Seventh journalist shot dead in Honduras.

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Published on 21 April 2010

Georgino Orellana is the seventh Honduran journalist to be murdered in the past six weeks. A programme producer and presenter for Televisión de Honduras, Orellana was slain by a single shot to the head fired by an unidentified person who was waiting outside when he left the station’s studios in San Pedro Sula last night.

Honduras has been the world’s deadliest country for the media since the start of this year. Three journalists have fled abroad to escape the wave of violence.

Orellana’s killer left the scene immediately after last night’s shooting and the motive is not yet known. A university teacher as well as a journalist, Orellana used to work for the privately-owned broadcasting group Televicentro. Reporters Without Borders offers its condolences to his family and colleagues.

San Pedro Sula police chief Héctor Iván Mejía insisted that his murder “will not go unpunished.” But, despite recent government promises, justice has not been rendered in any of the attacks on the press since the June 2009 coup d’état, whether they were linked to the coup or not. Already bad because of the high level of criminal violence, the plight of journalists has got much worse since the coup

Read more: http://en.rsf.org/honduras-seventh-journalist-shot-dead-in-21-04-2010,37102.html

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Hilary Clinton: “We support the work that President Lobo is doing to promote national unity and strengthen democracy”

http://www.streetgangs.com/news/041110_mara_gang

highest murder rate in the world.

a rough estimate of the number of gang related dead from mexico to panama...50,000 over the last 5-6 yrs.

that our State Department was refusing to talk about the situation in the Security Council.

TV host slain; 6th Honduran journalist killed since March

New York, April 21, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists voiced deep concern today at the killing of Honduran television anchor Jorge Alberto Orellana, the sixth journalist killed in the country since March.

Orellana, 50, host of the program “En vivo con Georgino” (Georgino Live) at the local private station Televisión de Honduras, was shot to death on Tuesday by an unidentified gunman in the city of San Pedro Sula, in northern Honduras, according to local news accounts. As the journalist was leaving the station around 9 p.m., the attacker shot him in the head and fled on foot, the local newspaper Tiempo reported. The journalist was taken to Hospital Mario Rivas, where he was pronounced dead.

Orellana’s program focused on local news, mostly related to cultural events, José Peraza, a reporter with Radio Progreso in San Pedro Sula, told CPJ. He did not report on sensitive information such as organized crime, Tiempo Editor Rubén Escobar said ...

Before joining Televisión de Honduras, Orellana had worked for the newspaper La Prensa and the country’s leading network Televicentro, Honduran media reports said. After the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, Orellana left Televicentro because of discomfort with the station’s editorial position in favor of the interim government, local reporters said. Orellana was also a journalism professor at the National University of Honduras, in San Pedro Sula ...

http://cpj.org/2010/04/tv-host-murdered-6th-honduran-journalist-killed-si.php

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-murder-rates.html

Yow.

From:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1135.html

"CRIME: Crime is endemic in Honduras and requires a high degree of caution by U.S. visitors and residents alike. U.S. citizens have been the victims of a wide range of crimes, including murder, kidnapping, rape, assault, and property crimes. Eighty-five U.S. citizens have been reported murdered in Honduras since 1995; only twenty-four cases have been resolved. Sixteen U.S. citizens were reported murdered in Honduras in 2009, nine in 2008, four in 2007 six in 2006, and ten in 2005. Kidnappings of U.S. citizens have also occurred in Honduras. Five U.S. citizens were reported kidnapped in 2009, four in 2008, and two in 2007. Poverty, gangs, and low apprehension and conviction rates of criminals contribute to a critical crime rate, including acts of mass murder. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported 4,473 murders in Honduras in 2008 giving Honduras, with a population of approximately 7.3 million people, one of the world’s highest per capita murder rates."

New wave of repression targets opponents of Honduran coup
April 27, 2010

Both the Canadian and US governments have praised the January 27 elections in Honduras as a major step forward toward a return to democracy and national reconciliation. Yet the reality on the ground under the newly elected government of Porfirio Lobo is one of continuing repression and selective assassinations of those who dared to oppose the June 28, 2009 military coup.

Murder of activists

According to the Committee for the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), at least 40 anti-coup activists have been murdered since the coup. Some of the atrocities that have been committed since the election include the following:

•On February 3, 29-year-old Vanessa Zepeda Alonzo, an active member of the Resistance and member of the Social Security Employees Union, was found dead in Tegucigalpa. According to eyewitnesses, her body was thrown out of a car.

•On February 15, Julio Funez Benitez, another member of the Resistance and active member of SITRASANAA, the water and sewage workers union, was shot outside his home in Olancho by unknown gunmen traveling on a motorcycle.

•On March 17, Francisco Castillo was assassinated. He was a colleague of Father Andres Tamayo, a well known Catholic priest, environmental activist and outspoken member of the Resistance. Castillo had previously worked for prominent Honduran businessman and coup supporter Miguel Facusse before resigning from his position after the coup.

•On March 23, social science teacher Jose Manuel Flores was shot by armed men wearing ski masks at the high school where he taught and in front of his students. Flores was also a prominent member of the Resistance.

Murder of the children of activists

Many of those killed had previously reported being harassed and threatened because of their work in the Resistance. Furthermore, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has noted a disturbing trend in which "it appears that sons and daughters of leaders of the Resistance Front are being killed, kidnapped, attacked, and threatened as a strategy to silence the activists."

Two examples cited are:

•On February 17, seventeen year old Dara Gudiel was found hanged in the city of Danlí, Paraíso. Dara Gudiel was the daughter of journalist Enrique Gudiel, who runs a radio program called Siempre al Frente con el Frente (Always Outfront with the Front), which broadcasts information about the Resistance. Days before her death, Dara Gudiel had been released from a kidnapping.

•On February 24, 2010, Claudia Maritza Brizuela, thirty six years old, was killed in her home in San Pedro Sula. She was the daughter of union and community leader Pedro Brizuela, who participates actively in the Resistance. Two unknown individuals shot her on her doorstep in front of her children, ages two and eight.

Murder of journalists

Human rights groups have also condemned the murder and threats to journalists, with five reporters killed in the first three months of the year making Honduras "one of the riskiest countries in the entire region in which to practice journalism" according to the IACHR.

According to Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas Director at Human Rights Watch, these attacks are "generating a climate of fear that is likely to have a chilling effect on the Honduran media." Examples include:

•On March 14, Nahún Palacios was shot repeatedly while driving his car. Palacios was news director for Aguan Television, Channel 5, and had covered the resistance protests extensively, as well as other politically sensitive issues such as the ongoing agrarian conflict in the Aguan. His house had been raided and his equipment seized by the military. He had also had precautionary measures granted for him by the IAHRC which ordered the State of Honduras to protect him, though he continued to report receiving threats up until his death.

•Radio Progreso, a community radio in El Progreso and one of the few uncensored, independent sources of information in Honduras since the coup, has complained of numerous threats made against its staff for their role in disseminating the work of the Resistance. Father Ismael "Melo" Moreno, a Jesuit Priest and Director of the Reflection, Research and Communication Team (ERIC, by its Spanish acronym) which houses Radio Progreso, has had to go into hiding after receiving death threats related to his involvement in the case of a women who was sexually assaulted by police during an anti-coup demonstration in August.

More:
http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/node/935