Honduras

Reporters Without Borders welcomes the conviction of three men for the murder of Alfredo Villatoro, a journalist who hosted a show on radio HRN and coordinated its programming. He was found dead near Tegucigalpa on 15 May 2012.

Journalists Julio Ernesto Alvarado and Dina Meza have been subjected to intensified harassment in recent months, reports PEN International. The organization calls on the Honduran authorities to overturn Alvarado’s conviction and sentence for criminal defamation.

Sports reporter Ramón Rojas was the target of death threats aimed at him by Bernardo Alvarado, a president of the sports club Deporte Savio F.C., after he aired comments from a Deporte Savio coach saying the team’s poor showing was the fault of the administration.

The rising scale of murderous violence against journalists in Honduras was revealed in a report launched on 23 January 2014 by PEN Canada in partnership with PEN International and the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

The Inter American Press Association has described as positive the suspension of a secrecy law in Honduras which could have had serious consequences for the process of increased transparency that was initiated in the Central American country in 2006 with the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information.

The imprecise, discretionary and hastily-approved Law on Secret Information that the Honduran parliament adopted on 13 January constitutes a major new blow to freedom of information in one of the western hemisphere’s most dangerous countries for news and information providers.

The Honduran government is putting human rights activists at risk by failing to repudiate dangerous remarks by a senior military officer. An army colonel recently claimed that Annie Bird, co-director of the US-based nongovernmental organization Rights Action, was working to destabilize the Bajo Aguán region, where land disputes have led to violence.

Journalist Yanina Romero, from the Women’s Rights Centre in San Pedro Sula, Cortés, reported to C-Libre that she has been the victim of threats via text message on a day she had participated in a TV programme discussing the problems of insecurity and vulnerability for journalists.

As controversy continues over the results of last month’s presidential election, a provincial reporter has become the third journalist to be gunned down in Honduras since the start of the year. Juan Carlos Argeñal, a local correspondent for national broadcaster Radio y TV Globo, was shot dead outside his home.

Reporters Without Borders hopes that key issues that are important to the population, such as agrarian reform, environmental conflicts, a purge of the police and obviously human rights, will be the vehicles of a new pluralism and the restoration of the rule of law, which has been sacrificed since the June 2009 coup d’état.

Journalist Cesar Obando Flores, who works for the local broadcaster Libre Estereo, in Santa Rosa de Aguán, Colón, reported that he has received direct threats related to his coverage of the 24 November 2013 election.

Nery Adalberto Recarte, journalist and owner of Canal 34 television and La Popularísima radio station was attacked on November 11 by two unidentified assailants who shot him several times as he was getting into his car outside the building where the broadcast stations are located.

Cameraman Manuel Murillo Varela was found dead on 24 October 2013 with three gunshot wounds in his face in the capital district of Honduras. Murillo had been the beneficiary of precautionary measures from the government since February 2010 when he was kidnapped and tortured.

Three heavily armed men attempted to break down the door of union secretary general Víctor Crespo’s home. Crespo told C-Libre that the attack against him was related to his current efforts towards collective bargaining with intermediary contractors from the International Container Terminal Services Inc.

José María Pineda, who works to defend and protect natural resources, along with Ramón Santiago Matute and Consuelo Soto, are in extreme danger after the triple murder on 25 August 2013 of their colleagues and fellow activists.

Rubén Rolando Méndez Montenegro, an officer with the National Police Special Forces in charge of investigating threats and attacks against journalist José Luis Galdámez Álvarez and his family, was shot to death in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on 19 August 2013.