The organization of Reporters Without Borders today denounced the confiscation by the U.S. military of an apparatus of photographic from a photographer of The Daily Local Nouvelliste while covering a demonstration outside the Embassy of the United States to Port-au-Prince.
The incident occurred yesterday in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti devastated by the earthquake of January 12.
Six marine approached me, surrounded me before taking my camera in my open work bag. They then left with it, “he told the photographer Homer Cardichon, cited by the defense organization of journalists based in Paris.
“An hour later, one of them returned to photograph me and returned my camera. I found later that soldiers had destroyed some of the photos I took,” said the photographer.
Denouncing “an act of blatant censorship,” The organization of Reporters Without Borders said that “information is essential to the reconstruction of Haiti and to the mobilization of citizens for their own future.”
More than 10,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to help Haiti after the earthquake that claimed over 200,000 lives by government.
This is a preview of the repression ahead. They are in Haiti to protect the multinational corporations and the Haitian elite. They are the reincarnation of the “Tonton macoutes.”
We need a time table for their withdraw A.S.A.P.
During Press conferences or demonstrations, Reporter without Borders should ask always about their withdraw from Haiti