Journalists in Honduras are going through difficult times. Ahead of the presidential primary elections set for March 9, they’re facing an intense pressure campaign from the Armed Forces of Honduras and members of the country’s leftist ruling party, Liberty and Refoundation (Libre for its abbreviation in Spanish.
In early February, several Honduran media outlets reported that, in an unprecedented case, the legal auditor of the Armed Forces had filed a request with the Public Prosecutor’s Office to initiate proceedings against 12 media outlets for alleged crimes of slander and defamation.
According to local news reports, the case began to move forward in the first week of February. Outlets such as El Heraldo reported that agents from the cybercrimes unit had presented them with official documents demanding the disclosure of sources related to reports containing negative information about the armed forces.
At the same time, key figures from the Libre party, such as the likely presidential candidate and current Minister of Defense, Rixi Moncada, and the President of the National Congress, Luis Redondo, have launched numerous attacks against Honduran media.
Honduran journalists and press freedom organizations see an escalation of these attacks, following a strategy of antagonizing the press similar to that used by heads of state generally considered populist, such as Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, as well as in countries like Venezuela before its increasingly authoritarian turn. They fear the situation will decline further as the general elections approach on Nov. 30, when the country will elect its president, deputies, and mayors.
"Here in Honduras, we are experiencing a hostile environment for journalism," Carlos Rubén Ortiz, president of the Honduran Press Association (APH for its initials in Spanish), told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). "With the elections, politicians will try to criminalize us, use the police against us, and launch new legal actions targeting the press."
Various news stories and critical reports prompted the Armed Forces' request to open its media investigations. One example was a report published on October 30 by El Heraldo, which revealed the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Honduras, General Roosevelt Leonel Hernández Aguilar, had during an official event drawn his pistol and pointed it at a copy of the country’s constitution.
The 12 media outlets summoned were El Heraldo, La Prensa HN, Radio Cadena Voces (RCV), La Tribuna, Radio América, Abriendo Brecha, CHTV, Hable Como Habla, Q’Hubo TV, Hondudiario, Criterio HN, and Noticias 24/7. The director of Hondudiario, Aristides Aceituno, even reported being approached by three Interpol agents. His case stemmed from a post on X in which he wrote the military was uneasy about General Hernández's close ties to the government and the fact that he had received medical treatment abroad.
A number of Honduran and international organizations condemned the Armed Forces’ actions.The Inter-American Press Association described the situation as an “unprecedented assault on press freedom.” And the Honduran Journalists' Association denounced “the growing judicial harassment, intimidation, and escalation of attacks” against journalists and media outlets.
Amada Ponce, executive director of the press freedom organization C-Libre, sees the situation as a “grave series of abuses.” She said that if the general felt that his honor was offended, he could have first demanded the right of reply or responded to the accusations in public interviews. Instead, “he first mobilized the Public Prosecutor’s Office, then came the cybercrimes unit investigating media owners and demanding the disclosure of sources, and finally, Interpol was even involved.”
"This is an extremely intimidating effort," Ponce told LJR. "The cybercrimes unit has the ability to intercept communications. Plus, the official notices were delivered by the judicial police along with the Interpol. Interpol usually deals with crimes related to human trafficking or drug trafficking. In other words, the message of intimidation is brutal."
In response, Hernández gave an interview to the HCH television channel in which he denied threatening the media. ”If people don’t want to reveal their sources, that’s fine, but at no point have we used pressure mechanisms," he said. Hernández also claimed the case was a personal matter and not politically motivated. He said he had "ordered an investigation into who the informants are because they are misinforming." He further claimed he would withdraw the complaint from the prosecutor’s office, though there has been no confirmation that the case was dropped.
Journalist Jennifer Ávila, co-founder of the digital outlet Contra Corriente, said she believes Hernández’s intimidating actions may be linked to future political ambitions. "It has to do with the tone they want to set for Xiomara's government; a socialist tone, let's say, of 21st-century socialism, which portrays these Armed Forces as politicized and belonging to the people," Ávila told LJR. "They use this discourse in Venezuela, and López Obrador [in Mexico] also had it."
Luis Redondo, President of the National Congress of Honduras, poses in a historic building. (Photo: Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
New attacks on the press and journalists emerged more recently from the highest levels of the Honduran government.
National Congress President Luis Redondo left the right-wing populist Salvador de Honduras Party in November, and despite now being a member of the leftist Libre party, retweeted a message from El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. The post claimed a majority of independent journalists are part of a money-laundering operation aimed at advancing a globalist agenda.
Redondo himself criticized “pseudo-media outlets, journalists, and NGOs funded by foreign agencies,” labeling them “disinformation agents” and “media mercenaries.” In response, the Honduran Journalists' Association issued a statement: "Mr. Luis Redondo, with a lunatic attitude common among individuals with personality issues, attacks journalists and media outlets, forgetting that his resentments harm the government that bestowed upon him tasks he apparently lacks the ability to carry out."
The day after Redondo’s message, Libre’s presidential hopeful Rixi Moncada addressed the issue, calling the country’s most powerful private media outlets “hypocrites” and saying that if elected, she would use community radio stations for communication. Moncada wrote on X: "I will never defend and will always condemn slander, libel, and defamation disguised as freedom of expression." Meanwhile, anonymous troll and bot accounts launched offensive messages against journalists.
These attacks take place against a backdrop of extreme precariousness and vulnerability for Honduran journalists. According to Reporters Without Borders, 139 journalists were murdered in the country from 2011 to 2020. According to a UN rapporteur, the country’s journalist protection mechanism has failed to provide adequate physical and legal protection.
Experts are pessimistic about the future. The Honduran Armed Forces will play a major role assisting elections officials. And the recent incidents have created an intimidating effect on the press, said Amada Ponce of C-Libre.
"Self-censorship has set in,” Ponce said. “There is fear, and the message has already been sent."
