Haitian Sen. Jean Marie Ralph Fethiere, the lawmaker from the ruling party who fired his gun Monday in the Senate yard in Port-au-Prince and shot two people, including Associated Press photojournalist Dieu-Nalio Chery, said Wednesday he was acting in self-defense.
In a statement the senator sent to the Miami Herald, Fethiere said as he was getting into his vehicle to leave the premises of the Senate "very aggressive protesters came close to me and did not hesitate to open my vehicle's door, even trying to get me out of it in a clear attempt to harm me."
"In this situation of utmost threat, following my survival instinct and in legitimate self-defense, I drew my firearm and fired into the air to disperse the crowd, to clear the track for me to leave the premises as quickly as possible," he continued. "It is useful to inform the public that none of the attackers nearest to me was hit."
A former Haitian army officer and police commissioner whose tenure in the city of Cap-Haitien was tainted by allegations of ties to drug traffickers and abusive police practices, Fethiere described protesters as threatening and hostile toward most members of the Senate. The Senate members had been summoned for a confirmation vote on nominated Prime Minister Fritz William Michel.
The vote was quickly aborted after the shooting incident, as tensions and violence escalated in Port-au-Prince and other major cities.
Fethiere insists that his "self-defense" action "saved my life, considering the many projectile impacts on my vehicle as registered in the Ministerial Officer's report."
"I am deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident and extend my heartfelt sympathy to the victims," he said.
While a video of the incident shows Fethiere closing his vehicle's door and then the door being pulled open before he jumped out and opened fire, some are debating whether his life was in danger and if his shots were only in the air.
In an interview with the BBC about his dramatic photo of the senator opening fire, Reuters photographer Andres Martinez Casares said Fethiere came out of the vehicle "and pointed the gun in the air and fired some shots, and then (fired) to the ground."
Fethiere, who like all lawmakers enjoys immunity from prosecution in certain instances, has not been arrested or charged. Some, however, have called for his immunity to be lifted.
"It is universally accepted that self-defense is not left to the discretion of the accused, but to the investigating judge or the judge of the criminal court," said Marie Yolene Gilles, founder of the Port-au-Prince based human rights group Fondasyon Je Klere.
Gilles added that Haiti's supreme court addressed this question in a legal judgment dating back to Nov. 18, 1874.
She, along with other human rights activists and journalists associations, including Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, have all condemned the shooting and called for an investigation.
Frantz Duval, the president of the National Association of Haitian Media, said in a statement the group is surprised that the Haitian justice system has not seen fit to open an investigation into the shooting incident, "to hear the senator and understand the circumstances that led him to use his weapon in a volatile environment, where his thoughtless gesture could have had regrettable circumstances and for the crowd present and himself."
The Association of Haitian Journalists also issued a statement, saying the shooting incident is just one example of several cases of aggression and attacks journalists in Haiti have experienced recently.
A week before the shooting, journalist Zidor Elmond was stabbed and two individuals accompanying him were beaten as Elmond covered an anti-government protest in southeast Haiti, the association said.
"These acts against journalists are perpetrated in broad daylight and with everyone's knowledge," said Jacques Desrosiers, secretary general of the association. "The Association of Haitian Journalists strongly protests against these actions that are not in line with democracy, the rule of law, freedom of expression and the freedom of the press."
In the case of Monday's shooting involving Chery and security guard Leon Leblanc, who was also injured, Desrosiers said the senators, by way of their attitude toward the incident, are accomplices of Fethiere's. One senator, Sen. Patrice Dumont, who initially said the shooting wasn't intentional, has since retracted the statement after seeing the video.
"The Association of Haitian Journalists takes note that today the safety of journalists in the exercise of their profession is not guaranteed within the institutions of power, particularly the Parliament, neither in the streets nor public places of assembly," Desrosiers said. "In this period of turmoil, confusion and intolerance, the (association) calls on journalists to be cautious and vigilant."
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D-N.Y., in a Tuesday tweet also called for protection of press freedoms in Haiti, where tensions continued to escalate Wednesday with violent protests.
"I am monitoring the situation in #Haiti & extremely concerned by events on the ground. Yesterday, a journalist was injured when a Senator opened fire amid crowds of protesters. It's critical that freedoms of assembly & press are respected," he said.
