Back to the 80's: journalists are threatened
05/08/2009
- Opinión
Three young reporters have received death threats, something that was a daily occurence in the 80's. What dark interests want to silence these journalists?
Nothing is spared in the parties offered to reporters by government officials, business people and other sectors, as part of the Day of the Journalist. [July 16, 2009] But the celebrations are tainted by the death threats against announcers for the community radio in Victoria.
José Beltrán, Vladimir Abarca and Ludwin Irahetu are little more than 20 years of age. Their passion for the places in which they live - different cities in the Province of Cabañas - and their love for radio broadcasting, has led them to become part of the Radio Victoria project, where they tell us, they perform a labour of "social conscience".
Their practice has not gone down well with some people, to the point that, in recent months, they have been intimidated by various means.
"There are death threats that come to us by means of notes on paper - letters which arrive to our homes", says José Beltrán to Contrapunto.
Clearly weary of the constant moves and visits to various institutions to make their demands public, the young announcers recount how they have had to leave the places where they live, leaving their families, because of the intensifying threats.
Radio Victoria began transmitting in 1993, using the FM frequency 92.1. From the town of Victoria, 90 kilometers north-east of the capital, its signal reaches all corners of Cabañas and the southern part of the Province of Lempira in Honduras.
The radio project is managed by young people and started up because "many of the communities in the area are isolated, with few resources and lacking telephone service, or mail delivery or newspapers."
In their radio reports, the young people have denounced mining exploration projects in the Municipality of San Isidro, the construction of a garbage dump, the contamination caused by a pig farm, and the recent coverage of municipal and presidential elections.
According to Beltán, "The radio has served to educate the populations, to help them see the bad things brought by these projects. Through educating and informing the people; this has not gone down well with a number of people."
They contend that the threats increased, following their calls for investigation of the murder of Marcelo Rivera, a leader in the Province of Cabañas, who disappeared for three weeks and was found dead this past June 30 with clear marks of torture, according to the coroner's report.
Ludwin Iraheta recounts that he has received messages in which he is told that he is "the next, that I am on the list and that the same will happen to me as to the environmentalist Marcelo Rivera".
The threats against their lives are not the only concern. The infrastructure of the radio has also been subjected to attacks.
In the first week of June, the transmission antenna was robbed. It was replaced by a used one 72 hours later. But on Wednesday the 29th, that antenna suffered the same fate. The radio is off-the-air.
The Journalists Association of El Salvador (APES) says that in the course of this year two threats of this type have taken place, one this past January against the Radio Network "Mi Gente" and the one against the reporters of Radio Victoria. And further, 20 cases of aggression against journalists have been recorded.
The Commissioner for the Defense of Human Rights, Oscar Luna, asked the National Civil Police (PNC) and the Attorney General of the Republic to grant protective measures for the young announcers and to deliver a report on the investigations within 72 hours.
Luna asked "that those responsible, the material and intellectual authors who are promoting this type of threat against the personal security, integrity and freedom of expression, be identified".
Nevertheless, Ludwin Iraheta regrets that in spite of the pronouncements "in the Province of Cabañas, the role played by the police is not what it should be, and much less that of the attorney [general] - they are not concerned about the cases."
He claims that, just as in the case of the theft of the transmission antenna, they presented the complaint of death threats to the authorities in Sensuntepeque, but there was no response.
"The officials in Sensuntepeque are very slow, they do not give importance to cases of threats like ours, and so we took the initiative to come to San Salvador to expose the case", he said with consternation.
The young people regret that other voices that have raised the banner of "freedom of expression" decide to stay quiet in cases of this type.
Through a press release, the Association of Participatory Radios and Programs of El Salvador (ARPAS) "strongly condemns these actions which take us back to the time in a dark period, of gloom and cowardliness, which no Salvadoran would like to recall and much less live again, where the media are censured and repressed for speaking the truth".
Radio Victoria belongs to the network of broadcasters associated in ARPAS.
(Translation: Donald Lee and ALAI)
Nothing is spared in the parties offered to reporters by government officials, business people and other sectors, as part of the Day of the Journalist. [July 16, 2009] But the celebrations are tainted by the death threats against announcers for the community radio in Victoria.
José Beltrán, Vladimir Abarca and Ludwin Irahetu are little more than 20 years of age. Their passion for the places in which they live - different cities in the Province of Cabañas - and their love for radio broadcasting, has led them to become part of the Radio Victoria project, where they tell us, they perform a labour of "social conscience".
Their practice has not gone down well with some people, to the point that, in recent months, they have been intimidated by various means.
"There are death threats that come to us by means of notes on paper - letters which arrive to our homes", says José Beltrán to Contrapunto.
Clearly weary of the constant moves and visits to various institutions to make their demands public, the young announcers recount how they have had to leave the places where they live, leaving their families, because of the intensifying threats.
Radio Victoria began transmitting in 1993, using the FM frequency 92.1. From the town of Victoria, 90 kilometers north-east of the capital, its signal reaches all corners of Cabañas and the southern part of the Province of Lempira in Honduras.
The radio project is managed by young people and started up because "many of the communities in the area are isolated, with few resources and lacking telephone service, or mail delivery or newspapers."
In their radio reports, the young people have denounced mining exploration projects in the Municipality of San Isidro, the construction of a garbage dump, the contamination caused by a pig farm, and the recent coverage of municipal and presidential elections.
According to Beltán, "The radio has served to educate the populations, to help them see the bad things brought by these projects. Through educating and informing the people; this has not gone down well with a number of people."
They contend that the threats increased, following their calls for investigation of the murder of Marcelo Rivera, a leader in the Province of Cabañas, who disappeared for three weeks and was found dead this past June 30 with clear marks of torture, according to the coroner's report.
Ludwin Iraheta recounts that he has received messages in which he is told that he is "the next, that I am on the list and that the same will happen to me as to the environmentalist Marcelo Rivera".
The threats against their lives are not the only concern. The infrastructure of the radio has also been subjected to attacks.
In the first week of June, the transmission antenna was robbed. It was replaced by a used one 72 hours later. But on Wednesday the 29th, that antenna suffered the same fate. The radio is off-the-air.
The Journalists Association of El Salvador (APES) says that in the course of this year two threats of this type have taken place, one this past January against the Radio Network "Mi Gente" and the one against the reporters of Radio Victoria. And further, 20 cases of aggression against journalists have been recorded.
The Commissioner for the Defense of Human Rights, Oscar Luna, asked the National Civil Police (PNC) and the Attorney General of the Republic to grant protective measures for the young announcers and to deliver a report on the investigations within 72 hours.
Luna asked "that those responsible, the material and intellectual authors who are promoting this type of threat against the personal security, integrity and freedom of expression, be identified".
Nevertheless, Ludwin Iraheta regrets that in spite of the pronouncements "in the Province of Cabañas, the role played by the police is not what it should be, and much less that of the attorney [general] - they are not concerned about the cases."
He claims that, just as in the case of the theft of the transmission antenna, they presented the complaint of death threats to the authorities in Sensuntepeque, but there was no response.
"The officials in Sensuntepeque are very slow, they do not give importance to cases of threats like ours, and so we took the initiative to come to San Salvador to expose the case", he said with consternation.
The young people regret that other voices that have raised the banner of "freedom of expression" decide to stay quiet in cases of this type.
Through a press release, the Association of Participatory Radios and Programs of El Salvador (ARPAS) "strongly condemns these actions which take us back to the time in a dark period, of gloom and cowardliness, which no Salvadoran would like to recall and much less live again, where the media are censured and repressed for speaking the truth".
Radio Victoria belongs to the network of broadcasters associated in ARPAS.
(Translation: Donald Lee and ALAI)
https://www.alainet.org/es/node/135551
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