“Multiple violations” of freedom of expression and right to information in 2006, according to C-Libre report
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – The following is a 10 April 2007 PROBIDAD press release: Report on the right to information and freedom of expression in Honduras The Committee for Free Expression (Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre) has presented its annual report on the state of freedom of expression and the right to information in Honduras. The […]
Official published version of access to information law contains modifications weakening its positive effect, warn PROBIDAD and C-Libre
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – The Transparency and Access to Public Information Law (Ley de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Pública), which was approved on 27 November 2006, was published on 30 December, in number 31,193 of “La Gaceta”, the official record of Congress, with substantial modifications that may well limit its effectiveness. Some of its articles […]
Radio station personnel threatened over critical coverage, followed, denied information and police protection services
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Municipal authorities’ aggressiveness with Radio Progreso station staff and its director, Jesuit priest Ismael Moreno, intensified on 14 December 2006, when Moreno was warned to “watch out and stop talking shit,” station personnel reported to the Committee for Free Expression (Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre). On 14 December, staff of the station, […]
NGO’s journalists learn of plot to murder them; human rights commissioner asks IACHR and government for precautionary measures
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – On 15 December 2006, journalists Robert Marín García and Dina Meza, both members of the Revistazo.com on-line newspaper team of the Association for a More Just Society (Asociación por una Sociedad más Justa, ASJ), spoke with National Human Rights Commissioner (Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos) Ramón Custodio, to report the existence of […]
NGO’s president receives death threat, staff members’ homes visited and vandalised, in ongoing intimidation campaign
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Threats against the staff of the social organisation Association for a More Just Society (Asociación por una Sociedad Más Justa, ASJ) continue. On 7 December 2006, ASJ president Carlos Hernández received a death threat and was followed by an unidentified individual on a motorcycle. He received the threat in English on his cellular […]
NGO lawyer investigating corruption murdered following death threats
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Honduran lawyer Dionisio García, aged 43, was murdered on the morning of 4 December 2006 by two hit-men on a motorcycle as he headed toward the Supreme Court. He died instantly of gunshot wounds. García was a lawyer for the Association for a More Just Society (Asociación por una Sociedad Más Justa, ASJ). […]
Congress approves access to information law that “will allow citizens to hold public servants accountable,” according to PROBIDAD and C-Libre
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – On 23 November 2006 Congress approved, on the third and final debate, the Transparency and Access to Public Information Law (Ley de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Pública), containing 49 articles, with significant improvements on the original version presented on 26 January, according to legislative sources and social organizations that have discussed […]
Court dismisses defamation charges against television station owner-manager
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – In a decisive ruling on 2 November 2006, the first court of appeals of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, dismissed the defamation lawsuit against journalist Esdras Amado López, owner and manager of the Tegucigalpa-based television station Canal 36. In their statement, the judges held that the unanimous ruling was based on the existence of […]
Court dismisses defamation complaint against two journalists
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – A court in Tegucigalpa, the nation’s capital, dismissed as invalid defamation charges against Robert Marín García and Dina Meza, editors of the digital magazine Revistazo.com. The charges were brought forward by SETECH, a private security company. The three presiding judges ruled that the complaint filed against the journalists did not detail the actual […]
Two journalists face defamation charges
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Journalists Julio Ernesto Alvarado and Francisco Romero have both been charged, separately, with defamation. Alvarado is the director of the Channel 13 HONDURED television news programme “Mi Nación”, while Romero produces the public affairs programme “Hablemos de Noche” on Channel 45 (RCN). Both television stations broadcast out of the capital, Tegucigalpa. The defamation […]
Jesuit-run radio station’s reporter assaulted and threatened by municipal government official
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – On 12 October 2006, radio station Radio Progreso – owned by Honduras’s Jesuit Community, a Roman Catholic religious order – reported an assault on its journalist, José Antonio Peraza, by a municipal employee irritated because the reporter had asked, in an interview with town administrator Jorge Alemán, while attempting to interview him, about […]
Radio journalist assaulted by school teacher while covering meeting
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – In the hamlet of El Amatillo in the township of La Virtud, Lempira, in western Honduras, rural correspondent Elder Martínez, of the Tegucigalpa-based radio station HRN, was attacked by a local teacher, Holmer Serrano Aguirre, in the presence of the departmental director of education, Teófilo Enamorado, while the reporter was covering a gathering […]
Security company takes social organisation’s journalists to court for alleged defamation
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Journalists Robert Marín García and Dina Meza, of the Association for a Fairer Society (Asociación por una Sociedad más Justa, ASJ), are being taken to court by Setech private security company for alleged crimes of defamation and slander, after making available to the public information about alleged violations of Setech’s employees’ labour rights […]
Harassment of social organisation and journalists intensifies
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Harassment of the Tegucigalpa-based Association for a Fairer Society (Asociación por una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ) have intensified. An on-line daily newspaper has published an anonymous paid article alleging that the organization has not been paying to the government social security system contributions it is obliged to make under the law for its […]
Journalist avoids defamation trial without being obliged to retract his reports
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Rural journalist Óscar Valdez, director of the television programme “La otra cara”, broadcast by Telecab company and Radio Antena 5 radio station in the city of Catacamas, Olancho department, northeastern Honduras, has emerged unscathed by a defamation and slander action, after reaching an agreement with the plaintiffs, thus avoiding a public trial. EUREE, […]
Transparency Law bill up for final debate
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – After meeting with a delegation from the Civic Alliance for Democracy (Alianza Cívica por la Democracia, ACD), National Congress president Roberto Michelleti announced that the third and final debate on the proposed Transparency Law, which concerns public access to information, will be held in two weeks’ time. “However,” said Michelleti to the ACD […]