Miami (October 8, 2009)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today insisted that the government of Honduras reopen and restore the rights of the news media it shut down at the end of last month, because “dialogue in favor of democracy must include freedom of the press and of expression as essential values.”
On September 28 the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) shut down Canal 36 television and Radio Globo radio station, based in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and the La Catracha radio repeater facility, under terms of a decree issued by the Roberto Micheletti government suspending constitutional guarantees. The closed media support Manuel Zelaya, the Honduran president ousted in a coup on June 28.
In its call to lift the ban IAPA President Enrique Santos Calderón, editor of the Bogotá, Colombia, newspaper El Tiempo, said that while there is hope that negotiation will overcome the political crisis in the Central American country – an allusion to talks under way between the parties in conflict and the visit of a delegation of foreign ministers from the Organization of American States – he felt that “there can be no real dialogue without the freedom of the press and of expression being included as essential values.”
For his part, the chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, renewed the call to restore the rights of the media concerned, adding that “freedom to express and disseminate differing opinions, to criticize or be in favor of certain concepts or positions is a fundamental right of all human beings and should not be restricted for political convenience.”
The decree limiting citizens’ rights and civil guarantees for 45 days was issued on September 22 and published four days later in the Official Gazette. It was lifted on October 5 as part of the political dialogue that began this week. The government maintains, however, that the media outlets affected must go to court to overturn the Conatel action, something that the Honduras Special Prosecutor’s Office for Human Rights has been requesting since yesterday.
