(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, […]
(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, a company distributing energy-saving floodlights and light bulbs, had filed a complaint against Valdez for having broadcast on his news programmes consumers’ complaints and the results of his investigation into the matter which demonstrated that the public was being charged unfairly for the bulbs. The company was allegedly obliging them to sign legally invalid letters agreeing to purchase the light bulbs at US$18 a bulb, to be deducted from their monthly electricity bill in quotas. In the local market, such bulbs could be purchased for US$3 to US$4 dollars.
Legal action was taken against the journalist. On 22 September, he participated in a conciliation hearing at the criminal court in Juticalpa, the Olancho department’s administrative centre.
Judge Leticia Banegas, after hearing both parties, opted to recommend an agreement under which the journalist is not obliged to retract the information he had broadcast, but instead must simply broadcast on his programmes the company’s explanation of the way the company operates.
Valdez told the Committee for Free Expression (Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre), “I held firm, refusing to retract something that I knew was true. I had the proof with me, and then the plaintiff’s lawyer said that the only thing they wanted was for the EUREE contract with the electricity company ENEE to be read over the media outlets where I work.”
Over 190 people, including ordinary residents of the area, businessmen and electricity users who were aggravated by the EUREE charges, accompanied Valdez to the hearing and, according to him, the findings of his investigations will also be presented to the Prosecutor General’s Office, so that the validity of the complaints can be investigated.
This alert was prepared by PROBIDAD with information provided by C-Libre.
