Journalist killed in Honduras, the 11th in two years

[Judi Lynn]

Journalist killed in Honduras, the 11th in two years
May 11, 2011, 20:02 GMT

Tegucigalpa - Journalist Hector Medina Planco was killed in Honduras to become the 11th media person killed in the Central American country since 2009, police said.

Medina Polanco was shot by three unknown attackers late Tuesday in the central Honduran town of Morazan. He died Wednesday at Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, 250 kilometres from capital Tegucigalpa.

He was the news editor of the local cable television channel, and his brother said he had previously suffered two other attacks and filed the respective complaints with the police. He had reported on acts of corruption in Morazan.

Police did not give details as to the likely motives behind Medina Polanco's death.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/article_1638543.php/Journalist-killed-in-Honduras-the-11th-in-two-years

[Judi Lynn]

1. Provincial TV new host gunned down in Honduras

Provincial TV new host gunned down in Honduras

New York, May 11, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the killing of provincial television journalist Héctor Francisco Medina Polanco in Honduras and calls on local authorities to thoroughly investigate the murder.

According to news reports, Medina Polanco was shot around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday outside his home in Morazán in the northern department of Yoro. He died today from related complications at a municipal hospital in San Pedro Sula. The journalist, who produced and hosted the TV9 news program for the local cable company Omega Visión, was on his motorcycle returning home from work when he was shot in the arm and the back by two unidentified assailants also on motorcycle who had been following him, according to CPJ interviews and press reports.

According to Tegucigalpa-based El Heraldo, Medina Polanco had reported on corruption in the local mayor's office and on regional land disputes. The journalist's brother, Carlos Alberto Medino Polanco, told CPJ that Medina Polanco had been threatened several times over the past six months. El Heraldo reported that the journalist had reported threats to the local authorities. He also worked for governmental education project, his brother said.

~snip~
CPJ has recorded a string of recent attacks on journalists throughout the country. In April, director of San Pedro Sula-based Radio Uno Arnulfo Aguilar was ambushed by a group of armed men outside his home. In March, at least seven journalists covering a weeks-long teachers' protest faced harassment, attack, and detention, CPJ found. Earlier that month, Radio Voz de Zacate Grande director Fanklin Mendez was shot in the leg over the station's critical coverage of land disputes in the area.

More:
http://www.cpj.org/2011/05/provincial-tv-new-host-gunned-down-in-honduras.php

[Peace Patriot]

2. Where are the anti-Chavistas descrying the murder of journalists in Honduras?

They claim that Chavez trying to bring some "Fairness Doctrine" balance to the public airwaves, which are dominated by corpo-fascists, there as well as here, is "an attack on free speech," when in truth it is the opposite. The majority and various excluded groups are getting access to the public airwaves, at long last.

But when REAL attacks on "free speech" occur--always in countries run by RIGHTWING governments--murders, death threats, fear, self-censorship--where are these alleged advocates of "free speech"?

Total silence.

They given themselves away as shills for the corporate broadcasters, who also have no interest in "free speech" for most people. Their only interest is CORPORATE speech, and they want all avenues of communication to blast corporate speech 24/7. Corporate speech to the exclusion of everyone else. Yes, the Chavez government has taken measures to regulate these corporate monsters who monopolize the public airwaves--as our government once did but no more. The public airwaves are a public resource and should be operated in the public interest, which means fairness to all viewpoints, and no rightwing/corporate monopolies and certainly no corporate monopolies controlling news and opinion while also profiting from war via their conglomerate subsidiaries, as we have here, and no rightwing/corporate monopolies that actively participate in coups against the elected government, as occurred in Venezuela! The government should also act to provide the general public and small producers and media businesses with access to the public airwaves, as the Chavez government is doing.

In truth, "free speech" has never been]/i] more alive than it is now in Venezuela.

Yet they keep ragging on Chavez, with this CORPORATE complaint, and ignore the MURDERS of journalists in U.S. corporate/war profiteer client states like Honduras and Colombia!

[Judi Lynn]

4. They've been killing journalists, tearing up the independent radio, tv stations

since the beginning of the dirty coup in Honduras. Still terrorizing and killing them. The people killing, torturing, terrorizing them are police, military, and the paras hired by the large land-stealers. The right wing.

In Venezsuela the right-wing owns the media, the oligarchs who have controled Venezuela until quite recently in the scheme of things. They're on the same side as the ass clowns in Honduras who have taken the country hostage, and rules only through the constantly reinforced threat of pure violence against the lives of Hondurans.

They use their control of their media to try to deceive, to conceal their own criminality, to attempt to smear leftists, it's been going on forever, it seems.

The few, the dirty, the twisted are going to lose their power, in time. No matter how many poor people they hire to turn against their fellow man/woman for a few extra bucks, and to serve as henchmen against the people, they will eventually lose, anyway. It has been prophesied in holy writings, and common sense would lead anyone to realize it very naturally, in time.

Their time is short, they've worn out their "welcome" and they have big surprises ahead. The world is awakening.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Honduran journalist critical of police, wealthy ranchers, killed outside his home

Honduran journalist critical of police, wealthy ranchers, killed outside his home
FREDDY CUEVAS
The Associated Press
8:22 p.m. EDT, May 11, 2011

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed a journalist outside his home in a city in northern Honduras, officials said Wednesday.

Francisco Medina, a 35-year-old television reporter, was ambushed Tuesday night in the city of Morazan, 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Honduras' capital, said Santos Galvez, a member of Honduras' College of Journalists press group.

Galvez called Medina's slaying work-related and said he had received death threats.

In his reporting, Medina was critical of the Honduran national police and of private security firms contracted by ranchers in the area, where drug traffickers operate.

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-honduras-journalist-killed,0,4139617.story

[Judi Lynn]

5. Local TV journalist gunned down in north, motive almost certainly linked to work

Local TV journalist gunned down in north, motive almost certainly linked to work
Published on Thursday 12 May 2011.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the murder of Héctor Francisco Medina Polanco, 35, the host of a news programme on provincial TV station Omega Visión, who died in a hospital in the northern city of San Pedro Sula yesterday from the gunshot injuries he had received the day before.

Medina was shot twice in the chest and once in the arm by two men on a motorcycle who followed him to his home in Morazán, a town outside the nearby city of El Progreso. He was almost certainly killed in connection with his work as a journalist. In his TV programme, he often criticized irregularities in the Morazán municipal government and referred to land disputes involving the region’s cattle farmers.

The serious reprisals to which Honduran journalists are exposed when they dare to cover disputes over the use of farm land have been highlighted of late by the persecution of community radio stations Radio Faluma Bimetu (Radio Coco Dulce) and La Voz de Zacate Grande.

Medina had received threats as a result of the views he had expressed on agricultural issues. On 3 May (World Press Freedom Day), Reporters Without Borders added the powerful Honduran businessman landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum to its list of “Predators of Press Freedom.”

More:
http://en.rsf.org/honduras-local-tv-journalist-gunned-down-in-12-05-2011,40271.html