Journalists from two Honduran radio stations suffered new acts of intimidation, adding to the climate of increasing violence and threats faced by opposition broadcasters in the country, El Pregón reports.
Radio Uno director Arnulfo Aguilar was ambushed near his house in San Pedro Sula by a group of armed men in ski masks just before midnight April 27, Barrigaverde.net explains. According to Provincia, he escaped unharmed with help from neighbors and called the attack a “thwarted homicide.”
Radio Uno is a station that has openly opposed the June 2009 Honduran coup and has reported multiple acts of intimidation against its offices and reporters, Revistazo.com says.
In another episode of violence, Pedro Canales, a journalist at the community radio station La Voz de Zacate Grande reports that on April 16, someone put nails in his car tires and later two armed men threatened him, C-Libre reports via IFEX.
The station is active in opposing evictions by a local landowner, which has led to harassment from local and federal officials, as well as its director being shot in the leg and facing death threats.
Additionally, Reporters without Borders adds that the home of Alfredo López, the director of Radio Faluma Bimetu/Coco Dulce, a station serving the Afro-Caribbean Garifuna community in the Honduran coastal city of Triunfo de la Cruz, was burned down April 7, after the station had faced threats and harassment due to conflicts with the local government.
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.
