New York  - More than 90 US academics and Latin American experts on Friday urged an investigation into alleged target killings, arbitrary detention and attacks on the press in Honduras following the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya in June.

The complainants asked the New York-based Human Rights Watch to launch an investigation of the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti, who was installed as president on June 28 after Zelaya was toppled and sent into exile in Costa Rica.

Human Rights Watch was called to investigate extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detention, physical assaults and attacks on the press that have allegedly occurred in Honduras since the military coup.

The military and judiciary in Honduras charged Zelaya with trying to usurp power and amend the constitution so he could run for a second, four-year term, prompting his ouster. Zelaya denied the charge and said he had no plan of running for re-election.

The academics and experts said most cases of human rights violations have been directed at "supporters of the democratic and constitutional government of Manuel Zelaya."

"The coup regime's violent repression in Honduras has not stopped," they said in a letter to Human Rights Watch's executive director Kenneth Roth.

The letter said human rights organizations in Honduras, including the Committee for the Relatives of the Disappeared Detainees, have documented a series of political assassinations, violent repression of unarmed demonstrators and human rights violations under the Micheletti government.

The letter claims the US government of President Barack Obama could have easily overturned the coup against Zelaya with decisive measures such as cancelling all US visas and freezing US bank accounts of Honduras' coup leaders.

The US and all Latin American governments have refused to recognize the Micheletti government. Efforts to mediate an end to the political crisis in Honduras by former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias have so far deadlocked. Zelaya is currently camping on the border with Honduras, waiting for a chance to return to Tegucigalpa.

The signers of the letter included MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Alejandro Alvarez Bejar from UNAM-Mexico, Tim Anderson of the University of Sydney, Australia, Les W Field of the University of Mexico, Eric Hershberg of the Simon Fraser University of Vancouver, Mary Nolan of New York University and Elisabeth Wood of Yale University. (dpa)