(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Secretary of State for Public Security Jean Gérard Dubreuil, RSF protested the assault on Jean Robert Delciné, a Radio Haïti Inter journalist, by two police officers. The journalist’s materials were also seized. RSF asked that an investigation be opened so that the authors of the assault are punished. “The […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Secretary of State for Public Security Jean Gérard Dubreuil, RSF protested the assault on Jean Robert Delciné, a Radio Haïti Inter journalist, by two police officers. The journalist’s materials were also seized. RSF asked that an investigation be opened so that the authors of the assault are punished. “The violence of the assault, as well as the rank of the police officers involved must lead the government to punish them quickly,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. Since 1 January 2001, a dozen journalists have been threatened or assaulted by police officers or supporters of the Fanmi Lavalas, the ruling party.
According to information collected by RSF, on 12 October, Delciné was insulted and slapped across the face by Police Inspector Yrvens César just as the journalist was showing him his press card. The police officer then threatened him with a weapon and threw him to the ground. Cité Soleil Commissioner Marcellus Camy also hit Delciné. The two police officers confiscated his cassette recorder before letting him go. Delciné was assaulted in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, just as he had unwittingly witnessed a violent police operation in the area. The journalist was sent to Cité Soleil in order to investigate the death of three youths attributed to the police. On 20 June, two former police officers threatened to kill Fritson Orius, another Radio Haïti Inter journalist (see IFEX alert of 25 June 2001).
On 3 April 2000, Jean Dominique, the country’s best-known Haitian journalist and political analyst, was killed in Radio Haïti Inter’s courtyard. He was the station’s director. In a 19 October 1999 editorial, the journalist had sharply called into question the ambitions of Senator Dany Toussaint, a Fanmi Lavalas member who was elected to the Senate in May 2000. In August, the examining judge asked that Toussaint’s parliamentary immunity be lifted because of his assumed implication in the journalist’s killing (see IFEX alerts of 5 October, 14 August, 20 and 14 June, 18 and 11 May, 3 April, 16 March, 15 and 3 January 2001, 18, 7, 5 and 4 April 2000).
