Sony Esteus

Sony Esteus was a Haitian radio journalist. For seventeen years, he served as executive director of Sosyete Animasyon Kominikayon Sosyal (Society for the Promotion of Social Communications, SAKS), an organization supporting Haitian community-based radio.^[1] At its height, SAKS supported around 30 community radio stations around the country, though many of these faced difficulties and suspended broadcasts following the 2010 earthquake.^[2] Esteus also serves as the Caribbean representative of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters.^[2]

During the 1991 Haitian coup d'état that deposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Esteus was working for radio Tropic FM.^[3] While covering a political rally on 12 April 1992, Esteus was arrested by three plainclothes policemen. He was taken by taxi to the headquarters of the Port-au-Prince police, where police officials accused his station of having pro-Aristide sympathies. He was held and interrogated for five hours, during which police scratched him, pistol-whipped him, and finally forced him to lie on his stomach while being beaten with a stick. His right hand, left arm, and two fingers on his left hand were broken in the attacks.^[4] In the final interrogation, the officers demanded that he confess to distributing pro-Aristide leaflets. When Esteus refused, he was released by a police captain who claimed to have just discovered that Esteus was a reporter. Tropic FM suspended its broadcasts in light of the attack and ongoing threats, while Esteus spent the next three months in bed with his arms in slings.^[4]

Later in the year, Esteus was awarded an International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists for courage in reporting.^[5] Esteus went on to work for Radio Haiti Inter for nearly a decade before the station's 2003 closing.^[2]

Sony died March 2, 2015, from unknown causes.