“The noose is tightening around the Honduran people more than ever,” says Dana Frank, professor at UC Santa Cruz, specialising in human rights and US policy in post-coup Honduras, adding that with this comes increased repression of the media.
With political turmoil and protests following the 2017 re-election of president Juan Orlando Hernández, repression of information has become commonplace in Honduras. According to Amnesty International, at least 31 people were killed in the aftermath of the election, with hundreds more arrested or detained. Reporters Without Borders ranked Honduras 140th in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
Journalists reporting on corruption and violence in Honduras regularly deal with violence and the risk of death for their work — including investigative journalist Wendy Funes, a nominee for Index on Censorship’s 2018 Freedom of Expression Award for Journalism — while perpetrators often go unpunished.
“What’s amazing is that corruption is highly documented. For example, the government itself and the attorney general have confirmed the evidence that as much $90 million was stolen by the ruling party and the Juan Orlando campaign in 2013 from the national health service. They siphoned it into their campaigns,” says Frank. “The evidence of corruption is out there. The problem is that the attorney general and the government don’t act on the evidence.”
According to Honduras National Commission for Human Rights, over 70 journalists and other media workers were killed in Honduras between 2001 and August of 2017. PEN International reports that violence against journalists continued despite the Honduran government’s pledge at the United Nations in May 2015 to improve its human rights record. Journalists have begun to silence themselves out of fear for their lives.
“Over the years, the situation has been deteriorating and getting worse in regards to freedom of expression,” Honduran journalist Dina Meza told Index on Censorship in February 2018. “Therefore, what journalists and social communicators have started to do is self-censor.”
As recently as 13 February 2018, one Honduran television reporter, César Omar Silva, was the victim of an attempted on-air stabbing. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Silva said that a nearby police officer and hospital worker told the man to stop but did not try to detain him or take his weapon. The attacker escaped.
This wasn’t the first time Silva was attacked for his work. He was kidnapped and tortured after he covered human rights violations around the 2009 coup.
Censorship by the government goes beyond attempting to silence journalists; it also restricts the information government agencies are allowed to release to the media and the public. A 2014 law assigned responsibility for releasing information to individual government agencies, instead of the more independent Institute for Public Access to Information. As a result, government transparency and the public’s right to information suffered.
“It really is a reign of terror. The government used live bullets against a labour strike on 9 March, and that’s new,” says Frank. “What’s amazing is that people are reclaiming democracy and going to the streets even though they know they could get killed.”
Frank echoed sentiments written by Dina Meza in a September 2013 article for Index on Censorship magazine. “In a democracy, criminal investigations would be the appropriate means to bring these culprits to justice,” said Meza, “but in what is an essentially failed state with a collapsed infrastructure, anyone who is determined to speak out risks their life.”
As journalists in Honduras face harsh censorship, those who continue to work and speak out must be supported and defended. Without this the corruption and repression in post-coup Honduras would go undocumented. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1524040544190-383fec9d-ea6d-2″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Wendy Funes is an investigative journalist from Honduras who regularly risks her life for her right to report on what is going on in the country.
She is a courageous female voice, writing in a violent and corrupt society where two journalists have been killed this year and where women are regularly subjected to severe domestic violence and often killed.
Funes is an inventive and passionate human rights reporter. For one article she got her own death certificate issued so that she could show up the corruption in the civil registration office. For another she dressed as a beggar for an investigation into children being forced to beg on the streets of the country’s capital.
She writes about violence against women, a huge problem in Honduras where one woman is killed every 16 hours, and the number of women killed has increased by more than 260% between 2005 and 2013.
But Funes is also an activist for her profession, which led to her being expelled from the journalism trade union where she had been fighting for labour rights and freedom of expression.
“I have overcome many traumas, including the violent deaths of my father and several friends and fellow journalists, for which no one has been brought to justice,” said Funes. “I will not succumb to despair – every blow has made me a warrior, and every obstacle is a chance to prove that adversity must never stop us. Only those who has suffered dark will search for the light. My way to achieve my life’s purpose is the journalism I love, which quickens my heart in moments of greatest expectation, which brings joy and sorrow. Through independent, self-critical, methodical journalism – the kind that comes from the streets – combined with an academic grounding, I am convinced I can bring change to my country.”
Working for C-Libre, a freedom of expression organisation in Honduras, she highlighted the continued murder of journalists by organising a march which she called the Demonstration of Silence to protest the death of journalists. Protesters carried white cardboard coffins with the faces of each of the journalists on them to the prosecutors’ office in the capital Tegucigalpa.
In 2017 Wendy Funes was helped by PressStart, a global crowdfunding platform for reporters in countries where the press cannot report freely, to write an expose of gang rapes of indigenous Lenca women in the La Paz area of Honduras.
On May 31, 2017 Funes retired from C-Libre to found her own research newspaper and promote investigative journalism in her country, using data with a gendered approach and promoting transparency and access to public information.
“This nomination is like an embrace of trust in the darkness of death and risk implied by the asphyxiating level of censorship that the press experiences in Honduras,” said Funes. “It’s like a hand reaching out to me to tell me it’s worth resisting this corrupt and unfair system.”
Wendy Funes y su valiente defensa del periodismo de investigación en Honduras
Wendy Funes es una periodista de investigación hondureña que pone su vida en peligro con regularidad: es el precio que paga a cambio de su derecho a informar sobre lo que está pasando en el país.
Es la valerosa voz de una mujer escribiendo en una sociedad violenta y corrupta, en la que dos periodistas han sido asesinados en lo que va de año. Un país en el que las mujeres sufren violencia doméstica extrema a diario y son a menudo asesinadas.
Funes es una reportera pro derechos humanos ingeniosa y apasionada. Hizo que expidieran su propio certificado de defunción para desvelar en un artículo la corrupción del registro civil. Para otro reportaje, se disfrazó de pordiosera para investigar sobre los niños forzados a mendigar en las calles de la capital del país.
Escribe sobre la violencia contra las mujeres, un problema gravísimo en Honduras, donde matan a una mujer cada 16 horas y la cifra de asesinadas se incrementó más de un 260% entre 2005 y 2013.
Funes también es una activista dentro de su profesión, razón por la cual fue expulsada del sindicato de periodismo desde el que había estado luchando por los derechos laborales y la libertad de expresión.
«He superado muchos traumas, entre ellos, las muertes violentas de mi padre y de varios amigos y compañeros periodistas, por las cuales nadie ha sido llevado ante la justicia», declaró Funes. «No sucumbiré a la desesperación: cada golpe me ha hecho una guerrera, y cada obstáculo no es más que una oportunidad de demostrar que la adversidad nunca debe detenernos. Solo quienes han sufrido la oscuridad buscarán la luz. El modo que tengo para cumplir mi propósito en la vida es el periodismo al que amo, el que hace que se me acelere el corazón en momentos de inmensa esperanza, el que me trae alegrías y tristezas. Con periodismo independiente, autocrítico, metódico —el tipo de periodismo que viene de las calles—, combinado con conocimientos académicos, estoy convencida de que puedo traer el cambio a mi país».
Cuando trabajaba para C-Libre, una organización por la libertad de expresión en Honduras, organizó una marcha a la que llamó la Manifestación del Silencio en protesta contra los continuos asesinatos de periodistas. Los manifestantes cargaron con ataúdes de cartón blanco con retratos de cada uno de los periodistas asesinados hasta la fiscalía de la capital, Tegucigalpa.
En 2017 Wendy Funes recibió apoyo de PressStart, una plataforma de crowdfunding global para reporteros en países donde la prensa no puede informar libremente, con el cual escribió un reportaje destapando las violaciones grupales de mujeres indígenas lencas en la zona hondureña de La Paz.
El 31 de mayo de 2017, Funes se retiró de C-Libre para fundar su propio periódico de investigación y promover este tipo de periodismo en su país, promoviendo la utilización de los datos desde una perspectiva de género, la transparencia y el acceso a información pública.
«Esta nominación es como un abrazo de confianza en la oscuridad de la muerte y el peligro implícitos en el asfixiante nivel de censura que vive la prensa en Honduras», declaró Funes. «Es como si me hubieran extendido una mano para decirme que merece la pena resistir a este sistema corrupto e injusto».
Traducción de Arrate Hidalgo
Accede a la lista completa de nominados a los Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2018 aquí.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content” equal_height=”yes” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1490258749071{background-color: #cb3000 !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Support the Index Fellowship.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsupport-the-freedom-of-expression-awards%2F|||”][vc_column_text]
Since 1992 Honduran journalist Dina Meza has been investigating corruption and violations of free speech throughout South America, including the murder of journalists in Honduras. A staunch defender of human rights, she has reported on police brutality, murder and conflict from the troubled Bajo Aguán region.
In 2014, Meza was a nominee for an Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award in the journalism category. In 2007, she was the recipient of the Amnesty International UK’s Special Award for Human Rights Journalism Under Threat. Meza is the president of the Honduras Pen Centre and runs her own online newspaper, Pasos de Animal Grande, where reports on the corruption of government officials. Her work has also resulted in her and her members of her family to face threats and harassment.
Index on Censorship spoke with Meza at an event at the Law Society in conjunction with the Peace Brigades International in London. The meeting was held for lawyers and free speech advocates to discuss with Meza the state of freedom of expression and conditions for journalists in Honduras.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1519987436170-d4dce70b-2a3b-8″ taxonomies=”482″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Established in 2003, the LGBT organisation Arcoiris, meaning “rainbow” in Spanish, works on all levels of Honduran society to advance basic rights. Honduras has seen an explosion in levels of homophobic violence since the military coup in 2009. Working against this tide, Arcoiris provides support to many LGBT victims of violence, run awareness initiatives, promote HIV prevention programmes and directly lobby the Honduran government and police force. Its tactics are diverse and often inventive. Between June 2015 and March 2016, six members of Arcoiris were killed for this work. Many others have faced intimidation, harassment, physical attacks or been forced to flee the country.
“All our campaigns have been well received and have enabled families to get a bit closer to their diverse sons and daughters,”Arcoiris coordinator Donny Reyes says.
“I’ve been imprisoned on many occasions. I’ve suffered torture and sexual violence because of my activism, and I’ve survived many assassination attempts,” he said, in an interview with Index on Censorship in April 2016. The activist had spent a year in exile and on his return feared he would be attacked and killed. However, he felt obliged to return to Honduras to fight homophobia and transphobia.
Many LGBT activists in Honduras share Reyes’ fears as dozens are murdered each year, with killers rarely facing justice.
In the second half of 2015 alone, Arcoiris reported 15 security incidents against its members, including surveillance, harassment, arbitrary detentions, assaults, robberies, theft, threats, sexual assault and even murder. Other LGBT activists have experienced forced evictions, fraudulent charges, defamation, enforced disappearances and restrictions of right to assembly.
