The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has strongly condemned the limitations to the freedom of expression in Honduras, following the recent coup there and the break in   constitutional order.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur in a press release called for the absolute respect of the right to freedom of expression, which is the base of the Inter-American system.

The Office has  demanded the absolute respect of the right to freedom of expression, while stating that journalists and media outlets must be given all the guarantees to freely and securely perform their work.

The Office said further that it had received information that since June 28 in Honduras local and international media have been suffering severe limitations to freely accomplish their work.

And according to the information received, open broadcast media outlets have been closed while other cable channels, such as Telesur and CNN en Español and other radios such as Globo were banned from broadcasting.

Moreover, the release stated, energy was cut off preventing television and radio from broadcasting  as well as accessing  the Internet.
Meanwhile, many reporters were attacked while they were working and others were arbitrarily detained, such as in the case of Adriana Sivori, Rudy Quiróz, and other members of the Telesur team.  In addition, cartoonist Allan McDonald had been detained with his 17-month-old daughter.

Reports further indicated that many journalists have been receiving threats in order to make them stop reporting.