Honduras

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HONDURAS Honduran journalists are concerned about actions of the judiciary in San Pedro Sula, Cortes department (state), where Arnulfo Aguilar, who has frequently reported cases of corruption by this branch of government, has been sued for defamation and libel. Aguilar, a reporter for La Prensa, investigated and reported on the overturning of a guilty verdict against alleged drug traffickers by a local appeals court, saying there was evidence of bribery. A woman judge was dismissed and the other two judges were transferred. The judge who was dismissed filed the lawsuit against Aguilar. This is the second suit against Aguilar in less than a year. The previous case, which was similar, was reported to the IAPA. It still hangs over his head like the sword of Darnocles. On the other hand, the circulation of anonymous defamation about journalists in May, which even included officials and other influential people, seemed to indicate a division within the profession. But now that this incident has passed, there has been no other indication that the. division persists. These were the main events. -At the end of July, Renato Alvarez, news director of Channel 63, said he had been threatened and intimidated. On August 1, Alvarez told police and human rights organizations that two unknown persons had arrived at his residence in the Villa Olimpica neighborhood of the capital in a blue car the night before and told him to go to a parking lot because his vehicle was burning. Alvarez went with a neighbor, but when they arrived at the parking lot they saw that it was not true and the two unknown people were waiting in the same blue car. The Attorney General's Office assigned him two bodyguards since it appeared to have been an attempt to kidnap him. Alvarez had to stay away from home for the next two weeks, and the case in being investigated by the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation. -Allan McDonald, the political cartoonist of the newspaper El Heraldo, said he had been followed by two people on a motorcycle with no license places and later received threatening anonymous calls. -Renato Alvarez of Channel 63, and Rossana Guevara, of Vica-Noticias, were summoned to the Human Rights Investigator's Office in the Public Ministry and questioned intensively about how reports of threats against them had reached IAPA. According to the two journalists, who were accompanied by their lawyers, the implicit message behind the questioning was that these reports had hurt the country's image.

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