New spate of threats and attacks on journalists: “The coup d’état’s original goals are still being p

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reporters Without Borders

New spate of threats and attacks on journalists: “The coup d’état’s original goals are still being pursued”
Published on Thursday 24 March 2011.

Reporters Without Borders is worried by the alarming increase in threats and violence against journalists in Honduras. There have been seven cases in the space of 10 days and all the media involved are ones that spoke out against the June 2009 coup d’état.

The first in the latest spate of cases was the 13 March shooting of Franklin Meléndez, the head of the community radio station La Voz de Zacate Grande. According to the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), the alleged assailant, Porfirio Medina, publicly threatened one of the station’s correspondents, Ethel Correa, in the hours following the attack, saying she would be “the next to die.”

The complete impunity enjoyed by Meléndez, the presumed perpetrator of a murder attempt, has compounded the repeated harassment of this small radio station and its personnel by the authorities.

The situation is hardly any better for national media. Lidieth Díaz, a reporter with Cholusat - Canal 36, and her husband, David Romero, the head of Radio Globo, were attacked by riot police while covering a protest by teachers in Tegucigalpa on 21 March. Díaz tried to negotiate with the police but they responded by setting off a teargas grenade right in front of her. The incident was filmed.

Read more: http://en.rsf.org/honduras-new-spate-of-threats-and-attacks-24-03-2011,39867.html