By IANS/EFE,
Paris: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced the murder of Honduran television journalist Joseph Ochoa, who was gunned down earlier this week in Tegucigalpa.
The Paris-based organisation, which urged authorities not to “exploit this shooting for political ends”, Wednesday expressed hope that “investigators will quickly identify those responsible for this attack and bring them to justice”.
The group said Ochoa was killed in an attack March 1 that was “probably targeted at fellow journalist Karol Cabrera of the state-owned Canal 8 TV station and the privately-owned radio station Radio Cadena Voces”. The group noted that Cabrera was shot and seriously wounded but that she is now in stable condition.
“The motive of the shooting has yet to be established,” the press freedom watchdog said, adding that Cabrera is “a very outspoken journalist” who openly supported the removal in a coup last June of leftist then-president Manuel Zelaya.
Cabrera was linked to the station and talking on the air Monday evening when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire at her vehicle, which was riddled with dozens of gunshots.
Cabrera’s pregnant 16-year-old daughter was killed on the same road and in similar circumstances Dec 15.
“The shooting has highlighted the danger of violent crime to which the Honduran media and the population as a whole has long been exposed,” said RSF, which noted that three journalists were killed in that Central American country in 2009.