Yalova
Press Freedom Under Attack
in Honduras
After
a military coup ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya,
a superficial calm has returned to the country: protests have slowed and the
interim government has repealed the
curfew in place since June 28.
However complaints of censorship and mistreatment toward
members of the foreign and local press continue to surface.
A series of arrests, a media blackout and attempts at
censorship have been denounced by the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights, Reporters without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other human rights groups.
During the blackout following the coup, soldiers cut off
local broadcasts of international television networks such as “CNN en Español” and “Venezuelan-based Telesur”.
According to a Reuters
report from June 29, “The few television and radio stations still
operating on Monday played tropical music or aired soap operas and cooking
shows.” “The Tegucigalpa-based Canal 8”—the national government-owned
channel—was blocked for 24 hours. The privately owned “pro-Zelaya
Channel 36”
was down for nearly a week, and resumed
on Saturday, July 4.
Humberto Alexis Quiroz, the executive
director for “Comité
por la Libre Expresión
”, a Tegucigalpa-based, press-rights advocacy
group, says that journalists who have not been censored by force are censoring
themselves for fear of retribution. “They’ve reopened the channels—but all have
been pressured not to broadcast anything against the government,” told Quiroz
The press continues to be
under the government’s microscope. Six reporters from “Telesur”
and “Venezolana de Televisión”
(VTV) were detained
by Honduran police. Although released the following day, they were instructed
to not leave their hotel. Fearing for their safety, the reporters left the
country that day—though some say they were expelled.
This latest
incident comes after the June 29 detentions of seven journalists working for
foreign media. An AP report gives a vivid
description of their ordeal:
“At least 10
soldiers, most with rifles drawn, arrived at the hotel where journalists from “The
Associated Press” and the [state sponsored] Venezuela-based television network “Telesur” were staying and unplugged their editing equipment
in an apparent attempt to stop their coverage of protests in support of deposed
President Manuel Zelaya….Garcia, an Argentine video
journalist, and Esteban Felix, a Peruvian photographer, and two Nicaraguan
assistants were loaded into a military Land Cruiser, with another military
vehicle following close behind. Also detained were Telesur
journalists Adriana Sivori, producer Maria Jose Diaz
and cameraman Larry Sanchez.”
They, too,
were quickly released after speaking with immigration officials. Silvori, told
Article 19, a
London-based press-rights organization, : "They arrested us without any
provocation and provided no explanation; it felt like we were back in the
dictatorships of the 1980s."
Human rights
groups are also reporting censorship among many of the country’s media outlets.
C-Libre reported that Nahún
Palacios, the director of Canal 5 TV, was assaulted by security forces who raided
his station on June 30. The organization also reported that the military
told media “to broadcast information provided by de facto President Micheletti’s government and to refrain from criticizing
President Zelaya’s removal if they wanted to avoid
being closed down.”
However the
media have not just suffered at the hands of the Honduran military. Elán Reyes Pineda, president of the Honduran Journalists
Union, said pro-Zelaya protesters had threatened
journalists at street protests and hurled stones and sticks at the
offices of several Tegucigalpa
outlets. No injuries were reported.
But even
before the coup Honduras
was not known for its press freedoms. Freedom House in its annual Press Freedom
Survey ranks
Honduras as “partly free,” and as the 106th freest country, just above Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria,
Uganda, and Ukraine. While
“freedoms of speech and of the press are constitutionally protected,” the report
claims, “the government [of Manuel Zelaya] generally
does not respect these rights in practice.”
To little
surprise, the evolving situation in Honduras is no longer front page
news in the foreign press. But the lack of freedom of the press both before and
after the coup is one story that never received the attention it deserves.
Hopefully the media will have more freedom to report as we move beyond the
crisis’ immediate aftermath.
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