Honduras

29 April 2011

Honduras: Another attempted attack on opposition radio station journalist

Arnulfo Aguilar, the director of Radio Uno, an educational radio station based in San Pedro Sula, narrowly escaped an armed ambush outside his home on the outskirts of the city on the night of April 27 which he blames on the army. A station that supports the opposition National Front for Popular Resistance, Radio Uno has often been targeted by the security forces since the June 2009 coup d’état...

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13 April 2011

Community radio stations still fighting to survive in Honduras

Unidentified arsonists set fire to the home of Teresa Reyes and Radio Faluma Bimetu director Alfredo López at midnight on April 7, in the latest in a long list of attacks on the personnel and installations of this community radio station (known in Spanish as Radio Coco Dulce), based in Triunfo de la Cruz, in the Atlantic coast municipality of Tela, according to Paris-based press freedom group...

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10 April 2011

CPJ alarmed by wave of anti-press attacks in Honduras

Press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on law enforcement in Honduras to stop attacking or prohibiting journalists from covering social unrest in the country. The attacks have come amid a national teachers' strike that has turned violent. Teachers, farmers, and anti-government activists demanding education reforms, and an increase in wages in the capital, Tegucigalpa...

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31 March 2011

Journalists injured while covering protest in Honduras

(C-Libre/IFEX): Journalists Richard Cásula and Salvador Sandoval, of the Canal 36-Cholusat Sur television station, were injured while they were covering a story at the Honduras Media Education College (Colegio de Profesionales de Educación Media de Honduras, COPEMH). The police were attempting to evict teachers who were staging a protest at the COPEMH premises. Sandoval, a photojournalist...

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24 March 2011

New spate of threats and attacks on journalists in Honduras

There has been an 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, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The first in the latest spate of cases was the March 13 shooting of Franklin Meléndez, the...

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23 March 2011

Authorities fail to protect journalists despite promises to UN, says IFEX-ALC

Last week in Honduras, a board member of the La Voz de Zacate Grande community radio station was shot in the leg by residents upset about the station's coverage. Police sat idly by. It was just the latest in a string of incidents that highlights the government's failure to investigate attacks on journalists - despite promises it made before the UN's Human Rights Council in November, says IFEX...

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18 March 2011

Gov’t and media look to ban violent front page photos in Honduras

After La Prensa newspaper unilaterally decided to stop publishing photos of dead bodies to avoid sensationalising the increase in violence in the country, the Honduras Journalists’ Guild (CPH) and the government are now working towards an agreement that would remove violent photos from newspaper covers, La Tribuna reports, according to Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Meeting with the...

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17 March 2011

Police try to hush up shooting of Honduran radio station’s president

La Voz de Zacate Grande, a community radio station based on the southern island of Zacate Grande, has again been the target of persecution for siding with local peasant groups in their land disputes with biofuel manufacturer Miguel Facussé Barjum, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). In the latest aggression, Franklin Meléndez, the president of the board...

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19 January 2011

Torched radio station in Honduras forced off air by threats

Threats from local authorities and security forces, which tried to take over its management, forced a local radio station in Honduras temporarily to stop broadcasting on January 14, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The station, Radio Faluma Bimetu – Radio Coco Dulce in Spanish - belongs to the Honduran community of African origin (Garifuna) of Triunfo...

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8 January 2011

Journalist gets death threats from Armed Forces lieutenant colonel

Esdras Amado López, the editor of the Canal 36 news programme "Así se informa", reported that a member of the Honduran Armed Forces threatened to kill him on January 5, near the Honduran Institute for Social Security (Instituto Hondureño de Seguridad Social), just south of the capital Tegucigalpa, according to Comité por la Libre Expresión (C-Libre). In a phone interview with Radio Globo, López...

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