Honduran prosecutors are pursuing a complaint by a journalist and photographer from La Prensa newspaper who were assaulted and kicked out of a public building while covering a teacher protest in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in the county.
“They threw us out of the offices for trying to cover the turmoil (…) A teacher rushed me, hit me in the back, and kicked me,” said reporter Tatiana Paz, who identified the main attacker as a P.E. instructor, El Heraldo says.
Paz and photographer Amílcar Izaguirre went to the Public Ministry to file a complaint, but the prosecutor on duty declined their grievance and said they needed to have arrived beaten up in order to press charges, Proceso Digital explains. After the National Human Rights Commission intervened, the complaint was ultimately accepted, La Prensa adds.
Honduras has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world to practice journalism since the June 2009 coup. According to the Committee to Protect journalists, nine journalists were killed in Honduras in 2010, three of which were confirmed as work-related.
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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.
