The body of Honduran cameraman Manuel de Jesús Varela Murillo, 32, was found with three bullet wounds in the face on Oct. 23 near a popular neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, C-Libre reported. It appeared Varela Murillo had been killed a week before being found.
On Feb. 25, 2010, the Inter American Commission on Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States (IACHR) granted Varela Murillo precautionary measures and asked the government of Honduras, through an injunction, to protect his life. The order came a few weeks after plainclothes policemen took Varela Murillo and a colleague to a clandestine prison and tortured them.
The 2010 attack appeared to be related to Varela Murillo's opposition to the coup that deposed former President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. As a reporter, Varela Murillo covered the protests and marches that followed the coup, organized by the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), in support of Zelaya.
The police officers who kidnapped him demanded that he surrender the footage he recorded during the protests and threatened to kill his family, according to Telesur. Murillo reported the incident to the Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Persons in Honduras (Cofadeh) and the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), stating that "these people wanted him dead."
The head of the International Press Institute (IPI) Barbara Trionfi said the Honduras government should immediately investigate the murder of Murillo Varela and punish those responsible. "Given that the Honduran government was explicitly responsible for the life of Varela Murillo, and considering it had the obligation to comply and adopt the commitments listed in the precautionary measures granted (to Varela Murillo) in 2010, it should explain why it failed in its duty."
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also called on the Honduran authorities to open an independent investigation on the killing. "We call for an end to the continued impunity for crimes committed against journalists," the organization said.
International organizations and press freedom advocates asked the government and the country's presidential candidates to protect the lives of journalists and the rights of Hondurans to be informed.
Varela Murillo had worked as a cameraman for President Manuel Zelaya in 2008 and documented all the events of the coup and consequent manifestations. He was also a supporter of political party LIBRE, led by Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, wife of the deposed president and candidate for the presidential elections to be held in Honduras on Nov. 24.
According to IPI, Manuel Murillo is the second journalist killed in Honduras this year and the twenty-sixth since Zelaya was deposed in 2009. The organization compared the increase of these attacks with 2007-2009 wave of violence that resulted in the death of five journalists.
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.
