(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is an IAPA press release: IAPA calls for action in murder of Guatemalan editor MIAMI, Florida (February 18, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today called on newspaper and magazine readers in the Western Hemisphere to add their signatures to a public letter to Guatemalan President Oscar Berger requesting […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is an IAPA press release:
IAPA calls for action in murder of Guatemalan editor
MIAMI, Florida (February 18, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today called on newspaper and magazine readers in the Western Hemisphere to add their signatures to a public letter to Guatemalan President Oscar Berger requesting his help to solve the July 1993 murder of journalist Jorge Carpio Nicolle.
The IAPA is waging a hemisphere-wide campaign titled, “Let Us Put an End to Impunity”, calling for those responsible for the murders of 279 journalists in the last 15 years not to continue to go unpunished. Interactive ads are being published in more than a hundred newspapers and magazines throughout the Americas, inviting readers to join the campaign by adding their signatures to a petition posed on the Web site www.impunidad.com.
In a bid to silence the press, hit men shot Carpio Nicolle, editor of the Guatemalan newspaper El Gráfico, at point-blank range. His murder led to the IAPA’s current campaign.
A series of irregularities in the legal process have resulted in Carpio Nicolle’s murder continuing to go unpunished 10 years after it was committed. The IAPA submitted the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which in turn sent it to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on June 13, 2003. A ruling by the Court against the Guatemalan state would set an important legal precedent in the battle against impunity.
The IAPA’s hemisphere-wide campaign against impunity, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also includes investigative reporting programs, training for reporters working in hazardous environments, and monitoring of the state of press freedom in the Americas
