Another journalist slain, special mechanism for protecting journalists announced

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Another journalist slain, special mechanism for protecting journalists announced
Published on Thursday 16 August 2012.

José Noel Canales Lagos, a 34-year-old journalist who had worked for the Hondudiario news website for the past 12 years, was gunned down in the capital on 10 August, bringing the number of journalists killed in the past decade to 30 (25 of them since the June 2009 coup).

This latest tragedy took place during a visit to Honduras by the UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression, Frank La Rue, from 7 to 14 August, as a result of which the government announced on 9 August that it would create a special entity for protecting journalists and solving the many murders of journalists in recent years.

"Even if this announcement expresses a real political determination, it nonetheless follows years of impunity and lack of action that have been largely responsible for the scale of the death toll,” Reporters Without Borders said.

"The government’s plan refers to the mechanisms for protecting journalists in Colombia but we are inevitably reminded of the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression created in Mexico in 2006, which fell very far short of producing the desired results. The Mexican precedent showed that creating a special entity is less important that setting it concrete objectives and giving it the resources required to combat impunity.

Read more: http://en.rsf.org/honduras-another-journalist-slain-special-16-08-2012,43232.html