Dear Friends, 

Haiti is in the grips of an unprecedented crisis. Since President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in July 2021, the country has been wracked by extreme political instability and widespread gang violence. 

This has compounded the historic challenges that the Haitian media already faced. What with now rampant kidnapping, an inability to move about because of heavily armed gangs and an extremely precarious economic situation, Haiti’s journalists are in greater danger than ever before. To keep working requires a daily act of heroism. Self-censorship, abandoning journalism or fleeing the country increasingly present themselves as the only survival strategies.

Against this backdrop, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 94 Haitian journalists have issued an international appeal for the protection of journalism in Haiti. We are calling for journalism and the media ecosystem to be given a central place in discussions on ending the crisis and to be high on the international cooperation agenda. The world needs to know what is happening in Haiti and Haiti needs journalism more than ever.

We continue to battle every day in Haiti and throughout the world for journalists to be able to work without fearing for their safety. It is thanks to you that we are able to wage this fight. It is thanks to your generosity that we are able to help those journalists in the field who fight to provide such a precious resource – reliable information.