By Committee To Protect Journalists
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
Violent attacks and threats waged by a coalition of militarized gangs are among the many risks Haitian journalists face to report the news amid intensifying insecurity in the country’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. Yet as a rotating cast of transitional leaders hope to restore order across the Caribbean nation, journalists say a lack of transparency and hostility from government authorities have left many media outlets and their reporters without the protections they desperately need to safely do their jobs.
Haiti has undergone three changes of government in the past 18 months as part of a rotating seven-member presidential transition council installed after President Jovenel Moïse’s 2021 assassination, with gangs forcing out the country’s interim prime minister in 2024.
Media outlets have filed complaints that the interim government has displayed a lack of transparency in its efforts to hold the country together; this includes the failure to publish its budget — passed in secret — as well as the controversial hiring of foreign military contractors who have used armed drones to battle gangs.
Since Moïse’s assassination plunged the country into lawlessness and impunity, CPJ has documented the killings of 12 journalists and the destruction of at least six radio stations — mostly at the hands of the gangs. In 2025, CPJ provided financial support to 17 Haitian journalists, facing incidents related to their work, in the form of grants to cover needs such as psychosocial support, medical and relocation costs.
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Read this story en français in collaboration with AyiboPost.
