A TV broadcaster was shot dead in an apparent attack on a fellow journalist in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on Monday 1 March, according to media reports.

Joseph Hernández Ochoa, 24, a journalism student at the University of Honduras, and a former entertainment presenter on the privately-owned Canal 51 TV station, was travelling with fellow journalist Karol Cabrera when their car was fired on 36 times by men in another vehicle on an unlit road.

Cabrera suffered a broken arm and ribs, and after undergoing emergency surgery, is now recovering in a military hospital in the city.  The journalist had received several death threats and was assumed to have been the target of the attack, according to Honduran daily newspaper El Tiempo. However, media observers noted that the investigating police had yet to confirm the motive.

Cabrera is an outspoken and controversial media figure in Honduras, known for her support of the coup that ousted former president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009.  She had hosted a television show on state-owned Canal 8, as well as a radio show on the privately-owned Radio Cadena Voces.  Cabrera had been talking live on her radio show “El ángel de la controversia” (The Angel of Controversy) over the telephone at the time of the attack.  According to El Tiempo, Cabrera had been criticising the government for its cancellation of her Canal 8 show and accused some unnamed government officials of inappropriate sexual activities during the telephone broadcast.  Listeners then heard the shots being fired and her calls for help.

Cabrera’s pregnant daughter, Kathleen Nicolle Rodríguez Cabrera, was killed in December 2009 whilst driving her mother’s car down the same road as Monday’s attack.  She was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle. Two passengers travelling with her were injured. The 16-year-old, who was eight months pregnant, died in hospital.  Doctors initially managed to save the unborn baby, but the boy later died.

Ochoa had been giving Cabrera a ride home because her own car had broken down earlier in the week. Cabrera had been assigned a police escort after the death threats and attack on her daughter, but she had instructed them to stay at her home with her children for fear her assailants would assume she was also in the house. By the time the police had arrived at the scene, the killers had fled. Ochoa died at the scene, after being shot more than 20 times in the chest, according to Honduran daily La Tribuna.

Speaking to local media after her operation, Cabrera said she did not understand how she had been saved and was now considering leaving the country for fear of her life and her children.

“We offer our sincere condolences to Mr Ochoa’s family,” said International Press Institute Deputy Director Alison Bethel McKenzie. “We are also very sorry for Karol Cabrera, who in addition to losing her pregnant daughter in an attack on her life just a few months ago, has now also lost a colleague and sustained injuries in what appears to have been another attempt to kill her. Since the coup d’état last June, the press freedom environment in Honduras has deteriorated. We urge the Honduran authorities to investigate this attack and killing, and to prosecute the perpetrators. The government must be clear that attacks on journalists will not be tolerated.”

Honduras has seen an increase in violence since the June 2009 coup, with five journalists killed last year.  The situation has not much improved since the election of new president Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo Sosa in January. A total of seven journalists were killed for their work over the past decade, making Honduras the fifth most dangerous country in Latin America and the 17th most dangerous country in the world for journalists, according to the International Press Institute’s World Press Freedom Review 2009.