Radio Faluma Bimetu/Coco Dulce, a station serving the Afro-Caribbean Garifuna community in the Honduran coastal city of Triunfo de la Cruz, returned to the air after a month of threats, tension, and hostility, reports Reporters without Borders (RSF).
The station went silent last month in the face of harassment from police and threats to burn the station down.
This comes at a time when the Honduras' National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) is considering ending the practice of granting low-power broadcast frequencies to radio stations. “At a time when small radio stations such as Faluma…are being hounded, we have every right to suspect that this measure would be used to suppress or rein in certain media for political reasons,” RSF says.
Last month, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission condemned the harassment against community radio stations in Honduras by police and government officials.
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.
