Another Journalist Killed in Honduras

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On the morning of September 28th, journalist Luis Almendáres died of gunshot wounds in the university hospital in the capital Tegucigalpa. Almendáres had been shot several times the previous evening in his home town of Mata de Caña in Comayagua County by unknown persons on a motorcycle.

The attack was immediately made public because the journalist streamed a brief video on Facebook live, where he can be heard saying that he was shot and asking for help from passersby. Almendáres was first assisted in the hospital in Comayagua and then transferred to the capital on Monday morning.

Several days before the fatal shooting, he reported on a knife attack on a transgender woman. The organization C-Libre, which campaigns for freedom of the press and freedom of expression, reported over ten attacks against Almendáres since 2017, including legal proceedings by private companies and Comayagua City Council officials. The critical journalist was formerly a correspondent for Radio Globo. In recent years, he has used Facebook as his primary tool for his journalistic work, drawing attention to abuses in Comayagua.

Dagoberto Rodríguez, president of the Honduran College of Journalists, announced on Monday that he would withdraw from the institution for the protection of human rights defenders, journalists and legal professionals given the murder and threats against its members. He said that on several occasions since 2019, government bodies had been called upon to increase logistics and the human and financial resources for his work, but with no positive reaction. The Protection Mechanism was established in July 2015 to provide police security and CCTV surveillance in the homes of those who are threatened because of their work.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras condemned the murder of Almendáres and called on the Honduran authorities to conduct an “effective and comprehensive investigation” of the case.

Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that it had conducted nine searches in Comayagua in cooperation with the DPI, the investigating police force. No further information was released.

Almendáres is now the third journalist murdered in 2020. In July, German Gerardo Vallecillo and cameraman Jorge Posas were shot dead in La Ceiba.

A total of 87 journalists have been killed in Honduras since 2001. According to C-Libre, impunity prevails in over 90 percent of these cases. With the military coup in 2009, the safety of journalists and human rights activists has further deteriorated.