Red Morazanica de Información Tegucigalpa. Honduras is located in the first places of risk for journalists and the record of twenty journalists killed during the regime of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, are factors that the Foundation Xibalba considered for the request to grant protective measures to the journalists Mavis Cruz and Carlos Panting.
"I request urgent protective measures for journalists and undertake the respective claims to the authorities of Honduras in order to ensure implementation of the appropriate security measures," the petition was presented by Xibalba, to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR).
Xibalba request stems from a death threat received on March 1rst. for the reporter Mavis Cruz, director of the program “Noticias a la Hora”, that is transmitted from Monday through Friday through Radio Libertad in San Pedro Sula.
Noticias a la Hora, is an informative program that discusses a diversity of issues. The day of the threats against her, the journalist had addressed the issue of the resignation of Director of Research and Evaluation of the Police, Oscar Manuel Arita.
The threat
The first threat took place during March, Mavis Cruz, reported that at 1.50 pm the previous day in the afternoon, the landline of her home rang and when her husband answered the call, a woman who would not identify asked to speak to her. "I want to speak to Mrs. Mavis, he replied from whom, she again repeated, I need to talk to Mrs. Mavis then she said; tell her that she speaks too much in that program, we are going to kill her, but first we are going to do it with her son".
She and her husband presented the complaint in the Prosecutor and the regional office of the National Commissioner of Human Rights in San Pedro Sula. However, these agencies of government are held in reserve in its big amounts of complaints of threats, not only against journalists, but also human rights defenders, who still have not received favorable responses.
In the Universal Periodic Review held in November 2010 by the United Nations, the government pledged to guarantee the life of journalists. However, there exist minimal effort until today from the authorities.
In 2010, the police ordered the closure of the program
The specific case of Mavis Cruz, as history records the cancellation of his program before transmitting on Radio Romance. In 2010 the current police spokesman Hector Ivan Mejia, who at that time was the chief of the Northwestern region in San Pedro Sula, urged the administration of the radio to close the program.
"At that time, the police officer called to my program and debated various points of view about the death of journalist Georgino Orellana, who was murdered in April 2010, perhaps he bothered by my position and asked the administration of the radio to cancel my radio program, "said the professional in communications.
It should be mentioned that Mavis Cruz, always spoke publically against the military coup that toppled the presidency of Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
