Riot police threw a teargas canister at journalist Lidieth Díaz and cameraman Adolfo Sierra for TV Cholusat Sur, attempting to stop the pair from filming a teacher protest in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, Revistazo.com reports.
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.
The Honduran government told the U.N. that it would implement measures to improve the state of free expression and protect press workers from the wave of violence that has affected the country, El Heraldo reports.
The director of the community radio station La Voz de Zacate Grande, who also is a peasant leader in the island of Zacate in the south of Honduras, was shot in the leg and hospitalized March 13, reported the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica.
After La Prensa newspaper unilaterally decided to stop publishing photos of dead bodies to avoid sensationalizing the increase in violence in the country, the Honduras Journalists’ Guild (CPH) and the government are now working towards an agreement that would remove violent photos from newspaper covers, La Tribuna reports.
La Prensa, Honduras’ most circulated newspaper, reports that it will no longer publish photos of “cadavers” or images of body bags as part of its new editorial policy on covering the increase in violence in the country.
In the midst of a wave of violence against the media following the 2009 Honduran coup, which includes the death of 10 journalists, the government said it will create a special unit to investigate crimes against journalists, La Tribuna reports.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called on Supreme Court to rule on the ownership and frequency concession of a local TV station, Canal 8, that was taken over by the government, El Heraldo reports.
Episodes of press censorship in Latin America are at the highest levels since many countries began to return to democracy 30 years ago, writes Carlos Lauría, senior program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Lauría’s analysis of censorship in the continent was part of the CPJ’s annual report titled Attacks on the Press 2010.
Radio Faluma Bimetu/Coco Dulce, a station serving the Afro-Caribbean Garifuna community in the Honduran coastal city of Triunfo de la Cruz, returned to the air after a month of threats, tension, and hostility, reports Reporters without Borders (RSF).
Honduran President Porfirio Lobo announced that he had received an offer from the U.S. government to help investigate the deaths of ten journalists who were killed in 2010, EFE reports.
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.