Suriname’s most threatened journalist no longer dares to go outside

It is December 30, 2021 when journalist Jason Pinas (35) is awakened early in the morning by his brother. Under the car in front of their house, in a neighborhood outside Paramaribo, are two hand grenades attached to each other with adhesive tape. Pinas immediately realizes that the grenades must be for him. Neighbors curiously follow that morning how police officers then investigate the car and the place and the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service confiscates the hand grenades. “This is an attack,” says Pinas visibly shaken in front of the rotating cameras. The news hits like a bomb. Also international. Jason Pinas, part of a new generation of journalists, who knows how to write smooth and compelling reports for the daily newspaper The True Time, is from that moment known as the most endangered journalist in Suriname. Until recently, Pinas went out a lot to create stories across the country. Now he has been at home for months and does not dare to go outside because of his safety. In the evening when the security guard, appointed by the Surinamese government, comes and stands guard in front of his door, Pinas manages to relax a little more. At the same time, he feels a permanent unrest. “I just don’t know who I can trust and who I can’t. Who is behind this, and why is there so far no clarity from the police about the status of the investigation?” The hand grenades are not isolated, he believes. Pinas has been endangered for a long time.

On December 14, 2021, he is beaten up during his work by security officers of Vice President Ronnie Brunswijk. He is thrown to the ground, kicked, and threatened with death. That day it is busy at the parliament where supporters of Brunswijk have gathered. Pinas, standing at a distance, walks to Brunswijk’s car and tries to take some pictures. But then Brunswijk starts screaming. “Don’t take a picture inside my car!” But Pinas, in his own words, was not doing that at all. “Can I just take pictures? That’s my job as a journalist’”, I told Brunswijk. From that moment on, he is no longer so clearly aware of what happened. One of the security guards throws him to the ground and starts beating. Another security guard tries to take his phone and starts to step on Pinas’s hands, who can do nothing but let go of the device. “I heard them yelling that they would kill me,” he says. Brunswijk witnesses the violence but does nothing. The countless bystanders also do not take action. With difficulty Pinas manages to get up.

Brunswijk is not undisputed. Before he became vice president, he was often in the news for public assault. Almost immediately after the assault, Surinamese journalists hold a silent protest. A group of journalists also decided to boycott Brunswijk. As a result, the vice president made much less news than before.

Press freedom under pressure

Since the government of President Santokhi took office in 2020, press freedom in Suriname has come under more pressure. The threats, violence and hand grenades that Jason Pinas found under his car are part of a wider pattern of intimidation by influential individuals and government officials against journalists. In addition, journalists have been very concerned for some time about how, for example, press conferences are organized in the country. Rather, they are long monologues by the relevant politicians, in which journalists hardly get the opportunity to ask questions. These are worrying developments in a country where not so long ago freedom of the press was trampled on during the military dictatorship and journalists were murdered. “I didn’t experience that period of the dictatorship,” says Pinas, “but even now I take seriously that disturbed people are walking around here doing dangerous things. I feel unsafe,” he says.

After the arrest and subsequent swift release of the security guards who assaulted Pinas, the Public Prosecution Service announced that they were members of the Jungle Commando, the former private army of Brunswick. The Jungle Commando was dismantled in 1992 and therefore officially no longer exists. But ex-members of the rebel group have now been given a prominent role in Brunswick’s entourage since he became vice president. And that still poses a threat, even now. Former Jungle Commando member Siegfried Brielle expressed threatening language towards journalists last week, including the editor-in-chief of the Surinamese news site Starnieuws Nita Ramcharan. “I’m going to point a finger of warning, shut up, don’t play the lead. I know a lot more than you think, take it easy,” said Brielle in an online broadcast of Culturu TV. The Surinamese Association of Journalists (SVJ) immediately issued a fierce statement that this is unacceptable.

Jason Pinas, meanwhile, prepares to continue his lawsuit against the security guards who assaulted him. But he still can’t work, because he doesn’t feel safe. Because who placed those hand grenades in front of his house? And why has the trial been delayed again? As a freelancer, not working means no income. That is why Pinas’ colleagues have raised money to support him financially. And recently he was chosen to be a member of the board of the Surinamese Association of Journalists (SVJ). “It gives me energy to dedicate myself to strengthening the organization. That is very much needed right now.”