24204: Blanchet: (news) Fw: Haiti: State urged to cool criticism of reporters at risk (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>


State urged to cool criticism of reporters at risk
Index on Censorship     01.02.2005

Media rights groups are calling for swifter action by the Haitian
authorities, who have yet to identify and prosecute the suspected killers of
radio
journalist Abdias Jean, reportedly killed by police during a raid on a
shanty town
near Port-au-Prince on 14 January.

Jean, a correspondent for Miami WKAT-AM radio, was covering a police
operation in the Village de Dieu sector of Port-au-Prince – a stronghold of
supporters
of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide - when he was allegedly shot dead
by one of the officers. Rights groups in Haiti allege that Jean was killed
after he witnessed the police illegally executing three youths caught up in
the
raid. Scores of local shanty dwellers have been reported killed in renewed
clashes between pro- and anti-Aristide groups. On the same day, in another
part of
the capital, journalists Claude Bernard Serant and Jonel Juste of Le
Nouvelliste, were beaten up and threatened by people claiming to support the
former
government. Aristide supporters are demanding the former president's return
to
Haiti from exile in South Africa.

The Haiti Support Group has further warned that other journalists may be at
risk. They said interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's public
criticism of Reuters Haiti correspondent Joseph Guyler Delva put the
journalist at
particular risk from pro-government gangs. Guyler Delva is also president of
the
Haitian Journalists' Association. The Haiti Support Group said Latortue's
comments were "especially irresponsible and reckless at a time when
journalists
in Haiti face extreme danger from elements prepared to use violence to
suppress
the free exchange of information."

http://www.indexonline.org/en/indexindex/articles/2005/1/haiti-government-enda
gers-media-fails-to-pro.shtml

Index on Censorship was founded in 1972 by a dedicated team of writers,
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to the
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Since then Index on Censorship has published an extraordinary range of
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Today it is one of the world's leading repositories of original,
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________________________________________


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See the Haiti Support Group web site:
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Solidarity with the Haitian people's struggle for justice, participatory
democracy and equitable development, since 1992.
____________________________________________