International Affairs and President (Administration) of the Theological Community of Honduras; Bishop Emeritus Aldo Etchegoyen, Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina; the Rev, Christopher Ferguson, WCC representative to the United Nations; and Michael Neuroth, Policy Advocate on International Issues, Justice and Witness Ministries of the United Church of Christ.

The delegation's high-level meetings  here October 22 follow two delegations to Honduras this summer: the World Council of Churches "Living Letters" delegation met with church and civil society groups in early August, and the Latin American Council of Churches led a pastoral visit in late September. Both visits strongly urged the return of President Manuel Zelaya in order to hold free and legal elections within the country's constitutional framework.

Honduran soldiers rousted President Manuel Zelaya from his bed June 28 and exiled him at gunpoint  to Costa Rica, halting his controversial push to redraw the constitution but spurring fresh concerns about democratic rule across Latin America. Honduras's Congress formally removed Mr. Zelaya from the presidency and named congressional leader Roberto Micheletti as his successor until the end of Mr. Zelaya's term in January.

But harsh actions against protests have belied claims that the coup was legal and democratic.

Noemi Madrid de Espinoza, President of the Theological Community of Honduras and a member of the delegation who participated in the WCC "Living Letters" visit to Honduras, declared that  "the repression, arrests, forced disappearances and violence directed against the population and especially against women must come to an end now."