The risk of practicing journalism in Central America is increasing, according to journalists who participated in the meeting “Press, freedom of expression, risks and elections” held on Saturday, Aug. 30, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The meeting was organized by the Central American Journalists Network (RCP, by its acronym in Spanish) and included reflection and debate on the challenges facing journalism in the current regional context.
Journalist Marlen Perdomo, director of the Honduran newspaper Proceso Digital, said that while risks to journalism have always existed, recently “they have been accentuated due to social polarization and increasingly visible, more real threats. They go from digital to threats in another sense, on the ground.”
RCP director Angélica Cárcamo said that the situation of journalism in Central America is risky, with scenarios similar to or much more complex than in the 1980s, when there were armed conflicts, dictatorships or militarism in some countries in the region.
“What we are seeing is the co-opting of power in order to gain absolute control of the state and criminalize those dissenting voices," Cárcamo said.
