MIAMI, Florida (April 23, 2004)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA)
today called on the governments of Brazil, Paraguay and Peru to begin immediate
investigations into the murder of two journalists in recent days so as to bring
those responsible to justice.
Alberto Rivera Fernández, a reporter for Radio Frecuencia Oriental radio
station in Pucallpa, some 500 miles northeast of the Peruvian capital of Lima,
was host of a program called “Transaparencia” (Transparency) in
which he criticized how local officials were performing their duties. On the
afternoon of April 21, as he was on his way home he was intercepted by two people
who shot him twice at point-blank range. The motive for the killing was not
immediately known. Rivera was the second journalist to be murdered in Peru in
recent months.
Samuel Román, a reporter for the Ñu Verá radio station
in the Paraguayan township of Capitán Bado on the Brazilian border, was
murdered on April 20. Two men riding a motorcycle shot him 13 times as he was
heading to his home across the border in the Brazilian town of Coronel Sapucaia.
Román hosted a program titled “La Voz del Pueblo” (Voice
of the People) in which he raised questions about the conduct of Coronel Sapucaia
city officials. The 450-mile-long Paraguay-Brazil border is known as a hotbed
of corruption, smuggling and organized crime.
Rafael Molina, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press
and Information, called on officials in the area “to make resources available
as soon as possible to determine who ordered the murders of Rivera Fernández
in Peru and Roman on the Brazil-Paraguay border and who actually carried them
out, as well as the motives for these crimes, so that the guilty may be brought
to justice.”
Molina, of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, newspaper El Nacional, stressed
the need to solve the murders and announce the results of the investigations
as a matter of urgency. He added, “We are concerned at the trend towards
making reporters the target of pubic officials rankled by criticism and at the
violence that is being seen in countries where usually differences with the
press do not reach such extremes.”
