A year ago today, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military-backed coup after attempting to hold a referendum on removing the constitutional one-term limit to his presidency.  Since the coup and the subsequent election of Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa as president in November, journalists have been murdered in increasing numbers – and with complete impunity.

So far in 2010, eight journalists have been killed in Honduras, making it the most dangerous country in the world for journalists this year, up from sixth place in 2009, when five journalists were killed because of their work.  Prior to 2009, only two journalists had been killed since 2000.

The International Press Institute (IPI) reiterates its call on the government to stem the surging tide of journalist murders.

In a 17 March open letter to President Lobo, following the deaths of three journalists in three weeks, IPI called on the president to publicly denounce the killings, and requested that they be fully investigated and that the perpetrators be brought to justice. So far, this has not happened.

In the letter, IPI Director David Dadge warned President Lobo that “failure to stem a worrying tide of impunity in Honduras will embolden the killers of journalists.”

Marking the one-year anniversary of the coup, IPI Deputy Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said: “One year after the coup and the situation in Honduras has significantly worsened.  We urge President Lobo to increase his efforts to bring these killers to justice, reinstate the rule of law in Honduras and end this growing sense of impunity. President Zelaya was supposedly removed as he was an obstacle to Honduran democracy, but if President Lobo wants Honduras to develop into a fully functioning democracy, he needs to ensure the press is free to act without fear of attack.”

Timeline of 2010 Murders of Honduras Journalists:

On Monday, 1 March, 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.  Ochoa died at the scene, after being shot more than 20 times in the chest.  Cabrera, believed to be the main target of the attack, and who had received several death threats, suffered a broken arm and ribs.  She was granted asylum in Canada in June.

Less than two weeks later, David Meza Montesinos, a reporter at radio station El Patio for more than 30 years, was killed while driving home in the Honduran coastal city of La Ceiba on 11 March.  His car was shot at from another vehicle, causing Meza, 51, to lose control and crash into a house, near his own home.  According to local sources, Meza had received death threats three weeks before the shooting for his coverage of drug traffickers.

Three days later Nahúm Palacios Arteaga, 36, the news director for television channel Canal 5 in Aguán and host of a news programme on Radio Tocoa, was shot dead on Sunday, 14 March in Tocoa, Colón, in northern Honduras. According to local media reports, the car was riddled with 42 bullet holes and another person travelling in the car with him was severely wounded, and a cameraman riding in the back was grazed by a bullet.

On Friday, 26 March radio journalists Jose Bayardo Mairena, 52, and Manuel Juarez, 55, were driving from the city of Catacamas after hosting a radio programme when their vehicle was ambushed by unidentified gunmen near Juticalpa in the eastern province of Olancho. The gunmen reportedly sprayed the car with bullets, and then shot the journalists at close range.

Radio W105 presenter Luis Antonio Chévez Hernández, 22, was gunned down in San Pedro Sula, the country’s business capital, on 11 April.  Chévez and a cousin were getting out of a car outside Chévez’s house when they were shot by unidentified gunmen, who fled the scene. Although it was not confirmed that Chévez was murdered fro his work, the police ruled out robbery as a sizable sum of money was found in the victims’ belongings.

The following month, Jorge Alberto Orellana, host of the program ‘En Vivo con Georgino’ at private local television station Televison de Honduras, was leaving his office on 22 April after his show when he was shot once in the head by an unidentified gunman, who then fled on foot.

In June, Television reporter Luis Arturo Mondragon was shot dead by two gunmen as he left the studios of Canal 19, where he worked, in Santa Clara de Danli, a town outside Tegucigalpa in Honduras, according to news reports.

Several other reporters have reported receiving death threats and other threats against them, their organizations and their families.