How You Can Help Defend Journalists in Honduras
How You Can Help Defend Journalists in Honduras
By Larry Ladutke
April 23, 2014 at 8:30 AM
“We are…troubled by news reports that the police had announced the murder was carried out by someone close to Sr. Mejia Orellana before any investigation had yet begun.”
-Statement by U.S. Representatives James McGovern (MA), Sam Farr (CA), and Janice Schakowsky (IL)
On April 11, unidentified assailants stabbed Carlos Mejía to death in his home in Yoro, Honduras. Mejía was the marketing director of Radio Progreso and a member of the Reflection, Investigation and Communication Team (Equipo de Reflexión, Investigación y Comunicación, ERIC). Both Radio Progeso and ERIC are Jesuit organizations known for their work defending human rights in Honduras.
The first step to ending impunity is a thorough investigation that correctly identifies the culprits so that they can be tried and punished. Why, then, did Honduran police announce that they had decided to pursue a narrow investigation focusing on “someone close to Sr. Mejia?”
It is certainly not because of a lack of promising leads. Since the coup of 2009, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted protective measures to 18 members of Radio Progreso. In 2011, the Commission specifically ordered authorities to protect Carlos Mejía’s safety. Nonetheless, the Honduran government failed to investigate the threats against Mejia and other members of Radio Progreso. Nor did it provide them with the protection ordered by the Commission.
The logical first step in any murder investigation is looking into threats against victim. This would have been much easier and more effective, of course, if the Honduran authorities had fulfilled their duty to investigate the threats against Mejía and Radio Progreso. Their failure to do so, however, created impunity for whomever made these threats. Now, the Honduran authorities are compounding their error by ignoring the most important lead in this case.
More:
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/americas/how-you-can-help-defend-journalists-in-honduras/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Honduras: Radio Progreso executive murdered
Submitted by Weekly News Update... on Tue, 04/22/2014 - 11:25 Central America Theater
Honduran journalist Carlos Hilario Mejía Orellana was stabbed to death the night of April 11 at his home in the city of Progreso, in the northern department of Yoro. Mejía was the marketing executive for Radio Progreso, a community radio station established by Jesuits, and was also a member of the Jesuits' Reflection, Investigation and Communications Team (ERIC). Police investigators suggested that he was killed by someone close to him in a "crime of passion," but the radio station's director, the Jesuit priest Ismael Moreno, called the murder "a direct attack not only on the life of our colleague, but a frontal attack on the work produced by Radio Progreso." The station, which provided favorable coverage of resistance to the June 2009 military coup that overthrew then-president José Manuel ("Mel"
Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009), has been the target of threats over the years. The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), called on the Honduran government in 2009—and again in 2010 and 2011—to provide protection for 16 Radio Progreso staffers, including Mejía.
National and international observers condemned Mejía's murder and raised questions about the police investigation. Three US Congress members—James McGovern (D-MA), Sam Farr (D-CA) and Janice Schakowsky (IL)—issued a statement on April 15 expressing "dismay" over the Honduran government's failure to provide adequate protection for the station's staff. They called on the authorities "to immediately implement protective measures for Radio Progreso and ERIC employees and to carry out a thorough investigation of the murder." The French-based organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for creation of a protection mechanism for the country's journalists, who have been subject to more than 100 attacks and threats since 2010, according to a report by the Honduran government's National Human Rights Commission (CONADEH). Earlier in the month Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue had attended an IACHR session in Washington DC to read the names of 32 Honduran journalists killed in the last decade. (Latin American Herald Tribune, April 13, from EFE; Adital, Brazil, April 15; Rep. McGovern press release, April 15; Journalism in the Americas, April 16)
http://ww4report.com/node/13174
(Short article, no more at link.)
