Honduras journalist shot dead, 85th in two decades

A general view of the city of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.

AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo

Text by: RFI Follow

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A Honduran journalist was shot and killed Sunday, September 27, by two unknown men riding motorcycles.

This is the 85th assassination of a journalist since 2001 in this Central American country, one of the most dangerous in the world outside armed conflict zones, police said on Monday.

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Luis Almendares, 35, a freelance internet journalist and government critic, had filed a dozen death threats complaints with the police and with an official institution for the protection of journalists, according to human rights organizations. the man.

The journalist was going shopping on Sunday in Comayagua, 60 km north of Tegucigalpa, " 

when he was intercepted by two individuals on a motorcycle, who shot him several times,

 " police said in a statement.

Hit by three bullets, Luis Almendares was hospitalized in serious condition and died Monday morning, Amada Ponce, director of the NGO Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), told AFP.

A total of 85 journalists, media employees or owners, have been murdered since 2001 in Honduras, and 90% of these crimes have gone unpunished, said Amada Ponce.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Honduras " 

urged the Honduran state to conduct an independent, swift, effective and impartial investigation

 " into the assassination.

The chairmen of the Inter-American Press Society (SIP), Christopher Barnes, and the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Roberto Rock, expressed their outrage, recalling that

15 other journalists were murdered on the American continent

since the beginning of the year.

The president of the Order of Journalists of Honduras Dagoberto Rodriguez, in reaction to the assassination, announced the withdrawal of the official institution created by the government to protect journalists, human rights defenders and lawyers.

The government practically allowed this mechanism to go adrift by giving it neither logistical nor financial means

 ", he denounced.

He criticized the impunity of the perpetrators of the murders of journalists and media workers: " 

The government shows that it does not interest it,

 " he asserted.

An environmental activist was also shot dead at his home in Honduras on Sunday with his wife and brother-in-law, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras said on Monday.

José Antonio Teruel was assassinated “ 

with his wife Francisca Aracely Zelaya and his brother-in-law Marco Tulio Zavala

 ” at his home in San Fernando, in the department of Olancho (eastern part of the country), the OHCHR office “deeply deplored” on Twitter.

Police said in a statement that " 

personal problems

 " had motivated the attack by strangers on the home of the environmentalist.

Thirty-seven collective assassinations have claimed a total of 139 victims since the start of the year in Honduras.

(With AFP)

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