The signs of extreme violence against two Haitian journalists killed on Sunday in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, highlight the vulnerability of press workers in that country, according to concerns raised by the Inter-American Press Association. (SIP), which asks to investigate the facts in depth and offer new protection mechanisms for communicators.
Frantzsen Charles of FS News and Tayson Lartigue of Tijèn Jounalis were killed on Sunday while covering clashes between rival gangs in Cité Soleil, the most violent neighborhood in the Haitian capital.
Their bodies were burned. Five other journalists, who were also reporting on the scene, were attacked, but managed to flee unharmed, they reported.
Charles and Lartigue would have been ambushed by alleged members of the G9 gang when they were returning from interviewing the parents of a teenage girl murdered in the sweep the day before.
The president of the IAPA, Jorge Canahuati, expressed – on behalf of the organization that brings together hundreds of media outlets on the continent – his concern about the systematic attacks against the press, both in Haiti and in other latitudes of the Western Hemisphere.
He said that journalists in Haiti “perform their work in conditions of extreme risk and at a disadvantage in terms of resources and protection, which leaves five colleagues killed so far this year.”
“The cruelty shown by the murderers and the total impunity with which these violent groups act deserve our strongest condemnation,” the IAPA president concluded.
The regional organization for the surveillance and defense of freedom of expression and the free exercise of journalism in the Americas has urged the governments of the region where outbreaks of crisis are evident and violations of journalists to act in accordance with the mandates and commitments assumed by the signatory States to protect that fundamental right to be informed.
As highlighted in the Declaration of Chapultepec, “the murder, intimidation and acts of violence against journalists during the exercise of their profession have disastrous consequences on freedom of expression and the press,” recalls the IAPA.
The president of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, added that “these acts must be promptly investigated and severely punished.”
The Interim High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations (UN), Nada al-Nashif, spoke on Monday about the maelstrom of violence and instability in large regions of the world and focused his concern for the situation in Haiti.
The UN official said that “the unbearable levels of violence” and human rights abuse by heavily armed gangs in Haiti are a wake-up call to the world that must cooperate to contain “this scourge of violence” in the country. caribbean
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Add Comment