texas-moody

Unknown men fire gunshots against the home of Dominican Republic journalist known for denouncing public corruption

A TV journalist in Dominican Republic reported that two individuals fired several gunshots at his house in the municipality of Jarabacoa, in the heart of the country, on the night of Jan. 9, according to newspaper Hoy.

Justo María "Lirio" Cruz, the producer of the TV newscast Teve-Notas in Telever's channel 12, said that his family was not harmed in the attack but the shots hit both his car and the walls of his home.

The journalist did not want to attribute the attack to anyone in specific but said that it could be related to his regular reporting on public corruption, El Nuevo Diario said.

Last November, the National Press Workers' Union denounced that Cruz had been threatened in a street banner that also accused him of sexually abusing children, according to the news site Ciudad Oriental. In 2012, Cruz was sued by the sub-secretary of public health. The case remains open in the Supreme Court of Justice, even though judges in lower courts have already ruled in Cruz's favor.

Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.