Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), in a letter to Juan Orlando Hernandez, President of Honduras has expressed concern over continued attacks on media workers by police and military in Honduras.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali has called on the authorities to stop violence against journalists and media workers and to carry out a thorough investigation into this matter.

According to the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), the police and armed forces assaulted the staff of UNE-TV channel in the central park of the city of Tegucigalpa.

On September 15, the team of UNE-TV channel went to cover reports of law enforcement suppressing a protest. An officer of the law then assaulted a cameraman Albert Palacios for covering the attack on a young protestor.

Another cameraman and colleague of Palacios, Mauricio Ordonez was also hit by a rubber bullet, and his cell phone was also damaged. This happened at the same protest but in a separate incident.

Both Ordonez and Palacios were there to cover the violent behavior of police and army officers against protestors.

Other journalists present at the spot including Cesar Silva, Ivis Alvarado, Rony Martínez and other cameramen were also pushed back by police using riot gear. The officers also threw tear gas at the journalists.

Human rights defender Genesis Andino of the Association ASOPODEU said, “The cameraman only performed his work, I witnessed the attack and I can affirm that it was a targeted attack, because he had on his video camera evidence of military and police abuse in against protesters.”

After this incident the UNE-TV team than moved back and for the sake of safety, the journalists and cameramen returned to their mobile unit and made a live broadcast of the incident.

A similar incident was witnessed on September 7, where a team of Radio Progreso was attacked by police officers for covering a protest.