13316: Chamberlain posts (news item): Reporters Without Borders protest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(Reporters Without Borders) (30 Sept 02)


Two radio stations suspend broadcasting after threats


Reporters Without Borders today deplored an atmosphere of lawlessness in
Haiti that has led two radio stations to go off the air in recent days
after threats to their staff. A journalist from a third station was
physically attacked.

"Unless these threats are thoroughly investigated and those responsible
punished, any official statement seeking to reassure the media will be an
empty gesture, especially in a country where impunity reigns for government
supporters who threaten, attack and kill journalists," said Reporters
Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

He rejected a statement by Aristide that invented attacks on the media were
the biggest threat to press freedom and called his remarks "an incitement
to attack journalists" at a time when people were looking to him to curb
the excesses of his supporters.

The privately-owned Port-au-Prince station Radio Kiskeya stopped
broadcasting on 26 September and evacuated their offices after being told
that the building was to be burned down that evening. The station also
received several threatening phone calls and faxes. Reuters news agency
said the threats came after the station's coverage of the arrest of the
head of an organisation defending the rights of thousands of people who
recently lost money in a collapsed pyramid scam based on traditional
cooperatives. The station resumed broadcasting the next day.

Also on 26 September, another Port-au-Prince radio station, Caraïbes FM,
decided to stop broadcasting news for several hours in protest against
threats it had received, apparently from pro-government organisations.

The next day, Roger Damas, of Radio Ibo, was attacked by three strangers
when he arrived at the radio station. He said they threatened to burn it
down.

Communications minister Mario Dupuy immediately called the threats
"unacceptable" and said the government would "not tolerate them." President
Aristide was meanwhile quoted by the Haitian News Agency (AHP) as
condemning people who he said used "bogus" attacks on the press to "make it
look as if the media is gagged" in Haiti. He reiterated his government's
commitment to press freedom.

Reporters Without Borders has several times denounced the impunity enjoyed
by those, mostly government supporters, who threaten, attack and kill
journalists criticising the government.


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Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom
throughout the world, as well as the right to inform the public and to be
informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Reporters Without Borders has nine national sections (in
Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and
the United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Buenos Aires,
Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Tokyo and Washington and
more than a hundred correspondents worldwide.