Pen, paper & bullets: Haiti scribes defy gangs and censorship to cover events

Port-Au-Prince: Jean-Jacques Asperges once relished returning home after a long day working at a radio station in one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists.

He had a roof and four walls for protection, but gang violence forced him and his family to flee their home twice.

Now, Asperges, 58, his wife and their two children are forced to sleep on the floor of a soiled and overcrowded makeshift shelter with thousands of other Haitians also left homeless by gang violence.

“Bullets fall here all the time,” he said.

Having lost all his work equipment, Asperges relies solely on his phone, but he remains undeterred like dozens of other journalists in Haiti who are under attack like never before. They are dodging bullets, defying censorship and setting personal struggles aside as they document the downfall of Haiti’s capital and the surge in violence blamed on powerful gangs that control 85% of Port-au-Prince.

Heavily armed gangs attacked at least three TV and radio stations in March. Two of the buildings were already abandoned because of previous violence, but gunmen stole equipment that had been left behind.

“It’s a message: You don’t operate without our permission, and you don’t operate at all in our turf,” said David C. Adams, an expert on press freedom issues in Haiti.

Gangs sent an even deadlier message on Christmas Eve, when they opened fire on journalists covering the failed reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital, saying they had not authorized its reopening.

Two journalists were killed and at least seven others were injured, including Asperges, who was shot in the stomach. It was the worst attack on reporters in Haiti in recent history.

“Everyone is threatened. Everyone is under pressure,” said Max Chauvet, director of operations at Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s oldest independent newspaper.

You feel in danger doing your job’

Donning a bulletproof vest emblazoned with “PRESS” on it is now a dangerous move in Haiti. What used to serve as a symbolic and physical shield has become a target.

At least 10 journalists covering a major March protest were attacked, including Jephte Bazil, a videographer who runs his own media company, Machann Zen Haïti.

He was threading his way through a protest in the Canapé-Vert neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince when three men dressed in black and with their faces covered called him over.

“What the hell are you doing around here?” Bazil recalled them asking.

They searched his bag, took away his cellphone and demanded multiple forms of ID. Bazil handed over only his passport, keeping his ID card hidden because it stated he was from Martissant, a community that gangs seized several years ago. He was too scared to show it and possibly be accused of being a gang member

or a sympathiser.