(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 17 May 2001 IAPA press release: IAPA Seeks Protection for Judge in Haiti Journalist Murder Case President Aristide asked to meet with IAPA delegation to continue inquiries and sign the Declaration of Chapultepec MIAMI, Florida (May 17, 2001) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has told Haitian President […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 17 May 2001 IAPA press release:
IAPA Seeks Protection for Judge in Haiti Journalist Murder Case
President Aristide asked to meet with IAPA delegation to continue inquiries and sign the Declaration of Chapultepec
MIAMI, Florida (May 17, 2001) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has told Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide that it is concerned over the reduction in security for the judge conducting the investigation into the April 3, 2000, murder in Port-au-Prince of journalist Jean Léopold Dominique*.
The hemispheric free-press organization expressed its fears in a letter to Aristide signed by its president, Danilo Arbilla, and the chairman of its Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina. In its letter the IAPA recalled that Judge Claudy Gassant might withdraw from the case after receiving threats and being harassed, as has been experienced by other judges.
Gassant reported that police officers assigned to protect him were transferred while the investigation was still underway and had not been replaced. Arbilla, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, news weekly Búsqueda, and Molina, of Ahora magazine, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, declared that “the continuation of the inquiries without due protection or guarantees for the safety of those carrying them out could jeopardize the case.”
The IAPA called on Aristide “to make the necessary resources available for the protection of witnesses, relatives of the victim and Judge Gassant, in order to ensure that those behind Mr. Dominique’s murder and those who actually committed it are brought to justice.” The death of Dominique, a prominent journalist and director of the Radio Haiti Inter radio station in the Haitian capital, was investigated earlier this year by the IAPA’s Rapid Response Unit.
In its letter to Aristide, the IAPA stressed how important it was that “the judiciary enjoy sufficient freedom of action, without external pressures, in order to be able to identify those responsible for the murder…and prevent any kind of interference in the investigation and any action that could jeopardize the independence of the legal proceedings.”
The Association also told Aristide of its interest in sending a delegation to Haiti to provide support for the judicial inquiry of Dominique’s case and to seek his signature on the Declaration of Chapultepec, an IAPA-sponsored document detailing principles of free speech and press freedom, in which he has publicly expressed an interest. Adding his signature would be “a great show of support for democracy and freedom of the press in Haiti,” the Association added.
*See details of the Jean Leopold Dominique murder case at www.impunidad.com/cases/jeanleopoldS.html
