9282: Haïti : Radio Haïti Inter journalist assaulted (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "[iso-8859-1] Régis BOURGEAT" <ameriques@rsf.fr>

<fontfamily><param>Geneva</param>Press freedom

16 October 2001


<bold>HAÏTI


Radio Haïti Inter journalist assaulted


</bold>In a letter to Secretary of State for Public Security Jean
Gérard Dubreuil, RSF protested the assault on Jean Robert Delciné, a
Radio Haïti Inter journalist, by two police officers. The journalist's
materials were also seized. RSF asked that an investigation be opened
so that the authors of the assault are punished. "The violence of the
assault, as well as the rank of the police officers involved must lead
the government to punish them quickly," stated RSF Secretary-General
Robert Ménard. Since 1 January 2001, a dozen journalists have been
threatened or assaulted by police officers or supporters of the Fanmi
Lavalas, the ruling party.


According to information collected by RSF, on 12 October, Delciné was
insulted and slapped across the face by Police Inspector Yrvens César
just as the journalist was showing him his press card. The police
officer then threatened him with a weapon and threw him to the ground.
Cité Soleil Commissioner Marcellus Camy also hit Delciné. The two
police officers confiscated his cassette recorder before letting him
go. Delciné was assaulted in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood of
Port-au-Prince, just as he had unwittingly witnessed a violent police
operation in the area. The journalist was sent to Cité Soleil in order
to investigate the death of three youths attributed to the police. On
20 June, two former police officers threatened to kill Fritson Orius,
another Radio Haïti Inter journalist.


On 3 April 2000, Jean Dominique, the country's best-known Haitian
journalist and political analyst, was killed in Radio Haïti Inter's
courtyard. He was the station's director. In a 19 October 1999
editorial, the journalist had sharply called into question the
ambitions of Senator Dany Toussaint, a Fanmi Lavalas member who was
elected to the Senate in May 2000. In August, the examining judge asked
that Toussaint's parliamentary immunity be lifted because of his
assumed implication in the journalist's killing


<italic>Reporters Sans Frontières defends jailed journalists and press
freedom throughout the world, that is, the right to inform and be
informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Reporters Sans Frontières has nine sections (Austria,
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland and
United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Montréal, Tokyo
and Washington, and about a hundred correspondents worldwide.




</italic></fontfamily>
Régis Bourgeat

Despacho Américas / Americas desk

Reporters sans frontières

5, rue Geoffroy-Marie

75009 Paris - France


tél. : +33 (0) 1 44 83 84 57

fax : +33 (0) 1 45 23 11 51

e-mail : ameriques@rsf.org

	/ americas@rsf.org