(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 16 July 2003 IAPA press release: IAPA issues appeal regarding still unpunished murder of Colombian journalist MIAMI, Florida (July 16, 2003) – In a new bid to raise awareness of the need to solve the unpunished murders of journalists in the Americas, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 16 July 2003 IAPA press release:
IAPA issues appeal regarding still unpunished murder of Colombian journalist
MIAMI, Florida (July 16, 2003) – In a new bid to raise awareness of the need to solve the unpunished murders of journalists in the Americas, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today asked Colombian Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio for his help in investigating the death of Gerardo Bedoya Borrero in the city of Cali six years ago.
The IAPA is waging a hemisphere-wide campaign entitled, “Let’s Put an End to Impunity”, to ensure that the murders of 272 journalists in the last 15 years do not go unpunished. Advertisements concerning the crimes are being published in more than a hundred newspapers throughout the Americas and in the Caribbean. The advertisements call on readers to go to the IAPA’s special web site, http://www.impunidad.com, and add their signatures to an open letter to governments calling for action.
Bedoya Barrero was the opinion page editor of the Cali daily newspaper El País. In his column, he constantly exposed the corrupting influence of drug traffickers in local politics. He was shot at close range by a hired assassin. The investigation into the incident has been inexplicably stalled and there are still no leads indicating who might have been behind the crime. This has lead to a growing fear among local residents of a conspiracy to throw investigators off the trail.
The IAPA’s interactive campaign, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also includes investigative reporting activities, training for reporters working in danger zones and monitoring of the state of press freedom in the Americas.
Newspapers, magazines and online publications, members and non-members of the IAPA alike, are taking part on a voluntary basis in this initiative, providing free space for publication of each month’s advertisements. In June, thousands of readers in a number of countries signed a letter to the governor of Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil, Rosinha Garotinho. The letters requested her intervention to speed up the investigation and bring to justice those responsible for the murder of journalist Reinaldo Coutinho da Silva eight years ago.
