MIAMI, Florida (March 3, 2004)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA)
announced today that it is keeping a close watch on an outbreak of violence in
Haiti and Venezuela in which a number of journalists have been injured. It said
the status of press freedom in the two countries would be a major topic to be
discussed at its Midyear Meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, March 12-15.
In Haiti, on February 21 the owner and director of Radio Hispagnola radio station
in Trou du Nord, Pierre Elisem, was shot in the neck and abdomen by unidentified
assailants as he was driving to the northern part of the country, where rebels
recently launched an uprising against the government of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. With the help of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the IAPA,
Elisem was transported to the neighboring Dominican Republic on Friday, where
he underwent specialist medical treatment.
IAPA President Jack Fuller said that the hemisphere free press organization
“is remaining on alert regarding the situation of political instability
still reigning in Haiti, where the news media and individual journalists have
become the targets of violence.”
Rafael Molina, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press
and Information, added, “we have become aware, mainly through the foreign
press in Haiti, of at least a dozen incidents involving radio stations and journalists
in the last two weeks; the attack on Elisem was the most serious during the
anti-government protests prior to the president stepping down.”
At the weekend, the offices of Radio Vision 2000 in the Haitain capital, Port-au-Prince,
were machine-gunned on several occasions. Earlier, six reporters were attacked
by demonstrators, the Hispagnola, Africa and Télé Kombit radio
stations were set ablaze, staff of Radio Solidarité received death threats,
and five foreign journalists were injured or beaten and at least two others
were warned to change the content of videotaped reports they were sending abroad,
as well as other still ongoing incidents.
Molina, of the Dominican Republic newspaper El Nacional, pointed to equally
disturbing violence to the south. “The IAPA is cautiously watching the
disturbances in Venezuela, where this past Friday several journalists, at least,
were injured in various cities around the country while covering demonstrations
by opponents of the government,” he said.
On February 29, Bernabé Rodríguez, a news photographer for the
newspaper El Tiempo in Puerto Ordaz, northeastern Venezuela, was struck in the
face by shrapnel from a firebomb hurled at him and in another incident, in Caracas,
the Venezuelan capital, the same day cameraman Felipe Izquierdo of the Univisión
television network was shot in the foot.
Other press organizations and media in Venezuela reported a number of incidents
in which journalists were deliberately singled out for attack by members of
the National Guard or government supporters or were otherwise injured while
covering clashes between demonstrators and police.
The daily rallies, initiated in February 27, were in protest at the decision
of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council to query some of the signatures
collected in a campaign, begun last November, to recall President Hugo Chávez.
The protests were expected to be renewed following the Electoral Council’s
announcement yesterday it had found that the opposition had failed to raise
enough signatures for there to be a referendum on recalling Chávez.
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