Michele Montas

Michele Montas

"Award-winning Haitian journalist Michele Montas fled Haiti last year after her bodyguard was killed and continued threats against her forced her close her radio station and leave the country four years after her husband, Jean Dominique, was assassinated.

"Michele Montas is award-winning Haitian journalist. She began reporting for Radio Haiti-Inter in the early 1970s with her husband, Jean Dominique where the two exposed human rights abuses, political corruption and state-sponsored violence in Haiti. The radio station came under attack six different times between 1980 and 1994. Montas and her husband were twice forced to flee into exile. On April 3, 2000 Jean Dominique was assassinated. He was shot several times as he walked through the doors of Radio Haiti Inter.

"Michele continued to work at Radio Haiti Inter. On Christmas Day 2002, her bodyguard was fatally shot by assassins minutes after he dropped her off at her home. Last February, threats against her and her staff forced her to close the station, fleeing once again to New York."

In January 2007 "The new United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has chosen a veteran Haitian reporter as his spokeswoman. Michele Montas, who has been the chief of the French Unit of United Nations Radio, told us that she has already discussed several issues with her new boss. Ms. Montas said her role as a spokeswoman for the United Nations does not mean putting aside her journalistic instincts and skills."


 * Director, National Coalition for Haitian Rights
 * Winner of the 2003 Reporters Sans Frontieres-Fondation de France prize