Honduran president pledges to solve murders of journalists

Honduras President Porfirio Lobo has promised that his government will intensify investigations into crimes committed against journalists in his country. Lobo made the pledge on August 25 during a meeting with the chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), Jorge Canahuati, of the Honduras newspaper La Prensa, and the president of the Honduras News Media Association (AMC), José Rafael Ferraris. At the meeting, which took place one day after the murder of local journalist Israel Zelaya Díaz – the eighth such crime in Honduras so far this year – they called for solutions to this and the other murders in 2010 of Luis Arturo Mondragón, Georgino Orellana, Manuel Juárez, José Bayardo Mairena, Nahúm Palacios, David Meza and Joseph A. Hernández Ochoa, as well as the 2009 the killings of Bernardo Rivera Paz, Santiago Rafael Munguía and Gabriel Fino Noriega. Beyond the government’s concern and pledge to seek justice, the meeting included discussions on the possibility of the IAPA sending an investigative mission to the Central American country and organizing seminars, forums and other events on security and protection of journalist. Canahuati called President Lobo’s attention to contents of a note he had delivered in April in which the IAPA urged the adoption of legal and judicial reforms to combat crimes against journalists.