IDEI – Honduras – Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina, Shot Dead on 7 December 2013
30 Oct 2014
30 October 2014
Ahead of the first International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on 2 November, PEN International calls on the Honduran authorities to expedite the official investigation into the fatal shooting of TV journalist Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina and to bring his killers to justice as matter of urgency. Almost a year after the murder, the investigation appears to have stalled. PEN urges the authorities to fully investigate the apparent link between Argeñal’s death and his coverage of corruption allegations, as well as any links between other journalist killings and their reporting and/ or political views. Argeñal is just one of at least 44 journalists murdered since 2003 with near impunity, making Honduras one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a journalist.
TAKE ACTION:
Write to the Honduran authorities to urge them to:
- Expedite the investigation into the murder of journalist Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina and to bring his killers to justice as matter of urgency;
- Fully investigate the apparent link between Argeñal’s murder and his reporting on corruption allegations;
- Investigate any possible link between murdered journalists in Honduras and their reporting and/ or their political views.
- Share your letter with the Honduran Embassy in your country and ask for it to be forwarded to President Juan Orlando Hernández
- Repost this appeal on your centre’s website and share on Facebook, Twitter and other social media
Send appeals to:
Minister of Security
Señor Arturo Corrales
Secretaria de Estado en el Despacho de Seguridad
Aldea el Ocotal
Antiguo Local de la Academia Nacional de Policia ANAPO
Tegucigalpa
Honduras
Email: comunicacionCNDS@gmail.com
Salutation: Señor Ministro de Seguridad/ Dear Minister of Security
Public Prosecutor
Señor Oscar Chinchilla Banegas
Fiscal General
Ministerio Público
Lomas del Guijarro
Avenida República Dominicana
Edificio Lomas Plaza II
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Fax +504 2221 5667
Email: mprelacionespublicas@gmail.com; denuncias@mp.hn
Twitter: @MP_Honduras
Salutation: Dear Attorney General / Señor Fiscal General
***Please send appeals immediately. Check with PEN International if sending appeals after 2 December 2014.***
Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina: One of many unsolved murders in Honduras
Owner of Christian station Vida Televisión and correspondent in Danlí for opposition station Globo TV, Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in his home in Danlí, Paraíso Department, on 7 December 2013. In the months before his murder, he had received threats, including death threats, in connection with his reporting on corruption in a local hospital and in local government.
Almost 11 months on, Argeñal’s murder remains unsolved and, according to his brother, Mario Argeñal – who has been active in demanding justice for the killing –, there has been almost no progress in the investigation. Mario Argeñal was himself subjected to intimidation and surveillance by vehicles circling and keeping watch on his house, in December and February 2014. He had given several interviews to national media on his brother’s murder, linking it to his reporting on corruption in local government and had also been liaising with the authorities to seek justice.
According to PEN International’s records, at least 44 journalists have been murdered in Honduras since 2003, 38 of them since the coup d’état in June 2009. Over 91 per cent of these murders remain entirely unsolved. Although a few convictions have been obtained in a few – mainly high-profile – cases, most may be considered only partially solved due to the authorities’ failure to prosecute those responsible for ordering the crime. (For more on impunity for crimes against journalists in Honduras, read PEN International’s joint shadow report to the United Nations on the situation of freedom of expression in the country or the executive summary.)
A new PEN Centre in Honduras launched earlier this month will bring together journalists and writers in the country with the shared aim of combatting persistent impunity for attacks on journalists, as well as strengthening the place of literature in the country’s cultural sector.
Local corruption
According to his brother, Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina was killed for exposing corruption in Gabriela Alvarado regional hospital in Danlí, including large-scale embezzlement of funds and theft of supplies by a hospital administrator and local political leader. The journalist broke the story on both his local TV station Vida TV and the national station Globo TV in June-July 2013, and gave numerous media interviews as a result. A few months later, an oversight commission was set up to investigate the alleged corruption and the hospital administrator was reportedly dismissed.
One week before his death in December 2013, Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina told his family he was receiving death threats from people linked to the hospital’s administration. He called the general coordinator of local rights group Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras – COFADEH) to inform her about the threats on 14 November 2013. The journalist had previously received threats, including from local officials for exposing corruption in the mayor’s office, at the beginning of March 2013, which he had formally reported to COFADEH.
Information about these threats was passed on to the police by Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina’s family at the time of his death. However, almost 11 months later the authorities have still not made a request to check his phone records – despite the fact that witnesses have testified that on the day he was killed someone called him to sign an advertising contract at his home, where he was murdered. Police have reportedly also failed to act on a witness statement from an individual who overheard a known sicario [hit man] saying that he had been asked to kill the journalist, about a week before his death.
Official pledges to investigate and prosecute
On 1 April 2014, Security Minister Arturo Corrales promised to send a specialist team from the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa to investigate Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina’s murder, to be based in Danlí. The regional prosecutor and the investigator had reportedly suggested that outside help be sought because they were too scared to investigate, as the case implicates people with significant political and economic power who are blocking the investigation.
Minister Corrales reportedly said that he believed the case could be easily solved since the crime was clearly committed by hit men and that he would send a team of investigators to the region which would solve the case within 30 days. The name of the team assigned was the Strategic System for the Collection, Collation, Analysis and Storing of Information (Sistema Estratégico de Recolección, Cotejamiento, Análisis y Archivo de Información – SERCAA). According to press reports, this is an undercover police intelligence unit created in March 2014.
SERCAA reportedly visited the region three times between April and July, but is not based there. When it came in mid-July 2014, officers reportedly said that the crime was “90 per cent solved”. However, more than three months later, there is no discernible progress in the case.
Politically motivated killings?
There is an apparent pattern of killings of Honduran journalists who are members of opposition parties or who have voiced political criticism of the government.
Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina was a member of the Liberty and Refoundation (Libertad y Refundación – LIBRE) political party. LIBRE is led by Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of former President Zelaya, who contested the November 2013 presidential elections, which brought Juan Orlando Hernández into power in January 2014. Vida Televisión, the TV station owned by Argeñal, had voiced support for LIBRE.
A number of other journalists murdered since the June 2009 coup have also had connections with LIBRE. Hernán Cruz Barnica (killed 28 May 2014) of community radio station Radio Opoa, La Voz de la Esperanza, Copán department, was a member of both LIBRE and the National Front of Popular Resistance Resistance (Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular – FNRP), a coalition of politicians, unions and indigenous groups that supports LIBRE. Manuel Murillo Varela (killed 23 October 2013), was a LIBRE member as well as working as official cameraman for several public figures, including former President Zelaya and, more recently, for Globo TV. Erick Alexander Martínez Ávila (killed 7 May 2012), spokesperson for the Asociación Kukulcan which promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights (LBGT) and human rights defender, had recently been designated a pre-candidate for a deputy position by the FNRP’s Sexual Diversity Board for LIBRE’s internal elections
Several other journalists working for Globo TV and Radio Globo – outlets known for their criticism of the coup and the government – have also been targeted. In addition to Juan Carlos Argeñal and Manuel Murillo Varela, Globo TV presenter Aníbal Barrow was kidnapped and murdered in June/ July 2013. Another journalist killed in December 2011, Luz Marina Paz Villalobos, had also previously worked for Radio Globo.
Julio Ernesto Alvarado, director and presenter of the news programme ‘Mi Nación’ on Globo TV, has been subjected to threats and judicial harassment. In December 2013, Alvarado, was sentenced on appeal to a 16-month prison sentence and ban on practising journalism for covering allegations of corruption by a local university dean in 2006 and has subsequently suffered threats and intimidation. Despite both penalties being lifted on payment of a fine by Alvarado in April 2014, the dean appealed and Alvarado – accompanied by PEN Honduras and PEN International – is now fighting the reinstatement of the work ban. PEN International has called on the Inter-American Commission on Human rights to protect Alvarado’s right to freedom of expression.
2 November: International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/68/163 at its 68th session in 2013 which proclaimed 2 November as the ‘International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists’ (IDEI). The Resolution urged Member States to implement definite measures countering the present culture of impunity.
2 November is also widely celebrated in Latin America and beyond as Day of the Dead, when the families and friends of the departed commemorate the lives of their loved ones. Since 2011, PEN International has highlighted Day of the Dead as a key date in its ongoing campaign for freedom of expression and the safety and security of journalists in Mexico, Honduras and Brazil, where journalists and writers continue to be murdered at an alarming rate, while the perpetrators are all too rarely brought to justice.
For further details please contact Tamsin Mitchell at the Writers in Prison Committee London Office: PEN International, Brownlow House, 50-51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER Tel: +44 (0) 207 405 0338 Fax +44 (0) 207 405 0339 email: tamsin.mitchell@pen-international.org