(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Reporter Wendy Guerra, of the television station Canal 49 in Santa Rosa de Copán, in western Honduras, was dismissed by the station owner Amid Cárdenas, a former member of parliament for the governing Partido Liberal (Liberal Party), in retaliation for a critical report on municipal affairs. Guerra, who worked with the station as […]
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Reporter Wendy Guerra, of the television station Canal 49 in Santa Rosa de Copán, in western Honduras, was dismissed by the station owner Amid Cárdenas, a former member of parliament for the governing Partido Liberal (Liberal Party), in retaliation for a critical report on municipal affairs.
Guerra, who worked with the station as a news reporter for two years, also headed her own programme, entitled “Denuncias 49” (“Denunciations 49”), which was paid for through advertising sales. On that programme, in mid-April 2006 she denounced three municipal officials for having opposed the construction of a sports centre for area youth. Her denunciation was based on municipal records, which indicated that three of 10 municipal councillors voted against the sports facility project.
“I exposed the officials who were in opposition and they got annoyed; they even threatened to sue me, but the information I released was in the public domain and I was only telling the truth,” said Guerra in a telephone interview with the Committee for Free Expression (Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre).
After the broadcast of this report on both her own programme and the station’s news programme, the reporter was the target of various pressures and forms of intimidation until 24 April, when station-owner Cárdenas informed her that she was off the news programme and that her own programme was cancelled.
Cárdenas told her that her denunciations “caused problems with friends in the party and, moreover, I don’t want anyone on my station to speak badly of Mel [Manuel Zelaya, president of Honduras] because he is my friend and it would hurt our advertising sales”.
In addition to communicating this verbal reproach to the reporter, Cárdenas prepared her a note, copied to the three offended officials, informing her of his desire to dismiss her from his employment and to cancel her programme.
“I fear that not only does this signify a violation of my right to freedom of expression, it is also a violation of my personal privacy, because, in trying to ingratiate himself with these officials, he sent them a copy of my dismissal notice, as if to say to them: ‘Look, I’ve solved the problem.’ This is an abuse”, Guerra stated angrily.
The reporter also complained that, before her dismissal, the owner had informed reporters as to which public officials they were allowed or not allowed to interview on the station, based on partisan political considerations.
One of the persons banned from interviews on the station is Member of Parliament José Ángel Saavedra, of the governing Liberal Party, who has fallen into disfavour due to internal party disputes. Cárdenas’s instructions to refrain from criticizing current government officials were emphatic because, according to Cárdenas, “I need to get my relatives jobs in public service”, the reporter informed C-Libre.
The municipal government of Santa Rosa de Copán is currently run by the Liberal Party, and it is the first time in 10 years that a reporter has been fired to please municipal officials, according to reporters from the area.
