Journalists under fire as tensions rise around elections in Honduras

By Ronnie Lovler

Honduras’ already beleaguered journalists are becoming more concerned about their own safety as the date nears for what promises to be a highly contested and controversial election in November

Security is a major concern for journalists in this violence-wracked Central American country where more than 29 journalists have been killed since a 2009 coup. A proposal to establish safeguards for journalists has been on the table for more than a year now; but while there has been plenty of talk, there has been no action to implement any plan.

With less than two months to go before he becomes a lame duck head of state, no one expects President Porfirio Lobo to do anything now for the country’s journalists. Nor is the issue of journalist safety high on the agenda of any of the candidates.

And journalists do have reason to worry. According to a report just released by the Honduran National Commission of Human Rights (Conadeh) 100 journalists and lawyers have been murdered with impunity during Lobo’s time in office.

“Sixty-seven lawyers and 29 journalists and social communicators have been killed in violent circumstances in different regions of the country and only in four cases have the offenders been sentenced,” Conadeh said in a news release.

Working in ‘the shadow of fear’

Drug traffickers and criminal gangs act with impunity in Honduras; police corruption is rampant and the government is weak. Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate and journalists are among the victims.

IMS reported in August on the murder of Anibal Barrow a leading morning talk show host who was kidnapped in June. 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, died after he was poisoned.

And in late September, El Heraldo reported one of its journalists was threatened after conducting interviews at a Tegucigalpa hospital.

“The issue of security for vulnerable groups, like journalists and lawyers, has not dominated the agenda of the presidential candidates,” said Geovanny Dominguez, editor-in-chief at El Tiempo in Honduras. “Journalists work in the shadow of fear, and many have to inform about difficult topics and the presidential candidates should make some gesture about the problems that affect our profession.”

Elections are set for 24 November, with nine candidates on the ballot. The latest polls show leftist Xiomara Castro, the wife of former president Manuel Zelaya deposed in a 2009 coup, slightly ahead of Lobo’s official National Party standard-bearer Juan Hernandez.

Impunity and self-censorship

“Ideologies in the play between the left and the right can affect the work of journalists and (provoke) a replay of the polarisation that we lived before, during and after the coup,” said Thelma Mejia, head of the investigative unit at the Honduran television network, Televicentro. “I think the media are preparing for a ‘routine’ coverage [of the elections] without thinking about contingencies in areas where security escapes government control.”

None of the journalists are happy about this, but feel that their hands are tied.

“Self-censorship is the worst thing that is happening in Honduran journalism, but against a backdrop of an informal war, where the government is silent, … the key players hide information or are unwilling to elaborate upon their answers. What’s a journalist to do?  Dive in without a parachute?” asks Mejia.

She welcomes the involvement of IMS and other organisations that support journalists because “that makes us feel that we are not orphans, that we are not alone.”

IMS is concerned about impunity and has joined other international organisations in urging that crimes against journalists and other human rights violations be investigated.

And of course, IMS will be picking up the mantle again after the elections to push for passage of legislation to create a government entity to protect journalists and representatives of other civilian organisations that have come under attack.

But in the meantime, IMS also salutes journalists like Dominguez and Mejia, who carry on because as Mejia says, “journalism is the best job in the world, … Always there are cracks through which information flows and because this country deserves a better fate.”