Press Freedom
CPJ Updates
- Israel-Gaza war brings 2023 journalist killings to devastating high
- 2023 prison census: Jailed journalist numbers near record high; Israel imprisonments spike
- Haiti joins list of countries where killers of journalists most likely to go unpunished
- Ecuador on edge: Political paralysis and spiking crime pose new threats to press freedom
- Deadly Pattern: 20 journalists died by Israeli military fire in 22 years. No one has been held accountable.
- Fragile Progress: The struggle for press freedom in the European Union
- Fragile Progress: Part 1
- Fragile Progress: Part 2
- Fragile Progress: Part 3
Reporter Without Borders
Haiti April 18, 2005
H.E. Boniface Alexandre
Interim President
Palais National, Champ de Mars
Port-au-Prince
Republic of Haiti
Fax: (011.509.1) 223-5334
Your Excellency:
As members of the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC), we condemn the wave of violence and mistreatment directed at journalists in your country. We are alarmed and outraged by the murder by Haitian police of Abdias Jean, a radio reporter covering a government raid in Village de Dieu; the vicious beating of Claude Bernard Serant and Jonel Juste , reporters for the daily newspaper, La Nouvelliste, in Port-au-Prince; the police beating of Makenson Remy , a radio reporter, in the Nazon section of Port-au-Prince, and the death threats and shooting attack on Raoul Saint-Louis, a reporter on the Megastar radio station.
That the attack on the La Nouvelliste reporters was carried out by supporters of your predecessor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, could suggest a failure by your government to protect its citizens. That the other attacks were carried out by the government’s own agents suggest a break-down of control over the forces of law and order. Both represent reprehensible derelictions of duty.
We implore you to order full investigations of these events and to publicly affirm your support for the basic human rights as embodied in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura wrote to you in February: “The use of force to deprive journalists and their audience of the fundamental human right of freedom of expression…is an intolerable attack on democracy and the rule of law.”
To flourish, democracy requires thte informed consent of the governed. These attacks do a dishonor to the great people of Haiti . We urge you to take steps to secure these basic human rights for the men and women of your country.
Respectfully yours,
John Martin
Norman A. Schorr
Freedom of the Press Committee
cc: Yvon Neptune
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
Villa d’Accueil
Delmas 60 Musseau
Port-au-Prince
Republic of Haiti
Fax: (011.509.1) 245-1624
Ambassador Jean Alexandre
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Haiti to the
United Nations
801 Second Avenue , Room 600
New York , NY 10017
Fax: (212) 661-8698
Raymond Joseph
Charge d’Affaires
Embassy of the Republic of Haiti
2311 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington , DC 20008
Fax: (202) 745-7215
James Foley
U.S. Ambassador to Haiti
Embassy of the United States of America
5 Harry S. Truman Boulevard
Port-au-Prince
Haiti
Fax: (011.509.1) 223-1641