Press Freedom

y 18, 2010

H.E Porfirio Lobo Sosa

President, Republic of Honduras

c/o Embassy of the Republic of Honduras

3007 Tilden Street

Washington, D.C. 20008

Fax: (202) 966.9751

Your Excellency:

The Overseas Press Club of America,
which has been defending the rights of journalists around the world for seven
decades, wrote to you only last month about the catastrophic situation of
journalists in your country.  We are
impelled to write again because, if anything, their situation – and the
situation of human rights in general in Honduras – is growing worse.

Soon after you were inaugurated, in a
speech to students at the Central American Technological University, you
declared your belief in freedom as a fundamental human right and you added your
signature to the Declaration of Chapultepec. 
Since then, seven Honduran journalists have been assassinated, making Honduras as dangerous as Mexico for a
journalist to go about the legitimate business of reporting and commenting on
the news.  As far as we have heard, no
arrests have been made.

The motives for the murders do not seem
to be clear.  At least two of the
murdered journalists had opposed the coup that led to your election.  José Bayardo Mairena Ramírez, who was shot to
death along with his colleague, Manuel Juárez, on March 26, was a veteran TV
and radio journalist who had opposed the coup d’état last year.  So had Jorge Alberto Orellana, host of a TV
program, murdered on March 1.  On the
other hand, Karol Cabrera, who was wounded in an attack that killed her colleague,
Joseph Hernández Ochoa, at the beginning of March, had supported the coup on
the Channel 8 show that she hosted.

Unless these murders are thoroughly
investigated, the public will not know the motives for the killings, whether
they were instigated by one political party or another, or whether they were
meant to stop investigations of official corruption or of the activities of
drug gangs.  The murders all had one
thing in common – the victims were attacked while in their cars by gunmen in
another car.

The seven murders do not measure the
full extent of the damage inflicted on the press by fear, threats and
beatings.  According to Reporters Without
Borders, three journalists have fled Honduras to escape the
violence.  One of them, José Alemán, a
broadcaster and correspondent for Tiempo, barely escaped with his life.  He had received threats but continued with his
work anyhow.  When he was on his way home
by bicycle, a car attempted to cut him off, but he escaped by riding down a
narrow alley.  He went straight to a
police station, where he learned that two gunmen had just broken into his home
and shot it up.  Alemán left the country
that evening.

The Inter-American Press Association
has proposed several steps that you might take to stop this killing and
persecution of journalists.  You could
establish some sort of international oversight, such as Guatemala has,
with the support of the United Nations.  You could appoint special prosecutors. You
could create a special jurisdiction for crimes committed against freedom of
expression.

Most of all, with your words and
actions, you could make it clear that attacks on the press will not be
tolerated in Honduras
and that a public well-informed by a free press is the best assurance of
stability and democracy.

Respectfully yours,

Jeremy
Main                                                                                         Kevin
McDermott

Co-Chairmen, Freedom of the Press
Committee

cc:

H.E. Eduardo Reina García

Ambassador of Honduras to the U.S.A.

Embassy of the Republic of Honduras

3007 Tilden Street, NW

Washington, D.C.  20008

Fax: (202) 966.9751

Ambassador Jorge Arturo Reina

Permanent Representative

Permanent Mission
of the Republic
of Honduras to the United
Nations

866 United Nations Plaza,
Suite 417

New York, N.Y.  10017

Fax: (212) 223.0498

H.E. Hugo Llorena

U.S. Ambassador to Honduras

Embassy of the United States of America

Avenida La Paz

Tegucigalpa M.D.C.

Honduras

Fax: (011.504) 236.9037

Director

Radio America

Tegucigalpa

Honduras

Fax: (011.504) 232.2923

Director

Diario Tiempo

Web.tiempo@continental.hn

Osman Lopez

Presidente

Comité por la Libre Expresión
Colonia Palmira
Primera calle (contiguo a Centro Cultural de España)
Tegucigalpa,
M.D.C.
Honduras
clibre (@) clibre.info