Miami, .- The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) condemned on Monday the murders of two journalists in Honduras and Mexico and warned of the serious risks faced by communicators in a region with poor protection systems in many countries.
The IAPA, based in Miami, published a statement in which it refers to the assassination of Gabriel Hernández, perpetrated on March 17 in the city of Nacaóme, in southern Honduras, and Santiago Barroso Alfaro, which occurred on March 15. March in San Luis Río Colorado, in northern Mexico.
The president of the IAPA, María Elvira Domínguez, expressed her solidarity with Honduran and Mexican journalists who “have experienced for many years a feeling of fatigue, impotence and helplessness for the impunity of most crimes against their colleagues.”
Domínguez, director of the Colombian newspaper El País, added that “to this situation are added the deficient or null investigations and the inefficiency of the existing protection mechanisms”.
For his part, the president of the Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information of the IAPA, Roberto Rock, urged the authorities of Honduras and Mexico to “investigate expeditiously and in depth all the lines related to his journalistic work with the purpose to know the motives and to apply justice “.
Rock, director of the Mexican digital newspaper La Silla Rota, said that “these serious problems of violence and impunity have been denounced insistently for many years, but they are still not given serious and efficient answers. regretting the death of journalists. “
Hernandez, 54, was conducting the opinion program “El Pueblo Habla” on Valle TV Channel, where he used to report irregularities in the mayor’s office and criticized local politicians. He was also a correspondent for Radio Globo in Tegucigalpa.
The Honduran journalist was heading home when he was intercepted by unknown persons who shot him. According to media and journalistic organizations, Hernández had requested protection because of threats against him, but it was denied.
Barroso Alfaro, 47, was the host of the program “Buenos Días San Luis” on the radio station Río Digital, director of the digital newspaper RED 653, a contributor to the weekly newspaper “Password” and a professor at the Technological University of San Luis Río Colorado (Sonora).
Around nine in the evening they knocked on the door of his house, when the journalist opened, he was attacked. He received several shots that caused his death.
There are no known antecedents of threats against him.
The IAPA leaders stressed that during the mid-year meeting that the organization will hold in Cartagena (Colombia), from March 29 to 31, two special activities on the subject of violence and impunity against journalists are scheduled.
On March 29, a public act of acknowledgment of international responsibility will be held for the case of Colombian journalist Nelson Carvajal Carvajal, murdered on April 16, 1998 and on which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a judgment against the State of Colombia.
This ceremony will be attended by 18 relatives of the journalist.
The following day will be held the panel “In search of justice, how to defeat impunity in cases of murdered journalists”, in which journalists, representatives of human rights organizations, press and the State of Colombia will participate.
The SIP is a non-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas and composed of more than 1,300 publications of the Western Hemisphere. (EFEUSA)
