Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Inter-American Press Association (SIP) on Wednesday condemned the assassination of Pedro Arcángel Canelas, the fourth journalist killed this year in Honduras, and urged the authorities to clarify the motive and to identify and prosecute those responsible and intellectuals.
IAPA President Jorge Canahuati, who leads Opsa Group, from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, called for “the crime not to go unpunished so that the Honduran family and society know the truth and those responsible are brought to justice.”
Canahuati expressed solidarity with relatives and colleagues of Canelas, who was the owner Radio Bambi and news presenter “Correo Informativo” and was assassinated on December 19 in the city Sweet Name of Culmí, Olancho department.
He died in a hospital after being shot by a stranger on a motorcycle.
In its latest program on 10 December, Canelas referred to the increase in violence in that area of the country and the ineffectiveness of the security forces.
Chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information SIPCarlos Jornet, director of La Voz del Interior in Córdoba, Argentina, called on the authorities to streamline the protection and security system for journalists.
The October IAPA report established that 29 Honduran journalists have security measures in place.
This year Luis Alonso Almendares, a freelance journalist in Comayagua, was assassinated in the country on September 27; Germán Vallecillo Jr., journalist and Jorge Posas, cameraman, both from Channel 45, in La Ceiba, on July 1.
In 2020, 23 journalists were killed in America: 11 in Mexico, four in Honduras, two in Venezuela, two in Guatemala and one in each of the following countries: Barbados, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. A reporter from Peru remains unidentified.
To these deaths is added today that of Felipe Guevara Henao, reporter for the judicial area of the newspaper Q’hubo, of the publishing house El País de Cali (Colombia), who received four bullet wounds on Monday, two in the stomach, one in the chest and another on one leg.
“After a two-day stay in an intensive care unit (ICU) of a clinic in Cali, Felipe Guevara, a judicial journalist from Q’hubo, died this Wednesday afternoon,” the newspaper reported in a publication.
IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for and promoting freedom of the press and expression in America, with more than 1,300 Western Hemisphere publications as partners and based in Miami. EFE