Freedom of Expression
Press Release R316/19
Office of the Special Rapporteur condemns murder of
journalist José Arita in Honduras and urges to investigate relation to his
journalistic activity
December 4, 2019
Washington D.C. - The Office of the Special
Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) condemns the murder of journalist José Arita, which occurred on
November 25, 2019 in Puerto Cortés, department of Cortés, Honduras and notes
with concern that it would be the sixth murder against press personnel, so far
this year. It also urges the Honduran State to investigate these cases in a
complete, effective, and impartial manner, to clarify their motives and
determine the relation they might have to journalistic activity.
According to information from the
media in Honduras, José Arita would have been attacked with firearms by
strangers when he was leaving the facilities of Puerto Vision Canal 12 located
in Puerto Cortés, about 200 km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, after
finishing his program, "La Hora de la Verdad." The Honduran Police security
spokesman, Jair Meza Barahona, reported that the murder may be related to
Arita's journalistic work. According to complaints made by the same journalist
before the attack that ended his life, in his last program, he said that he
would have been excluded from some press conferences and would have announced
he would have a lawyer as a guest in his next program to analyze issues
concerning the New Criminal Code in Honduras.
This Office has accounted for six
murders so far in 2019 in the country, with Arita it would be the second
communicator murdered in Puerto Cortés.
On November 21, the Honduran Police collected
the body of the communicator and television presenter of Canal 45 of Catacamas
(Olancho), Johana Alvarado, who was found dead with signs of abuse and head
shots. The causes of the crime would not have been clarified yet.
On November 1, journalist
Buenaventura Calderón, one of the coordinators of the Ecos de la Mosquitia
news, on Radio Kupia Kumi, in Puerto Lempira, was shot dead together with his
wife, María Calderón, who would have died hours later in the hospital. He would
have received several bullet impacts before arriving at his home. According to
his co-workers, Calderón dealt with issues related to drug trafficking in the
area, corruption, and was a defender of the human and territorial rights of misquitos peoples in that region.
According to the police authorities, the causes of the murder of the
communicator, who was also a merchant, and his wife are under investigation in
order to arrest the material and intellectual authors responsible for this
double crime.
On August 31, the correspondent for
the national television channel Canal 6 and local television station Cable Mar
TV, Edgar Joel Aguilar, was murdered by a stranger who shot him several times
when he was in a barber shop in La Entrada, Nueva Arcadia municipality (Copán).
Aguilar covered police news and, according to local press, days before his
death he had received threats through social networks. The communicator would
have made a complaint to the Police Investigation Directorate and requested
protection. According to the director of the National Protection Mechanism,
Danilo Morales, the program would not have been informed about the threats against
the journalist. In previous years Aguilar had already been the victim of
attacks and threats.
On July 5, television presenter
Santiago Carvajal, a rights activist for the LGTBI community, was murdered. The
communicator would have been attacked with firearms, by unidentified individuals,
in Puerto Cortés. He died hours later at the Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in
San Pedro Sula. Carvajal directed the critical cutting program La Galaxia de
Santy, on a local television channel. The causes of the crime would not have
been clarified yet.
On March 17, journalist Gabriel
Hernández was murdered in the Nacaóme (Valle) municipality. Hernández, directed
the program "El Pueblo Habla" of Valle TV. He was shot by two individuals
aboard a vehicle, and died hours later in the hospital. The journalist, who
also worked as a correspondent for Radio Globo, was known for his strong
criticism against the municipal mayor of Nacaóme and the congress deputies of
the department. According to available information, the journalist had been
subjected to threats, police attacks, and refusals to provide information by
the municipal authorities.
According to information provided by
different civil society organizations, 81 journalists and media workers would
have been murdered in the country since 2001 to date.
The Office of the Special Rapporteur
has already expressed on many occasions the imperative need to combat violence
against journalists through a comprehensive policy of prevention, protection,
and prosecution. In this regard, it has stressed the importance of creating
specialized permanent protection programs in those countries where violence
against journalists and media workers is particularly widespread, noting that,
for these mechanisms to be effective, they must be backed by a strong political
commitment of the State, as well as having sufficient human resources, trained
to receive requests for protection, assess the level of risk, adopt and
implement the protection measures, as well as monitor the measures in force.
The Special Rapporteur for Freedom of
Expression, Edison Lanza, repudiated the murder of the journalist and said that
"the State must carry out a full investigation, taking into account the
relationship to his work as the main hypothesis of the crime and exhausting all
lines of investigation". In turn, he urged the government to investigate
the reasons why the National Protection Mechanism of Honduras did not grant
effective protection to the aforementioned journalist.
The Office of the Special Rapporteur
calls on the Honduran State to investigate, in a complete, effective, and
impartial manner, this crime, to clarify its motives, and determine judicially
the relationship it may have to journalistic activity and freedom of
expression. The authorities should not rule out the exercise of journalism as a
motive of the murder and/or aggression before the investigation is completed, it
must also provide adequate resources and specialized personnel to the
institutions responsible for the investigation of such matters.
Both the Commission and the
Inter-American Court have referred to the chilling effect that crimes against
journalists have for others media professionals, as well as for citizens who
intend to report abuses of power or illegal acts of any nature. This chilling effect
can only be avoided, according to the Inter-American Commission, "through
the decisive action of the State to punish those responsible, in accordance with
its obligation under international law and domestic law."
Principle 9 of the Declaration
of Principles on Freedom of Expression of the IACHR states: "[t]he
murder, kidnapping, intimidation of, and/or threats to social communicators, as
well as the material destruction of communications media violate the
fundamental rights of individuals and strongly restrict freedom of expression.
It is the duty of the State to prevent and investigate such occurrences, to
punish their perpetrators, and to ensure that victims receive due compensation."
The Office of the
Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression was created by the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) with the aim of encouraging the defense of
the right to freedom of thought and expression in the hemisphere, given its
fundamental role in consolidating and developing the democratic system.
R316/19