(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Journalists Robert Marín García and Dina Meza, of the Association for a Fairer Society (Asociación por una Sociedad más Justa, ASJ), are being taken to court by Setech private security company for alleged crimes of defamation and slander, after making available to the public information about alleged violations of Setech’s employees’ labour rights […]
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – Journalists Robert Marín García and Dina Meza, of the Association for a Fairer Society (Asociación por una Sociedad más Justa, ASJ), are being taken to court by Setech private security company for alleged crimes of defamation and slander, after making available to the public information about alleged violations of Setech’s employees’ labour rights and irregularities in the manner in which the company bid on and obtained government contracts.
Setech operations manager Róger Medina said that Marín García and Meza had committed the crimes of defamation and slander “by posting false information in their online publication’Revistazo.com’, and refusing to grant us the right of reply.”
Medina denies the allegations that company failed to make the mandatory employer’s contributions to health and social security coverage for its employees. “They [the journalists] say we’re deadbeats and they’ve even accused us of stealing a vehicle that had been confiscated; let them prove it. We’ve lost many clients due to this false information and that’s why we’re suing. . . . ,” he said, as he filed the legal action on 4 October 2006 at the courthouse in Tegucigalpa, the capital.
ASJ had reported in August and September a series of acts of intimidation against three of its journalists, including anonymous phone calls, threats and pursuing of the journalists by a vehicle without license plates, after the journalists had released the results of an investigation which implicated Setech and Delta Segurity security firms in a series of both labour law violations and irregularities in obtaining government contracts to provide private security services to the government..
Delta Segurity is owned by businessman Elvin Richard Swasey, and is based in the Atlantic coast city of La Ceiba. The journalists’ investigations found that this company had created a partner, Setech, in order to be able to continue obtaining state contracts. According to the journalists, the same employees who worked at Delta Segurity now work at Setech; the employees are allegedly fired, then rehired, to avoid paying for their benefits, in violation of the law.
As part of their investigations and the legal assistance that ASJ is providing to employees of private security companies, ASJ managed to have a vehicle owned by Setech confiscated by the legal authorities, but it disappeared 24 hours later from a the parking lot where it had been impounded. Reports in ASJ’s possession apparently indicate that the vehicle was “rescued” by Setech employees, who removed it from the lot without a court order. Medina says “there is no evidence to prove this; they have to prove that we’re thieves.”
