Sony Esteus

{{Short description|Haitian radio journalist}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Sony Esteus

| nationality = Haitian

| known_for = 1991 assault

| occupation = Radio journalist

| organization = Sosyete Animasyon Kominikayon Sosyal

|awards = International Press Freedom Award (1991)

}}

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.{{cite web |url=http://www.waccglobal.org/component/content/article/2200:haiti-update-saks-appeal-.html |title=Haiti update: SAKS' Appeal |author=José Luis Soto |publisher=World Association for Christian Communication |access-date=22 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006174652/http://www.waccglobal.org/component/content/article/2200:haiti-update-saks-appeal-.html |archive-date=6 October 2011 }} 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. Esteus also serves as the Caribbean representative of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters.{{cite web |url=http://www.cpj.org/blog/2010/01/community-radio-stations-obliterated-off-the-air-i.php |title=Community radio stations obliterated, off the air in Haiti |author=Jean Roland Chery |date=27 January 2010 |publisher=Committee to Protect Journalists |access-date=22 June 2011}}

During the 1991 Haitian coup d'état that deposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Esteus was working for radio Tropic FM.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=huvNh4wtgh4C&q=%22sony+esteus%22 |title=Reporters sans frontières 1993 report |author=John Libbey |year=1993 |publisher=Reporters without Borders |isbn=9780861964031 |access-date=22 June 2011}} 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.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0uE77ClLrbYC&q=%22sony+esteus%22&pg=PA110 |title=Silencing a people: the destruction of civil society in Haiti |author=America Watch Committee |year=1993 |publisher=Human Rights Watch |isbn=9781564320940 |access-date=22 June 2011}} 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.

Later in the year, Esteus was awarded an International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists for courage in reporting.{{cite news |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/61877485.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Oct+23%2C+1992&author=Michael+Blowen%2C+Globe+Staff&pub=Boston+Globe+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&desc=Seriously%2C+he%27s+an+actor&pqatl=google |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130131142851/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/61877485.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Oct+23,+1992&author=Michael+Blowen,+Globe+Staff&pub=Boston+Globe+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&desc=Seriously,+he's+an+actor&pqatl=google |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 31, 2013 |title=Seriously, he's an actor |author=Michael Blowen |date=23 October 1992 |newspaper=Boston Globe |access-date=22 June 2011}} Esteus went on to work for Radio Haiti Inter for nearly a decade before the station's 2003 closing.

Sony died March 2, 2015, from unknown causes.