By Gustavo Palencia
TEGUCIGALPA, Aug 14 (Reuters) – The Honduran government must
investigate the cases of 22 journalists murdered in the last two
years in a country that has the world’s highest murder rate, a
United Nations envoy said on Tuesday.
Frank La Rue, a U.N. special freedom of expression
rapporteur, also demanded that President Porfirio Lobo establish
new measures to protect journalists, including giving them
access to bulletproof cars and helping threatened reporters and
their families to relocate, either within Honduras or abroad.
“The state must investigate and apprehend the intellectual
and physical perpetrators of crimes against journalists,” La Rue
said at a press conference. “The absence of justice constitutes
impunity and in this case, impunity generates more violence
against journalists.”
The growing presence of Mexican drug cartels in Honduras has
fueled a surge in killings that has turned the Central American
country into the world’s most dangerous, with 86 murders per
100,000 people in 2012.
La Rue told reporters that since 2010, when Lobo came to
power, only one of the 22 cases of murdered journalists ended in
sentencing, statistics he called “unacceptable and inhuman.”
In the four years before Lobo was elected, only one
journalist had been murdered, La Rue added, citing government
data.
Alfredo Villatoro, a prominent radio journalist, was the
latest victim. His was kidnapped in May and his body found a
week later with a bullet wound to the head.
Between 2010 and 2012, 64 journalists were murdered
worldwide, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists,
which uses its own method for tallying murders.
In Mexico, where the government has been fighting a six-year
offensive against drug cartels, more than 80 journalists have
been murdered since 2000, according to the country’s National
Human Rights Commission.
(Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Eric Beech)
