MIAMI, Florida (May 19, 2003)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today announced the official launch of an advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness of the lack of justice and the impunity that surrounds the majority of 269 cases of murder of journalists committed in the Western Hemisphere over the past 15 years.
With the theme “Let’s Put an End to Impunity” the ads, which will begin being published this week in more than 100 leading publications in the Western Hemisphere, call on readers to join the international campaign by sending letters and petitions urging governments to bring those guilty of the still unpunished crimes to justice.
Newspapers, magazines and periodicals in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela have already undertaken to publish the ads on a monthly basis during the four years that the campaign will last.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee Against Impunity, Alberto Ibargüen, said, “Our goal is to enable citizens throughout the Americas to react to violence against journalists, because in that way they defend their own right to know.” He added, “If a journalist is killed, it is precisely to stop an act of corruption being brought to light, and this is directly detrimental to the common good.”
“Much worse,” said Ibargüen, chairman of The Miami Herald Publishing Company, Miami, Florida, “is that if we allow these crimes to go unpunished we are giving an incentive to those who resort to violence to continue destroying freedom of the press and democracy.”
This month the IAPA is highlighting the case of Mexican journalist Héctor Félix Miranda, murdered on April 20, 1988 – a crime that has remained unpunished for 15 years now. While this note marks the official launch of this campaign, a number of publications have already published ads in March and April, on the cases of Jean Leopold Dominique, murdered in Haiti on April 3, 2000, and Orlando Sierra Hernández, killed in Colombia on February 1, 2002. Among those doing so in the United States were The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and Parade, in Colombia El Tiempo, Ambito Jurídico and La Patria of Manizales, and in Mexico Novedades de Quintana Roo and El Mundo al Día.
Print media outlets, whether or not IAPA members, join the campaign on a voluntary basis, offering free advertising space each month. The ads are produced by the IAPA office in Miami, reflecting investigations that the organization has been carrying out since 1995 into unpunished crimes against journalists, the findings in many of which have been submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The ads contain an invitation to readers to visit the IAPA’s special Web site, www.impunidad.com, to sign petitions to be sent to the relevant government authorities.
IAPA President Andrés García, editor of Novedades de Quintana Roo, Cancún, Mexico, thanked those IAPA members that have already joined the campaign and urged that “we all enable our readers to act on behalf of a human right that is so precious for democracy as is press freedom and free speech.”
This public campaign is part of the Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists project of the IAPA’s Press Freedom Program, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Miami-based foundation has given the IAPA $3.6 million for such work over the next four years, which in addition to this campaign includes investigative reporting programs, training of journalists working in danger zones, and monitoring the status of press freedom in the Americas, among other issues.
The following are the publications that have joined the campaign to date:
Argentina: Clarín, Buenos Aires; Diario Popular, Buenos
Aires; Ecos Diarios, Necochea; El Día, La Plata; El Diario, Paraná;
El Liberal, Santiago del Estero; La Nación, Buenos Aires; La Voz del
Interior, Córdoba; Nueva Era, Tandil; Río Negro, General Roca;
Tiempo Sur, Río Gallegos
Bolivia: El Diario, La Paz
Brazil: Diario de Natal, Rio Grande do Norte; Gazeta do Sul,
Rio Grande do Sul; Jornal do Povo, Rio Grande do Sul; Jornal NH, Rio Grande
do Sul; O Estado de S. Paulo, São Paulo; O Popular, Goias; O Povo, Fortaleza
Chile: El Diario Austral, Osorno; El Diario Austral, Temuco;
El Diario Austral, Valdivia; El Llanquihue, Puerto Montt; El Mercurio, Antofagasta;
El Mercurio, Valparaíso; El Sur, Concepción; La Región,
Santiago
Colombia: Ambito Jurídico, Bogotá; El Espectador,
Bogotá; El Liberal, Popayán; El Nuevo Día, Tolima; El Tiempo,
Bogotá; El Universal, Cartagena; La Opinión, Cúcuta; La
Patria, Manizales; La Tarde, Pereira; Meridiano de Córdoba, Córdoba;
Vanguardia Liberal, Bucaramanga; Vanguardia Liberal, Valledupar
Costa Rica: Al Día, San José; La Nación,
San José
Dominican Republic: Ahora, Santo Domingo; El Día, Santo
Domingo; El Expreso, Santo Domingo; El Financiero, Santo Domingo; El Nacional,
Santo Domingo; Hoy, Santo Domingo; Listín Diario, Santo Domingo; Ultima
Hora, Santo Domingo
Ecuador: El Comercio, Quito; El Diario, Portoviejo; Hoy, Quito;
El Mercurio, Cuenca
El Salvador: La Prensa Gráfica, San Salvador
Guatemala: El Periódico, Guatemala City; Prensa Libre,
Guatemala City;
Nuestro Diario, Guatemala City; Siglo XXI, Guatemala City
Honduras: El Heraldo, Tegucigalpa; La Prensa, San Pedro Sula
Jamaica: The Gleaner, Kingston
Mexico: El Economista, México City; El Imparcial, Hermosillo;
El Mundo al Día, Mérida; El Universal, México City; Frontera,
Tijuana; Imagen en Zacatecas, Zacatecas; La Crónica, Mexicali; Novedades
de Quintana Roo, Cancún; Ocho Columnas, Guadalajara; Periódico
Correo, Guanajuato; Zeta, Tijuana
Nicaragua: La Prensa, Managua
Panama: La Prensa, Panama City
Paraguay: ABC Color, Asunción
Peru: Caretas, Lima; El Comercio, Lima; Expreso, Lima; La Industria
de Chiclayo, Chiclayo; La Industria de Chimbote, Chimbote; La Industria de Trujillo,
Trujillo; La República, Lima; Perú.21, Lima; Trome, Lima
Puerto Rico: El Nuevo Día, San Juan; Primera Hora, San
Juan
United States: Diario Las Américas; Miami; El Nuevo
Herald, Miami; Hora de Cierre, Miami; Parade, Miami; San Antonio Express-News,
San Antonio; San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco; The Miami Herald, Miami;
The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento
Uruguay: Búsqueda, Montevideo; El País, Montevideo;
El Telégrafo, Paysandú
Venezuela: 2001, Caracas; Abril, Caracas; El Carabobeño,
Valencia; El Globo, Caracas; El Nacional, Caracas; El Nuevo País, Caracas;
El Siglo, Maracay; Notitarde, Valencia.
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