Militant protests have swept through Honduras since the Oct. 18 conviction by a federal jury in New York of the brother of President Juan Orlando Hernández on narco-trafficking charges. Thousands have filled the streets of cities and towns across the Central American country to demand the resignation of Hernández. Protesters have repeatedly blocked traffic arteries, erecting barricades with stones and flaming tires. A police transport truck was set on fire in Tegucigalpa. Opposition leader Salvador Nasralla of the Anticorruption Party has thrown his support behind the protests and called on the security forces to stand down, invoking a "right to insurrection" in Article 3 of the Honduran constitution. 

Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernández was convicted in what US prosecutors described as a conspiracy that relied on "state-sponsored drug trafficking." Prosecutors alleged that Tony served as the conduit for a $1 million bribe to President Hernández from Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán.

The crisis comes just weeks after Honduras signed a deal with Washington to accept diverted migrants seeking asylum in the US. Under the agreement, the US would be able to deport to Honduras any asylum-seekers who passed through the country on the way to the United States' southern border. (Izquierda Diario, Prensa Latina, Abolition Media Worldwide, AP, BBC News, BBC News, CNN, NYP)

See our last post on the political crisis in Honduras.