As Selvin Martínez was returning from a work trip to San Pedro Sula, he saw people in a red car firing towards his home.
(C-Libre/IFEX) – 30 April 2012 – The home of JBN Televisión correspondent Selvin Martínez, 34, from Omoa, Cortés department, came under attack on 26 April 2012. The journalist is known as “El Halcón” (“The Hawk”) for his journalistic prowess.
Around 5:30 p.m. on 26 April, as Martínez was returning from a work trip to San Pedro Sula, he saw people in a red car firing towards his home.
Martínez told C-Libre that his two children, aged five and three, were playing outside the house with his wife, who had recently given birth. “I felt like my world was collapsing, I imagined the worst,” he said.
After making sure his children and wife were unharmed, he called the national police in Omoa but the officer who answered the call told him he was in a meeting and abruptly hung up.
“Two blocks from my home there is a police station, but when I called there was no answer. I am still waiting for the police so that I can submit my statement. I found 16 bullet casings in front of my house,” said Martínez.
The journalist said that the only issue he has covered recently that could have caused this type of reaction was a complaint from a poor villager who was denied financial assistance by the mayor of Omoa, Ricardo Alvarado. Martínez said that in his nine years working as a journalist he has never before experienced this type of intimidation.
“The state of impunity in the country is the responsibility of the government and a result of the authorities’ negligence . . . they want us journalists, who are informing our communities, to be silenced with lead, but this kind of intimidation will not shut me up. My main concern is my family and they are entrusted to God,” said Martínez.
MORE INFORMATION:
Attacks and threats aimed at provincial media reach alarming level (RSF, 4 May 2012)
