(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed concern that a judge may soon grant a state prosecutor’s request to arrest eight journalists in the northern state of Chihuahua. “In order to maintain transparency, journalists must be able to denounce corruption without risking imprisonment,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard in a letter to Chihuahua State Supreme Court President […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed concern that a judge may soon grant a state prosecutor’s request to arrest eight journalists in the northern state of Chihuahua. “In order to maintain transparency, journalists must be able to denounce corruption without risking imprisonment,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard in a letter to Chihuahua State Supreme Court President Pablo Zapata Zubiaga. The organisation asked that the journalists not be arrested, that their rights be respected and that they be given a fair trial.
On 17 October 2002, Judge Catalina Ruiz Pacheco agreed to consider an application for the arrest of Oscar Cantú Murguía, editor of the daily “Norte de Ciudad Juárez”, and journalists Armando Delgado, Manuel Aguirre, Guadalupe Salcido, Rosa Isela Pérez, Francisco Luján, Antonio Flores and Carlos Huertas, also from the daily. In the 18 October issue of the newspaper, it said that, in violation of the law, the journalists had not yet been sent any details of the case or the charges against them.
They are being sued for libel by former Ciudad Juárez mayor Manuel Quevedo Reyes, who is now the head of a real estate firm. He filed a complaint in January after a series of articles in the newspaper reported on the cost of the land he had sold to the government. The articles reported that the price paid by the state was higher than the market price and questioned the actions of the government officials who had determined the land’s purchasing price. The former mayor is seeking 50 million pesos (approx. US$5,030,000; 5,165,000 euros) in damages and interest and closure of the newspaper.
