Honduras: Two more journalists slain

Three Honduran journalists have been killed in deadly attacks this month. A radio journalist was shot and killed driving home on 11 March, report the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). And on 16 March the news editor of a television station was riddled with bullets while driving, reports C-Libre, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and other IFEX members. The recent assassinations come after a journalist was murdered on 1 March.

Journalist Nahúm Palacios Artiaga, 34, was shot more than 20 times after two cars pulled alongside his vehicle in the city of Tocoa. Palacios Artiaga worked for Canal 5 television station and had reported on drug trafficking, violence, local politics, and an agrarian conflict between landowners and peasants. He received threats last week, warning him to "stop defending the poor." During the coup d'état last year, military police raided Palacios Artiaga's home, assaulted him and confiscated his equipment because of his critical coverage of the coup.

Gunmen killed journalist David Meza Montesinos, a reporter for local radio station El Patio and national broadcaster Radio América, as he was driving in the coastal city of La Ceiba. Meza Montesinos covered drug trafficking and organised crime and had recently received threats from unknown callers about his reporting. Aged 51, he had worked for El Patio for the past 30 years.

On March 1, reporter Joseph Hernández Ochoa was killed in similar circumstances in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

On 15 March, journalists held a protest in San Pedro Sula, demanding that authorities investigate the murders, says C-Libre.