Journalists’ safety sidelined as elections loom in Honduras
By Ronnie Lovler
With more than 25 journalists killed in Honduras since a 2009 coup, human rights and media support activists are pushing for revamped security mechanisms for journalists in one of Latin America’s most violent countries
In late July, they submitted a revised proposal to President Porfirio Lobo, so he could forward it to the legislature after close to a year of internal wrangling. Since then, a stalling bureaucracy appears to have triumphed over efforts to stem violence against journalists in high risk cities like San Pedro Sula where organised crime and drug-trafficking run the show.
Although a new state-run mechanism to protect journalists is sorely needed, legislation that would offer some guarantees of physical security to media workers keeps coming up against roadblocks.
Work to protect journalists stalled
The government announced in August 2012, that it would create a special entity for protecting journalists and solving the many murders of journalists; but so far, there has been more talk than action.
Long-time human rights activist Martha Savillón, now deputy minister for Human Rights told IMS bureaucratic complications regarding financing the bill have delayed implementation, even though a broad coalition of journalists, media support workers, civil society members and others drafted a proposal late in November 2012.
“Budgetary backing is important” …” because Congress cannot approve projects that require modifications to the budget or do not have an appropriation to back implementation,” she said. Although the Honduran Finance Ministry has been asked to approve funding for the measure, as of late July, it had not responded to a funding request.
“It’s a promise that was made to us a year ago and still the bill has not been sent to Congress,” said Thelma Mejia, head of a new investigative unit at the Honduran television network, Televicentro. “Every time a journalist is assassinated, threatened or intimated…this bill gets talked about. But nothing happens.”
A new state-supported mechanism would require a special police force to investigate and punish crimes against journalists, a difficult proposal at best with increasing scandals of internal corruption plaguing the Honduran security forces.
With presidential elections upcoming in November, it is likely that President Lobo will shy away from making any bold moves. Although he is not a candidate, his National Party standard bearer is running far behind frontrunner Xiomara Castro, wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown in 2009.
Attacks and intimidation lead to self-censorship
But while the politicians and bureaucrats act – or don’t act – Honduran journalists continue to face dangers on the job. In June, Aníbal Barrow, a leading morning talk show host was kidnapped. His dismembered and decapitated body was found on 9 July in the northern city of Villanueva.
About a week later, journalist Aldo Calderon who was investigating Barrow’s death was found dead, according to C-Libre, a coalition of journalists and citizens. An autopsy showed that Calderon was poisoned.
In another July incident reported by C-Libre, two unidentified assailants attacked journalist and television host Joel Coca. He said he fears he may be targeted again and is trying to leave Honduras.
“There is no security for anyone, and with the assassination of Barrow, we journalists need to be aware that we are in midst of high profile violence, where at any moment we can be a target,” Mejia said.
Jose Fernando Berrios, editor of El Heraldo, one of Honduras’s principal dailies, points to another problem – that journalists are afraid to report everything they learn because of the violence.
“Journalists feel intimidated and this is worrisome because it leads to self-censorship,” he said.
Taking action to protect the media
Journalists are not the only ones facing danger in Honduras, which has the world’s highest homicide rate, according to a 2011 United Nations report. San Pedro Sula in northwest Honduras, the city where journalist Barrow was kidnapped, ranks as the world’s most violent city, according to a Mexican think tank. (The study does not include cities in the Middle East). The murder rate there is 169 per 100,000 inhabitants, or three murders a day. Much of the violence is linked to organised crime.
What this means, of course, for organisations like IMS, concerned with providing support for local media around security issues is an increased need for action on behalf of journalists.
Specifically in Honduras, IMS has stepped up to the plate to provide financial and logistical support to a few Honduran journalists who have had to leave the country after receiving death threats
IMS, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), and the Open Society Foundation (OSF) are working closely with C-Libre and other journalists’ organisations to support press freedom.
IMS and the World Association of Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) presented a joint report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about impunity and its impact on freedom of expression in Honduras in 2010.
More recently, IMS was one of nine signatories to an open letter to the United Nations Security Council on the protection of journalists, submitted in July.
