Ricardo Ortega

New York, July 16, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is encouraged by the decision of Spanish authorities to reactivate the investigation into the 2004 murder of Antena 3 correspondent Ricardo Ortega, who was fatally shot in Haiti while covering the ouster of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide. As part of this process, CPJ European consultant Borja Bergareche was one of several journalists who briefed Judge Pablo Ruz of the Central Criminal Court in Madrid on CPJ’s research into the case.

Préval pledges justice in murders of Haitian journalists

New York, September 27, 2007—Haitian President René Préval has pledged support for an independent committee evaluating stalled investigations into a series of unsolved journalist murders this decade and said that all political obstacles to justice have now been removed.   

Haiti

Supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide attacked opposition journalists in the months prior to the uprising that forced Aristide from power in February. After the president fled the country, rebel groups targeted pro-Aristide journalists, particularly in Haiti's rural northern and central regions.

Violence against journalists was especially intense in January and February, when the rebels moved closer to the capital, Port-au-Prince. On February 21, a day before the insurgency took the northern city of Cap-Haitien, Pierre Elisem, director and owner of Trou du Nord–based Radio Hispagnola and a correspondent with privately owned, Port-au-Prince–based Radio Métropole, was beaten and shot twice in the neck by assailants from Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party.

Under Haiti's new transitional government, journalists-especially those who supported former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide-remain at risk in a politically polarized environment.

By Carlos Lauria and Jean-Roland Chery

Nearly five months after the ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, journalists in Haiti still confront great dangers in a country marked by lawlessness. Before the unrest began in September 2003, journalists working for private radio stations were often targeted for their anti-Aristide coverage. But the nature of the threat has shifted, with journalists who supported Aristide now at particular risk, an investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has found.

New York, March 8, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) mourns the loss of a Spanish television journalist killed yesterday afternoon when gunmen opened fire on demonstrators in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. The demonstrators were calling for the prosecution of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A U.S. photographer was also wounded in the incident.