It also condemns New Year assault on Venezuelan TV channel Globovisión
It also condemns New Year assault on Venezuelan TV channel Globovisión
MIAMI, Florida (January 7, 2009)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today protested an attack on the Televisa television channel in Monterrey, Mexico, and called on officials to conduct a swift investigation into the incident, apparently carried out by drug traffickers.
Last night masked men in two pickup trucks threw a grenade and fired shots at the TV station in the northern state of Nuevo León. No injuries were reported, but the building and vehicles owned by the station were damaged.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, declared, “It is clear that organized crime keeps sending these ‘messages’ just to generate fear and force news media and individual journalists to resort to self-censorship; what is needed is for this case to be investigated and those responsible brought to a swift justice.”
IAPA Impunity Committee Chairman Juan Francisco Ealy Ortiz, president of the Mexico City, Mexico, newspaper El Universal, added that “the authorities must use the full strength of the law to send a strong message to those who resort to violence so that in 2009 we can be more hopeful than last year, when all of society – including journalists and media – paid a high price.”
Following the attack on Televisa, state and federal security forces and members of the military took the precautionary measure of putting surveillance on the premises of other local news media, including television stations Milenio and Televisión Azteca. The Mexican Attorney General’s Office announced that it was bringing the investigation under federal jurisdiction.
Later, a message was found in a vehicle apparently abandoned by the attackers that stated, “Stop reporting just about us. Start showing the real drug lords! This is a warning.”
Venezuela
The IAPA also protested another attack on a television station, Globovisión in Venezuela, carried out on January 1 by the self-styled radical group La Piedrita (The Little Rock), which supports the government of President Hugo Chávez. Reportedly, two men riding a motorcycle hurled a tear-gas grenade on the TV station roof where the gas entered the building through air-conditioning ducts. They also left propaganda criticizing Globovisión and the newspaper El Nacional.
In an earlier incident, on September 23, 2008, group activists threw tear-gas grenades at Globovisión's headquarters and distributed flyers declaring the channel and its director, Alberto Federico Revell, “a war target.” On October 14 the same group was responsible for hurling tear-gas bombs at the plant of the daily newspaper El Nuevo País in reprisal for its critical editorial position, and calling its editor, Rafael Poleo, a military target.
FUENTE: nota.texto7
