(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Octavio Carvajal, journalist and host of two programmes on the Tegucigalpa-based radio station STC Noticias, has reported to the Public Prosecutor’s Office a physical attack that he suffered at the hands of Marcelo Chimirri, vice-director of the state telephone company Hondutel. The journalist also announced his intention to leave the country temporarily on […]
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Octavio Carvajal, journalist and host of two programmes on the Tegucigalpa-based radio station STC Noticias, has reported to the Public Prosecutor’s Office a physical attack that he suffered at the hands of Marcelo Chimirri, vice-director of the state telephone company Hondutel. The journalist also announced his intention to leave the country temporarily on 11 May 2006 for fear of reprisals.
According to the Committee for Free Expression (Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre), the attack took place on 8 May as Carvajal left his home in a neighbourhood of the capital. Chimirri, accompanied by two bodyguards, had been waiting for the journalist nearby his home and when he appeared, said Carvajal, “he grabbed me by the neck and threatened me.”
By Carvajal’s account, the motive behind the attack may be the commentaries the journalist has made in his programmes on the conduct of this public official, “although in the end I think that is not the issue; what really bothers him are my queries into the negotiations around the construction of the El Tigre dam” on the border of Honduras and El Salvador.
In the western zone of the border between the two countries, which is formed by the Lempa River, a hydroelectric dam that will provide for 70% of the energy needs of El Salvadorans is to be built. According to Carvajal, “the terms of negotiation have not been very clear, and in the last two weeks I have questioned these negotiations forcefully and with good information.”
Carvajal says that his commentaries have prompted calls from the Presidential House, especially from the Office of the Private Secretary (Despacho del Secretario Privado), in which he has been told to “tone down his denunciations, if I want to receive government advertising contracts, but I have been emphatic in the sense that my programme does not require government advertisements.”
The individual assigned by the Honduran government to conduct the negotiations around the dam project is the current director of Hondutel, Jacobo Regalado, and in his programmes the journalist has questioned not only the role of this official, but also that of his vice-director, Chimirri.
Carvajal says that Chimirri told him to “shut up. What is your problem with me? I’m not threatening you because I am not a man of threats, I act and do what has to be done. The Private Secretary is angry with you because you are prying too much into government affairs.”
The journalist denounced the attack to the Public Prosecutor for Common Crimes. Prosecutor Yuri Moreno has announced that there will be an investigation. In his denunciation, Carvajal maintains that Chimirri also told him: “Look, you son of a bitch, I am going to mess you up and your family too.”
Carvajal told C-Libre that, in light of this threat, he has opted to leave the country for 20 days, “inasmuch as the state cannot guarantee my safety, I am going to submit a complaint to the Human Rights Commission as I feel my life is at risk. If I have made an error in what I have said about this official, I will correct myself; but he has presented nothing to clear himself or to disprove my allegations.”
Carvajal is host of the programmes “Zonas de Debates” (“Zones of Debate”) y “Más que noticias” (“More than the News”). The first is tongue-in-cheek, the second news-oriented.
