Salvadoran Radio Association Condemns Murder of Honduran Journalist

by the Association of Participatory Radios and Programs of El Salvador (ARPAS)
July 15th, 2011

Yesterday Nery Jeremias Orellana was killed , director of the Community radio station, Radio Joconguera in the municipality of Candelaria in southern Honduras near the border with El Salvador.The young journalist was also a correspondent of Radio Progreso, located in northern Honduras.

The journalist was attacked with a firearm while driving to the radio, and died while being taken to a hospital in El Salvador.

From this editorial space we condemn the murder of this fellow community journalist. We also condemn the killings of a dozen other Honduran journalists killed during the past two years, of which none have been solved by the authorities of this neighboring country.

Some of these journalists worked with media outlets  which criticized the coup d’état in June 2009 against then-President Manuel Zelaya and now question the current regime of Porfirio Lobo. And among these media critics of human rights violations committed by the coup and left in impunity for post coup, are rightly Joconguera Radio and Radio Progreso.

And as director of one  and correspondent for the other, Nery Jeremias Orellana denounced abuses against the surrounding population and the accompanying demands of communities.

Therefore, it is logical to suspect that his murder was not a case of common delinquency, but a political crime aimed at silencing a journalist and a community media outlet whose work upsets those in power in the neighboring country.

The community radio stations of ARPAS, as organizations committed to truth and common interest, we condemn this crime and we commit ourselves to work in solidarity with Radio Progreso and Radio Joconguera and demand that the police and judicial authorities of Honduras investigate the intellectual authors and perpetrators of this murder.

The international community must pressure the regime of Porfirio Lobo so that the murder of Nery Jeremias Orellana, and other journalists killed in Honduras, does not go uninvestigated and unpunished.

The Organization of American States, which in its last meeting in San Salvador decided to reincorporate Honduras into its ranks,  should hold Lobo accountable for the murders of these twelve journalists and other human rights violations.

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