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Alert

Journalist kidnapped in Port-au-Prince

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has voiced concern over the 10 July 2005 kidnapping of Jacques Roche, editor of the daily "Le Matin"'s arts and culture section. His abductors have threatened to kill him unless a US$250,000 ransom is paid.

"The security situation in Haiti is deteriorating at an alarming rate and, while Roche's abduction seems to have no direct link to the fact that he is a journalist, the press is one of the sectors most at risk in this climate of terror and violence," RSF said.

"We hope the recent decision to increase the number of peacekeepers in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) will succeed in containing the violence, and that the Haitian government will play its required part," the organisation added. "We appeal to Roche's kidnappers to release him immediately without conditions."

Roche, who also hosts a television programme, was kidnapped as he was driving in the Nazon district of Port-au-Prince. When his kidnappers called his family to demand the US$250,000 ransom, Roche said he had been beaten.

Haiti has been in the grip of an unprecedented wave of violent crime since last September. The Associated Press news agency has reported that more than 700 people, including 40 police officers, have been killed. Much of this violence is blamed on armed gangs linked to Fanmi Lavalas, the movement led by exiled former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was deposed in February 2004.

Nancy Roc, host of the weekly Radio Métropole programme "Métropolis", was forced to flee the country on 16 June 2005 after been threatened with abduction. She recently told RSF that there are now some six to 10 kidnappings a day in Port-au-Prince. Radio Métropole director Richard Widmaier narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt on 11 June (see IFEX alert of 23 June 2005).