TEGUCIGALPA, July 2 (PL).—Popular demonstrations against the coup continued for the fifth successive day in Honduras, demanding the restoration of democratic rule of law and the return of President José Manuel Zelaya.

In this capital, several thousand demonstrators came together in the early hours of the morning in an area known as El Obelisco, in the vicinity of the Army Central Command.

A similar demonstration was organized by the Popular Resistance Front in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second city and its industrial base, 250 kilometers north of Tegucigalpa.

Witness informed the National Commission for the Disappeared that demonstrators were brutally evicted from the city’s central park by troops armed with assault rifles and by antiriot police. More than 300 people were detained by the armed forces, according to information received by that organization.

Maritza Somoza, vice president of the Unified Workers Federation in San Pedro Sula, stated that comrades from the Federation had seen a convoy of eight military trucks full of detainees.