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A 26-year-old radio station director was killed yesterday in Honduras. Nery Jeremias Orellana was stopped and shot in the head by masked gunmen as he rode home from work on a motorcycle. He died soon after he was taken to a local hospital. A supporter of recently ousted President Manuel Zelaya, Orellana was head of Radio Joconguera de Candelaria and was a member of the National Resistance Front.
Three gunmen killed Channel 24 television owner Luis Ernesto Mendoza Cerrato last week. Gunmen also wounded newspaper manager Manuel Acosta Medina two days as he drove home. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 journalists have been killed in Honduras since March 2010, at least three weer murdered in retaliation for their work. Although police are investigating whether the two crimes were assassinations, a CPJ report in 2010 found consistently poor and negligent investigative work into the killings.
On 14 September Luis Galdámez, a radio journalist working for Radio Globo in Honduras, was targeted by unidentified assassins. He was ambushed as he returned home from work with his children in the car. However he and his son were able to repel the gunmen using the firearms they had bought after a similar attempt on his life was made in 2005. He is widely known for his criticism of the new government of President Porfirio Lobo, and regularly reports on government corruption and human rights abuses allegedly committed by law enforcement. Eight journalists have been killed since March in Honduras.
La Voz de Zacate Grande, a community radio station was closed down by 300 soldiers and police officers, on 3 June. The station which began broadcasting on 14 April, defends the cause of the Association for the Development of the Zacate Grande Peninsula (ADEPZA), whose representatives are accused by agro-industrial tycoon Miguel Facussé Barjum of occupying “his“ land and “tax fraud. Yellow tape bearing with the words “crime scene” now surrounds the small station.