Every 25th of May, Honduras celebrates the Day of the Journalist. For some, however, there is very little to celebrate and journalists prefer to take the time to raise their voices and denounce the constant harassment they claim to suffer in exercising their profession.
Paraguay, Brazil and Mexico placed in the top 20 deadliest countries for journalists in 2014, according to a special year-end report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Honduras has defied the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and decided to uphold an order to ban journalist Julio Ernesto Alvarado from work for 16 months.
A Honduran appellate court has reinstated a 16-month journalism ban on news anchor Julio Ernesto Alvarado, the latest in a rally of court decisions and appeals since Alvarado was charged with criminal defamation for segments, alleging corrupt behavior of a university dean, aired on his TV program “Mi Nación” (My Nation) in 2006.
When a TV journalist was shot to death recently in Tegucigalpa, the police were quick to say the motive had nothing to do with his reporting work. Some publications say he was the 37th a journalist murdered in Honduras since 2003, while others say he was the 45th reporter killed during that same period.
Carlos Mejía Orellana, an employee with Honduran radio station Radio Progreso, was stabbed and killed in the municipality of El Progreso on April 11, Reporters Without Borders informed.
Honduran journalist Julio Ernesto Alvarado, from television channel Globo TV, was sentenced to 16 months of prison for defaming Belinda Flores Mendoza, dean of the School of Economic Sciences at the Autonomous University of Honduras.
A criminal court in Honduras convicted three men accused of killing Honduran journalist Alfredo Villatoro in 2012, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) informed.
On Feb. 28, the Honduran government ordered the cancelation of the legal status of 5,429 non-governmental organizations, including freedom of expression organization Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), which condemned the order in a public alert published on March 7, asking for support from national and international organizations.
International organizations are condemning the increased government harassment of two Honduran journalists, Julio Ernesto Alvarado and Dina Meza, in recent months.
More than a hundred Honduran journalists and media workers were threatened or attacked between 2010 and 2013, according to a Feb. 18 announcement by the Committee for Human Rights (CONADEH), reported El Heraldo.
In a new report published last week, PEN International, PEN Canada and the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law lamented Honduras’ transition to a life-threatening place where crimes against journalists often go unpunished.