(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Journalists Carlos Galeas and Suyapa Banegas (husband and wife) were notified on World Press Freedom Day, 3 May 2005, that they will be tried in September for disseminating information on contraband sales of coffee in the zone. The journalists had alleged during their news programmes that police officials were implicated in the smuggling. […]
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Journalists Carlos Galeas and Suyapa Banegas (husband and wife) were notified on World Press Freedom Day, 3 May 2005, that they will be tried in September for disseminating information on contraband sales of coffee in the zone. The journalists had alleged during their news programmes that police officials were implicated in the smuggling.
In a separate development, Jhony Lagos, director of “El Libertador” newspaper, told the Committee for Free Expression [Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre] that he is still the target of intimidating acts and that he has received anonymous threatening telephone calls in the night.
“I am the target of surveillance, more subtle but no less dangerous than last December’s,” said Lagos. In December 2004, the journalist received death threats and was followed by a vehicle driven by unidentified individuals. As a result, police began investigating the case, but so far have failed to clearly identify the culprits.
In a January 2005 interview with C-Libre, Security Minister Óscar Álvarez stated that the intimidation of Lagos was “clearly” in response to the critical investigative journalism practiced by the journalist.
Six months after the journalist filed a complaint, the only information that has emerged is that the anonymous calls to Lagos were made from a neighbouring house, which the police found empty and without signs of habitation when they searched it a month ago.
As regards the Galeas and Banegas case, the two journalists were told on 3 May that they will be brought to trial in September, since a February conciliation hearing to deal with a complaint by Prosecutor Siomara Benítez for alleged defamation and calumny failed to resolve the matter.
According to Benítez, the journalists implicated her in a large-scale coffee smuggling operation. The journalists deny the accusation, saying that the person referred to in their reports on the alleged smuggling ring was the prosecutor’s husband, who is currently substituting for the customs officer in Pasamonos on the border with El Salvador, which is where the smuggling is allegedly taking place.
Galeas and Banegas broadcast the testimony of a police officer investigating the smuggling operation during their news programme on Radio San Miguel, a station owned by the Catholic Church. Police investigations revealed the participation of local high-ranking police officials. The police officers who carried out the investigation are now being sued by their superiors, who were mentioned in the radio reports. State Prosecutor Ovidio Navarro has announced an investigation into the coffee smuggling matter and the alleged participation of high-ranking police officers in the operation, but so far, no findings have been announced.
Linda Hyde, of the Ombudsman’s Office, who is representing the journalists, said that she took on the case because it has all the earmarks of a threat against freedom of expression. “Since [the journalists] can’t afford to pay for a private defence lawyer, it is our duty, as representatives of the State, to assume the task of defending them,” Hyde said.
Galeas and Banegas have told C-Libre that the costs of their defense were more than 30,000 lempiras (approx. US $1,600), well beyond their means.
This alert was prepared by PROBIDAD with information provided by the Committee for Free Expression (Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre).
