(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 10 December 2004 IAPA press release: IAPA welcomes reforms to Judicial Branch that help in the fight for press freedom The IAPA insists that a legislative bill creating a Council to regulate the journalism profession be eliminated Miami (December 10, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) expressed […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 10 December 2004 IAPA press release:
IAPA welcomes reforms to Judicial Branch that help in the fight for press freedom
The IAPA insists that a legislative bill creating a Council to regulate the journalism profession be eliminated
Miami (December 10, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) expressed its satisfaction with a recently approved law in Brazil that places crimes against human rights, among which can be included the murder of journalists, under federal jurisdiction.
On December 8, the Brazilian National Congress passed an amendment to the Constitution regarding reforms to the Judicial Branch that, among other things, allows crimes against humanity, such as torture and extermination, to be considered under federal jurisdiction.
IAPA President Alejandro Miró Quesada said that “this is an important step in the fight for press freedom since many of the crimes committed against journalists in Brazil go unpunished and cases are tangled up in the justice system at the state level.”
Miró Quesada, publisher of the Peruvian newspaper, El Comercio, added that “our Committee against Impunity has investigated 19 cases of murdered journalists in Brazil and this is an opportunity to ask the federal judiciary to take them on with greater efficiency so that these cases can be solved.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gonzalo Marroquín, observed that “this reform is a positive step” and added that “in order to consolidate an atmosphere of broader press freedom in Brazil, the IAPA hopes that the Executive Branch will eliminate a project to create a Federal Journalism Council to guide and oversee the journalism profession.”
Marroquín, editor of the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre, mentioned that during its assembly last October in Antigua, Guatemala, the IAPA approved a resolution that asks “the President of the Republic to withdraw the bill, taking into account that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has issued an opinion stating that no obligations or prerequisites can be imposed on the practice of journalism.”
The IAPA resolved that an international delegation would travel to the Brazilian capital next year to explain to government officials the serious consequences for press freedom that approval of this regulatory Council represents.
Since 1999, the IAPA has been urging Brazilian officials to ensure that crimes against journalists are tried in federal courts. Last year, during the Chapultepec Judicial Conference on Press Freedom, held in São Paulo and attended by representatives from 25 of the 27 state courts and Supreme Court justices, the hemispheric organization raised the issue once again.
