(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 26 March 2003 IAPA press release: IAPA urges that crimes against journalists be investigated MIAMI, Florida (March 26, 2003) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has called on the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Mexico to investigate crimes against journalists that continue to […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 26 March 2003 IAPA press release:
IAPA urges that crimes against journalists be investigated
MIAMI, Florida (March 26, 2003) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has called on the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Mexico to investigate crimes against journalists that continue to go unpunished.
Attached are the main resolutions concerning crimes against journalists adopted at the IAPA’s Midyear Meeting in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 21-24, whose full texts are posted on the IAPA Web site, www.sipiapa.org
The meeting resolved:
– Argentina: to urge the government of Argentina to demand a prompt ruling by the Buenos Aires Provincial Court of Cassation, so as to prevent the guilty from going unpunished in a case of enormous impact in the press world in particular, and among the public in general [due to the fact that three of the eight accused perpetrators of the January 25, 1997, murder of news photographer José Luis Cabezas could soon be released from jail as a result of a more than three-year delay in their sentence being confirmed by that court].
– Brazil: to ask the Brazilian government to transfer the investigation of human rights violations, including the murder of journalists and radio announcers, so that they fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Police; to request the expansion and improvement of the witness protection program (the program has been unknown to people in general, fails to keep up with demands and in some cases keeps witnesses in a very precarious situation, which makes many of them prefer not to take part in the program); to ask the federal government and state governors to make a commitment to the right to freedom of expression and an end to impunity; to urge the police and judiciary not to limit investigations to the identification and detention of the murderers but to also identify those behind the crimes.
– Colombia: to urge the Colombian Attorney General’s Office to review the status of the cases in the Crimes Against Journalists Unit to determine the reasons for their slow progress and to produce due results swiftly; to once again urge the Barranquilla High Court to respond as soon as possible to the appeal that has been lodged and to explain the reasons why there has been no ruling [in the case of Carlos Lajud Catalán, murdered on March 19, 1993]; to urge the Valledupar High Court to respond as soon as possible to the appeal and to explain the reason why there has been no ruling [in the case of Guzmán Quintero Torres, murdered on September 16, 1999]; to call upon the authorities to solve the crimes against, kidnapping of and threats to journalists and to punish those responsible; to urge the government’s Committee for the Protection of Journalists to ensure that risk surveys and implementation of protective measures are carried out in the shortest possible time and that investigations are carried out into all complaints of threats against journalists, so as to identify those responsible.
– Haiti: to demand that the government of Haiti comply with its duty to bring to justice and punish those responsible for the murder of journalists [Jean Leopold Dominique, on April 3, 2000; Brignol Lindor, on November 3, 2001, and Gerard Denoze, on December 15, 2001], so as to put an end to crimes against press freedom and set Haitian people on the road to democracy.
– Mexico: to call upon the Veracruz state authorities to keep the case of José Miranda Virgen [murdered on October 16, 2002] open, so that, so long as state jurisdiction permits it, new lines of investigation can be pursued in the event that it later emerges that the accident in which the columnist died was premeditated and was a consequence of his working as a journalist; to urge the Tamaulipas state authorities to make every effort to solve the murders of Félix Fernández García [on January 18, 2002] and Saúl Antonio Martínez González [on March 24, 2001], identifying both the perpetrators and those behind the crimes; to request that the Mexican Attorney General’s Office report on the findings thus far in the investigation into the murder of José Luis Ortega Mata, that was taken up recently by the Specialized Organized Crime Unit (UEDO); to condemn the irregular manner in which the case of Philip True [murdered in 1998] has been handled, beginning with the
defective initial police inquiries, and to encourage the Jalisco and federal judicial authorities to undertake a rigorous review of the evidence and to mete out due punishment of the guilty; to ask the Mexican government and judiciary to take the necessary steps to ensure that the above-mentioned cases do not go unpunished, considering the need for the murder of journalists to be handled at the federal level so as to provide greater guarantees and transparency, and to ensure that the repeated promise of the executive branch, voiced by President Vicente Fox, that this will be the case is carried out as soon as possible, preferably before his six-year term ends.
– Dominican Republic: to urge the government of the Dominican Republic to reopen and follow up on the case [of columnist Narciso Pinales González, who disappeared in May 1994] in order to identify those responsible for the crime and bring them to justice.
