Director-General urges investigation into killing of Honduran journalist Adonis Felipe Bueso Gutiérrez

The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, today called on the Honduran authorities to investigate the killing of radio journalist Adonis Felipe Bueso Gutiérrez on 8 July in Villanueva in the north of Honduras.

“I condemn the killing of Adonis Felipe Bueso Gutiérrez and call for an investigation into the shooting which left the journalist and two of his cousins dead,” the Director-General said. “It is essential that the authorities bring to justice those who use guns to prevent reporters from exercising their basic human right of freedom of expression and deprive society from the information it needs to engage in free and informed debate,” concluded Ms Bokova.

Adonis Felipe Bueso Gutiérrez, a reporter for the Christian radio station Radio Stereo Naranja, in Villanueva, in the north of the country was shot dead along with his cousins, Francisco Ireata López, 20, and 18-year-old Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Coto, as they were leaving an internet café on the evening of 8 July.

A total of 21 journalists and media workers, including Gutierrez Bueso, have been killed in Honduras since 2009. They are listed on the dedicated webpage UNESCO Condemns Killing of Journalists.

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UNESCO is the United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom. Article 1 of its Constitution requires the Organization to “further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations.” To realize this the Organization is requested to “collaborate in the work of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication and to that end recommend such international agreements as may be necessary to promote the free flow of ideas by word and image…”