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.
Mexico and Honduras have joined the rank of countries where the press is not considered free or independent, according to a Freedom House study released Monday, May 2, reported the Christian Science Monitor. In fact, the report, Freedom of the Press 2011: A Global Survey of Media Independence, found that global press freedom has declined to its lowest levels in more than a decade, with Latin America experiencing the most severe setbacks. The report was released as part of World Press Freedom Day.
Reporter Pedro López, a correspondent for Radio Progreso in Cortés Department western Honduras, was held by police for four hours along with demonstrators. He was covering a national strike on Wednesday, El Patriota reports.
A TV reporter was wounded in the face after police fired tear gas while he was covering a teachers' protest in Tegucigalpa, the capital, Hora Cero reports. See this summary in English by Reporters Without Borders.
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.