In Honduras, journalist Jairo López accused the president of the National Congress, Mauricio Oliva, of organizing a smear campaign against him through social networks, Tiempo Digital reported.
#Honduras Jairo López sufre campaña de desprestigio tras denunciar abusos del presidente del Congreso Nacional https://t.co/UGtUG5qqgK
— RSF en español (@RSF_esp) February 16, 2017
This campaign could be in response to a video that López published, where he shows one of Oliva’s security agents aiming at residents of the municipality of Apacilagua in the southern department of Cholutecas with a gun, according to the Committee for Free Expression (C- Libre).
This would have happened on Feb. 5, when Oliva visited the town. The president of the Congress was expelled moments later by the same residents, who expressed their displeasure to him for the lack of employment in their city, Tiempo Digital reported.
"If something happens to me, it's the people of Mauricio Oliva, I'm blaming them," the journalist and host of news program El Informador on Canal 21 said, according to Tiempo Digital.
Additionally, the journalist pointed to the secretary of the president of Congress, Marco Tulio Flores, as one of those possibly responsible for any future aggression against him.
As part of the smear campaign against López, a video with photographic montages has been broadcast in which he is accused of belonging to criminal gangs and of being a partner of drug trafficker Orlando Pinto, reported C-Libre.
C-Libre also published that this campaign is being spread from profiles directly linked to the National Party.
López would not be the only journalist affected. C-Libre reported that since the beginning of the current government of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, there has been a series of hate and smear campaigns against journalists, social communicators and national and international intellectuals critical of the government.
Nor would it be the first time that López has suffered reprisals due to his journalistic work.
Since 2015, López has faced a lawsuit from media businessman Alcides Euceda, owner of channel 39, after the journalist reported acts of government corruption in Choluteca, reported Tiempo Digital.
Euceda has strong ties with the ruling party, according to C-Libre.
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.
