Several dozen journalists demonstrated Wednesday in the Haitian capital. They expressed their frustration with the security situation in the country. These press workers also demanded justice for Maxiben Lazare who was murdered on February 23 during the police crackdown on workers who were demonstrating to demand 1,500 gourdes as a minimum wage.
The protesters laid a wreath of flowers on the Boulevard Toussaint Louverture, the site of the journalist’s assassination.
The demonstration began at the Constitution Square in Champs de Mars.
Equipped with signs and banners to make their claim, the protesters denounced police brutality against press workers.
They chanted hostile slogans against the forces of order that they accuse in the murder of Maxiben Lazare.
Senior journalist Robenson Geffrard took the opportunity to denounce, like his colleagues, the behavior of the Haitian National Police towards journalists. He deplores the fact that the investigation announced by the police authorities is not progressing. He is even pessimistic, recalling that the PNH has never made a statement on the investigation into the murders of Vladjimir Legagneur and Grégory Saint-Hilaire.
Targets of the demonstrators, the police forces were noticed on the route, particularly at the Carrefour de l’aéroport where several backups of the intervention and maintenance of order corps (CIMO) were on site.
However, some police officers were hooded despite the formal prohibition of the PNH high command. This raised the anger of the protesters.
After the altercations with the law enforcement officers, the protesters headed to Toussaint Louverture Boulevard where they laid a wreath of flowers at the site of the assassination in memory of the deceased Maxiben Lazare.
Maxiben Lazare is the third journalist assassinated since the beginning of the year in Haiti, in the course of his duties after John Wesley Amady and Wilguens Louissaint.
Several dozen journalists demonstrated against insecurity and to demand justice for their colleague Maxiben Lazare
