24550: Arthur (pub) IPI says Haiti most troubling country in Caribbean

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

> Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC)
> news agency on 22 March
>
> Port of Spain, Trinidad: The
> International Press Institute (IPI) has 
> described 2004 as a bad
> year for press freedom in the Caribbean.
>
> In its just-released
> World Press Freedom Review, IPI said that during that 
> year, two
> journalists were killed as a direct result of their work and there
> were numerous reported instances of others being
> wounded.
> (...)
> The International Press Institute said by far the
> most troubling country in 
> terms of media freedom during the year
> was Haiti, where journalists and radio 
> stations were frequently
> attacked during the drawn-out political conflict that 
> culminated in
> the collapse of the [Jean-Bertrand] Aristide government at the 
> end
> of February.
>
> "Unfortunately, the appointment of a new interim
> administration, and the 
> arrival of international military forces
> mandated to re-establish a stable and 
> secure environment, did not
> mean an end to abuses of media freedom."
>
> It said the former
> armed soldiers who remained in control of most of the 
> country
> outside the capital threatened and detained journalists, and towards
> the 
> end of the year, the interim government itself began to show a
> worrying 
> intolerance of the broadcasting of alternative points of
> view.
>
> IPI said the responsibility for the murder of Ricardo
> Ortega, correspondent 
> for the Spanish television station, Antena 3,
> who was shot dead while covering 
> a demonstration in the Haitian
> capital, Port-au-Prince, on 7 March, has yet to 
> be
> established.
>
> It said the lack of international interest in the
> subsequent Antena 3 
> investigation that concluded that Ortega might
> have been killed by a US soldier, and 
> not, as widely assumed, by
> pro-Aristide gunmen, is deeply disturbing.