Judicial harassment of journalists and social communicators

[Judi Lynn]

Judicial harassment of journalists and social communicators
Published on Tuesday 22 July 2014.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the judicial harassment of 36 members of the Honduran Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations (COPINH), who are being tried on sedition charges in the southwestern department of Intibucá.


The defendants include Radio Progreso reporter Albertina Manueles Peréz and the reporters of several community radio stations that are COPINH members. These “social communicators” are being persecuted for reporting the claims of the mainly indigenous population of the town of San Francisco de Opalaca that its current mayor, José Socorro Sánchez, was elected fraudulently.

At a hearing on 24 June, the Intibucá departmental court placed all the defendants under judicial control after the prosecutor accused them of “sedition against the internal security of the state of Honduras and usurping functions.” The next hearing is set for today.

“This judicial harassment of ‘social communicators’ and civil society organizations is indicative of a desire on the part of the authorities to restrict free speech,” said Camille Soulier, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Americas desk.

“We call for the withdrawal of all the charges in this case and we point out that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has asked the Honduran authorities to guarantee the protection of some of the defendants.”

More:
http://en.rsf.org/honduras-judicial-harassment-of-journalists-22-07-2014,46683.html

[merrily]

1. "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.''

Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene II.

I am not sure if Shakespeare was correct about whom the corrupt would kill first, lawyers or a media that calls them out as corrupt.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/17/nyregion/l-kill-the-lawyers-a-line-misinterpreted-599990.html

Fortunately for US politicians, US media is pro-establishment. The USG is attempting to define those who are not pro-establishment right out of the First Amendment, by creating definitions of "publisher" and "journalist" that I submit those who ratified the Constitution, conditional upon rapid adoption of a Bill of Rights, never would have countenanced.