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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Honduras new government is censoring journalists
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| Contributor | Penguin |
| Last Edited | Penguin Jul 02, 2009 10:29pm |
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| Category | General |
| Author | FRANCES ROBLES |
| News Date | Thursday, July 2, 2009 04:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | At the close of the one of this week's nightly news broadcasts, Channel 21 news anchor Indira Raudales made a plea: ``We have a right to information! This can't be happening in the 21st century!''
If Raudales offered more details, viewers did not hear them: the screen briefly went to static.
Her on-air appeal for freedom of the press came as the newly installed Honduran government kept several news outlets closed, detained international reporters, and periodically interrupted the signal of CNN en español.
Reporters for The Associated Press were taken away in military vehicles and Venezuela's Telesur network -- and any other station supportive of toppled president Manuel Zelaya -- are still off the air.
Stations that are broadcasting carry only news friendly to the new government. Several local papers have yet to publish information about Zelaya's international support in neighboring countries.
''They militarized Channel 36, which is owned by me,'' said Esdras López, director of the show, ''Asi se Informa.'' ``They brought more than a battalion -- 22 armed men -- took the channel and said nobody could come in and nobody could come out.
``I own this building!''
The crackdown on the media began before dawn Sunday, when hooded soldiers entered the presidential palace by force and captured Zelaya, a leftist firebrand who had vowed to defy the supreme court, congress and the attorney general's office in a quest to hold a referendum. The nation's media went black while Zelaya was flown out of the country. |
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