Honduran President Porfirio Lobo announced that he had received an offer from the U.S. government to help investigate the deaths of ten journalists who were killed in 2010, EFE reports.
After the July 2009 coup, Honduras became one of the most dangerous countries in the world to practice journalism. According to the annual Reporters without Borders report, at least three of the ten media workers who were killed last year were targeted because of their journalistic work. The vice-minister of security, Armando Calidonio, has repeatedly claimed that none of the killings were related to the journalists’ work.
“Today I received a message from the [U.S.] State Department that it is going send us a task force to help investigate the journalist killings,” said Lobo on the one-year anniversary of his presidency, quoted by La Tribuna. However, La Prensa reports that an FBI team is already in the country looking into the issue.
The most recent journalist killing in Honduras was Dec. 28 of last year, when radio journalist Henry Suazo was shot to death.
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» Knight Center (Honduras asks U.S., Colombia, and Spain for help in solving journalist killings)
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.
