IAPA General Assembly to evaluate disturbing status of press freedom in the Americas

The organization will also discuss a change in venue for its March 2008 meeting which was booked for Venezuela

MIAMI, Florida (October 8, 2007)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) will inaugurate its 63rd annual General Assembly in this city Friday and promises to place special focus on the review and discussion of the status of freedom of the press in the Americas during the last six months.

As the event gets underway, IAPA’s Executive Committee will also discuss its decision to change the venue for the March 2008 meeting scheduled to be held in Venezuela.  After hotels in Caracas and Margarita Island said they had no vacancies for that time-period, the meeting was confirmed for Maracaibo, in the western state of Zulia.

Last week, however, the Host Committee, made up of Venezuelan newspapers belonging to the IAPA, informed that due to the prevailing situation in the South American country the hotel in Maracaibo had communicated that it was backing out of its offer to be the venue for the IAPA.

IAPA President Rafael Molina declared, “We regret, in the name of freedom of the press, democracy and the Venezuelan people, that they are closing the doors on us in such an inelegant and indirect manner” – a reference to the belief the hotels were being pressured in the same way as other privately-owned companies that do not go along with the policies of the central government.

Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, newspaper El Día, who will chair the General Assembly, said that the Executive Committee will examine the matter in depth.

The event, which runs through October 16, will be attended by more than 500 newspaper editors and publishers from the Western Hemisphere who will discuss major topics concerning the press in the Americas such as the continued imprisonment of independent journalists in Cuba, concern over Venezuela’s closure on May 27 this year of Radio Caracas Televisión, and the murder of eight journalists and the disappearance of another two during the last six months.

The IAPA will also review some positive events that have strengthened press freedom in the same period. Among these are a law decriminalizing libel in Mexico, an Argentina Supreme Court ruling against the Neuquén provincial government for using placement of official advertising to discriminate against certain news media, a series of legislative bills in favor of access to public records in a number of countries, and the conviction by courts in Peru and Brazil of the masterminds behind the murders of journalists.

The IAPA General Assembly will also be attended by specially-invited guests, among them the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, United States Assistant Secretary of State John Negroponte, the Commander of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral James Stavridis, and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

During the event, which will be held at Miami’s Inter-Continental Hotel, there will be a series of seminars on professional and technical topics, and a meeting of newspaper editors and publishers with Latin American journalism school deans.

The main program will also feature the presentation of the IAPA Grand Prize for Press Freedom to Marcel Granier, president of Radio Caracas Televisión.

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