Thousands of people in Honduras demonstrate in support of President Xiomara Castro after compromising video

Thousands of people marched on Saturday, September 14, in the Honduran capital to support President Xiomara Castro, shaken by a video showing her brother-in-law meeting drug traffickers suspected of having negotiated the financing of her campaign in 2013.

“Xiomara is not alone”chanted protesters outside the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa. “As coreligionists, we must support her”Carlos Umanzor, a 65-year-old farmer from a border area with El Salvador, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

M^me Castro announced in late August the cancellation of the extradition treaty with the United States, saying he feared it would be used against military personnel loyal to him and facilitate a coup attempt. She had denounced the pact, attacking the“US interference and interventionism”.

Key instrument in the fight against drug trafficking

However, the opposition claims it cancelled the treaty to protect members of its government and its family. Thousands of opponents marched in the capital in early September to denounce the cancellation of the treaty.

Three days after the announcement of the end of the treaty, a brother-in-law and a nephew of the left-wing president resigned: the deputy Carlos Zelaya, after admitting to prosecutors to having met drug traffickers in 2013, as revealed in a video published Tuesday, September 3 by the investigative site InSight Crime and the Univision channel, and his son, the Minister of Defense, José Manuel Zelaya.

A key instrument in the fight against international drug trafficking in this Central American country, the extradition treaty was signed in 1912. Under this pact, around fifty Hondurans have been handed over to the United States since 2014.