By Joseph Vavrus
The commissioner of the Institute of Access to Public Information (IAIP) threatened to take legal action against Revistazo.com reporter Eleana Borjas who was trying to interview him about his vote on an information request issue, C-Libre reports.
When Borjas tried to interview the commissioner, lawyer Arturo Echenique Santos, she says he told her he would read her articles and “formally charge her” if she “disparaged” him. She felt intimidated due to the “violence in the country and the crimes against journalists and lawyers. It is strange for an official to brag and scream that he will take legal action. I felt scared.”
A recent episode of such violence took place in southern Honduras last week: Hours after an individual named Porfirio Medina allegedly shot the director of the community radio station La Voz de Zacate Grande in the leg, a correspondent from the station received a death threat, C-Libre reports via IFEX.
According to the report, a director at the status said that Medina told reporter Ethel Corea that she would be “the second to die.”
The new threats come at a time when the government recently promised the U.N. that it would implement measures to protect journalists and freedom of expression, in response to the growth in violence and intimidation against journalists in the wake of the 2009 coup.
Other Related Headlines:
» Contralínea (Honduras: Community Radio Emergency)
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.
