(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 6 November 2000 IAPA press release: Free-Press Group Protests Plight of Media in Cuba, Peru, Venezuela Miami, Florida (Nov. 6, 2000).– At its meeting in Barbados on Saturday, November 4, the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations called on the governments of Cuba, Peru and Venezuela to take action […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 6 November 2000 IAPA press release:
Free-Press Group Protests Plight of Media in Cuba, Peru, Venezuela
Miami, Florida (Nov. 6, 2000).– At its meeting in Barbados on Saturday, November 4, the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations called on the governments of Cuba, Peru and Venezuela to take action to halt curtailment of newsgathering activities and to provide greater protection to individual journalists in their countries.
The situation in Cuba, the Committee declared in a resolution adopted by the meeting, amounted to “a crime against humanity” and anyone ignoring that fact was an accomplice to it.
In Peru, the Committee concluded, there was a climate of uncertainty amid recent political developments, and it called for the repeal of any law or regulation restricting press freedom and for punishment of those abusing journalists.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez was urged to “abandon his policy of aggression and attacks on freedom of expression and news men and women” in another resolution of the Committee, which is made up of nine regional and global organizations advocating a free and unfettered press in the world. They include the Inter American Press Association, Committee to Protect Journalists, Commonwealth Press Union, International Association of Broadcasting, International Association of the Periodical Press, International Press Institute, North American Broadcasters Association, World Association of Newspapers and World Press Freedom Committee. The Committee also adopted a resolution congratulating the new president of IAPA, Danilo Arbilla.
Following are the full texts of the Coordinating Committee’s resolutions:
CUBA
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations at its meeting on Saturday, November 4, 2000, in Barbados determined the following:
Whereas
in Cuba for 41 years there has continued an unceasing repression and control of the Cuban independent press and journalists and the arrest and expulsion of foreign correspondents continues to occur
The Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations resolved:
to protest the complete lack of freedom in Cuba
to condemn the government of Cuba for the imprisonment, repression and harassment of independent journalists
to call on the government of Cuba to free journalists Bernabé Arévalo, Joel de Jesús Díaz and Manuel González
to issue a call to nations and international or non-governmental organizations that by ignoring the situation existing in Cuba, which amounts to a crime against humanity, they make themselves accomplices.
PERU
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations at its meeting on Saturday, November 4, 2000, in Barbados considered:
Whereas
in Peru following recent political developments there is a climate of uncertainty and restriction of freedom of the press
Whereas
television channels 2 and 13 continue not to be restored to their legitimate owners
the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations calls on the government of Peru:
to restore to their owners the news media outlets television channels 2 and 13 with no obstacle or curtailment of any kind
to call for the elimination of any kind of law or regulation restricting freedom of the press and to investigate and punish those entities and individuals who have interfered in news-gathering activity and have harassed, persecuted, attacked and kidnapped journalists.
VENEZUELA
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations at its meeting on Saturday, November 4, 2000, in Barbados considered:
Whereas
the new Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela entails a series of dangers for the free practice of freedom of expression and of opinion in constitutionally enshrining the “right to opportune, truthful and unbiased information” which openly contravenes the American Convention on Human Rights
Whereas
publishers and journalists are being subjected to trial in courts throughout the country on charges of denigration, defamation and libel, it being argued, in order to maliciously extend the trials, that these alleged offenses against a person’s good name should not be subject to a state of limitations
Whereas
the president of Venezuela, in public acts and during a daily broadcast whose funding is unknown and in which he issues threats, seeks to impart fear in all those who disagree with his governance
The Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations
calls on the Venezuelan authorities to overturn the concept of “opportune, truthful and unbiased information” to create an eventual “Press Law”
calls on President Hugo Chávez to abandon his policy of aggression and attacks on freedom of expression and on news men and women which, because they come from the head of state, are a real threat and an unacceptable abuse of power
to issue a call to all human rights and press freedom organizations and to the representative democracies throughout the world in light of the latent threat implied by the government of Chávez, who in his own joint statements with Fidel Castro has made it clear he regards the representative democratic system of government as null and void.
IAPA PRESIDENCY
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, meeting in Barbados on Saturday 4th November, 2000 and in view of the election of Danilo Arbilla as President of The Inter American Press Association, a man who for four years occupied with distinction the chair of the IAPA Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and who has supported fully the Coordinating Committee, approved the following resolution:
1- To express to the Inter American Press Association in general and to Mr. Danilo Arbilla personally our congratulations on his election to the Presidency of this institution.
2- To consider this appointment of the new President of the IAPA as a just recognition of his qualities and long service in defense of freedom of the expression, freedom of the press and the right to information of all citizens.
