In a letter to President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, WAN-IFRA expressed serious concern at “the alarming increase in violence against journalists in Honduras since the presidential coup of June 2009”, and called on the government to end impunity for the perpetrators.
The most recent murders took place on 26 March when José Bayardo Mairena Ramírez and Manuel Juárez, two journalists from the eastern province of Olancho, were shot and killed while driving on a highway approximately 200 kilometres from the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Both journalists worked on the programme "Así es Olancho", which airs on R.Z. Television's Channel 4, and Radio Excélsior, where Mr. Mairena was the director. Mr. Mairena's car was reportedly found riddled with 21 bullet holes.
These murders follow the shooting of Tegucigalpa journalist Joseph Hernández Ochoa in an attack on 1 March, in which another journalist, Karol Cabrera, was also injured. On 11 March Radio America correspondent David Meza Montesinos was killed in La Ceiba, and on the 14 March local TV station director Nahúm Palacios Artiaga was shot in Tocoa, Colón.
In the letter, WAN-IFRA reminded President Lobo Sosa that “it is the duty of the state to provide an environment in which journalists are able to carry out their professional duties without fear of violence,” and called on the government to ensure that all murders and attacks on journalists are thoroughly investigated and that those responsible are brought quickly to justice.
The full letter can be read at http://www.wan-press.org/article18468.html
More WAN-IFRA press freedom protests can be found at http://www.wan-press.org/pfreedom/rubriques.php?id=304
