Honduras

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HONDURAS The Supreme Court established a new precedent regarding press freedom when on June 10 it upheld a newspaper editor's motion to prosecute city councilmen who barred municipal officials from talking to the press. The case originated on August 24, when the San Pedro Sula City Council ordered department heads to release information only to city council members. In response, La Tribuna editor Edgar Dumas Rodriguez filed suit to contest the order on the grounds that "it violates freedom of the press and Article 23 of the American Convention of Human Rights, which sets out the right of a citizen to access to official informaton." In its ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the Fourth District Court to continue its criminal investigation into whether the municipal order constituted an abuse of power. The lower court on September 26 had issued warrants for the arrest of all the city council members, an action that could lead to their removal from office, under the terms of the Law of Municipalities. In another development involving La Tribuna, Honduran President Carlos Roberto Reina published an op-ed piece in the paper headlined "Better shut up, Mr. Dumas," an evident reference to an article by Dumas accusing the president of improper behavior

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