(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is an IAPA press release: IAPA CALLS FOR ACTION IN MURDER OF PARAGUAYAN JOURNALIST MIAMI, Florida (July 26, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called on newspaper and magazine readers in the Western Hemisphere to add their signatures to a public letter to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte Frutos requesting […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is an IAPA press release:
IAPA CALLS FOR ACTION IN MURDER OF PARAGUAYAN JOURNALIST
MIAMI, Florida (July 26, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called on newspaper and magazine readers in the Western Hemisphere to add their signatures to a public letter to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte Frutos requesting his help to solve the April 1991 murder of journalist Santiago Leguizamón.
The IAPA is waging a hemisphere-wide campaign, titled “Let Us Put an End to Impunity,” so that those responsible for the murder of 268 journalists in the last 15 years do not continue to go unpunished. Advertisements are being published in more than two hundreds newspapers and magazines throughout the Americas, inviting readers to join the campaign by adding their signatures to a petition posted on the Web site http://www.impunidad.com
In a bid to silence the press, hit men shot Leguizamón, a radio reporter in Pedro Juan Caballero, department of Amambay, at point-blank range, in retaliation for comments he had made on corruption, contraband and organized crime on the Paraguayan-Brazilian border. A series of irregularities in the legal process have resulted in Leguizamón’s murder continuing to go unpunished 13 years after it was committed.
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 the monitoring of the state of press freedom in the Americas.
