IAPA calls for more political will to solve unpunished murders of journalists in Mexico

Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission drafted a document on this case late last month that it delivered to the federal Attorney General’s Office and the Oaxaca State Attorney’s Office and which revealed irregularities in the official investigation, such as omissions, errors and vague references and the fact that the inquiries were carried out without scientific rigor.

Among other anomalies the Commission pointed out was that the Oaxaca State Attorney’s Office had left out or failed to complete some testimonies, that it had not located witnesses and that the state experts had come to certain conclusions without scientific foundation.

Will, 36, went to Oaxaca to document a labor conflict that had kept civil groups and the state government at loggerheads for months. He was killed as he filmed a violent clash between members of the civil group Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) and police.

The Mexican Attorney General’s Office rejected the Human Rights Commission’s recommendations, but the Oaxaca State Attorney’s Office hastened to announce on October 22 that Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, a member of the APPO, had been taken into custody as a suspect in the journalist’s murder and that two other persons were accused of being accomplices. These accusations have been criticized as not having taken evidence and testimonies concerning the crime into account.

Following is the full text of the Impunity-Mexico resolution adopted at the IAPA General Assembly held in Madrid, Spain, October 3-7.     

IMPUNITY – MEXICO

WHEREAS
The Mexican authorities, at both federal and state levels, have not shown the will to deal with, investigate and solve the disappearances and crimes against journalists committed in this country in the past 21 years, cases that have been registered and monitored by the IAPA

WHEREAS
The Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) has jurisdiction to investigate the killings of the journalists José Ramírez Puente (2000), Guadalupe García Escamilla (2005), Enrique Perea Quintanilla (2006), Raúl Gibb Guerrero (2005), Francisco Ortiz Franco (2004),  Bradley Ronald Will (2006) and Amado Ramírez Dillanes (2007) with no results

WHEREAS
The IAPA has insisted that the PGR and the Special Prosecutors’ Office for Crimes against Journalists report clearly about the legal situation regarding the investigations under their jurisdiction, without getting any satisfactory response, just lists of cases and the promise that they will be solved
 
WHEREAS
Seven journalists have been killed in the State of Chihuahua in the past 21 years, five of cases are still investigated by the State Attorney General’s Office, with no results; the two others are in the hands of the Federal Attorney General’s Office, showing no will to solve them

WHEREAS
In the crime against the columnist Víctor Manuel Oropeza, in which the State Attorney General’s Office in Chihuahua committed to investigate it thoroughly and give the results to IAPA following the recommendation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), but it is no longer willing to carry out the investigations and the Foreign Ministry also shows little interest

WHEREAS
The three journalists Jaime Antonio García Apac, Juan Pablo Solís and Mauricio Estrada Zamora have disappeared in the state of Michoacán between 2006 and 2008, and there is no progress in the investigations of the four killings of the announcer Lázaro Cárdenas (1991) and the reporters Ramiro Ramírez Duarte (1999), Jaime Arturo Olvera Bravo (2006) and Gerardo García Pimentel (2007)

WHEREAS
In the past 10 years five journalists have disappeared or have been killed in the state of Guerrero, four of the cases (Abel Bueno León, Pedro Valle Hernández, Leodegario Aguilar and Misael Tamayo Hernández) are in the State Attorney General’s Office, and none of the investigations have shown complete results

WHEREAS
The State Attorney General’s Office in Veracruz is investigating the killings of Hugo Barragán Ortiz (2005), Roberto Marcos García (2006) and Adolfo Sánchez Guzmán (2006), as well as the disappearance of Jesús Mejía Lechuga (2003), and none of the criminals have been arrested

WHEREAS
In the state of Coahuila the cases of José Valdés (killed), Rafael Ortiz Martínez (missing) and the homicides of Ezequiel Huerta Acosta (1989) and Cuauhtémoc Ornelas Ocampo (kidnapped since 1995) are still unsolved

WHEREAS
In Jalisco, the crime of the American journalist Philip True remains unsolved, and his two murderers are still at large

WHEREAS
In Baja California state photographer Dante Espartaco Cortés (1995) and the two journalists Héctor Félix Miranda (1995) and Francisco Ortiz Franco (2004) from the weekly Zeta have been killed, and the first two cases are in the hands of the state authorities who have not fully investigated them yet, although in the case of Félix Miranda two people are under arrest, and the recommendation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to identify the mastermind has not been fulfilled

WHEREAS
In the state of Sinaloa the killing of Jesús Michael Jacobo (1987) is still unpunished, in addition to the killings of Manuel Burgueño (1988) and Gregorio Rodríguez (2004), in which case almost all the murderers are under arrest, but not the mastermind

WHEREAS
The killings of Benjamín Flores (1997), Alfredo Jiménez Mota (missing since 2005) and Saúl Martínez Ortega (2007), in Sonora, have not been solved

WHEREAS
In Nuevo León state there are no results about the disappearances of the cameraman and the TV Azteca reporter, Gerardo Paredes and Gamaliel López, respectively, on May 2007

WHEREAS
In 2007 Chiapas the Special Prosecutors’ Office for Crimes against Journalists was opened, and it reexamined the cases of the killings of five reporters, and in one of the cases, that of Roberto Antonio Mancilla Herrera (1993), the three people responsible, who were policemen, were arrested and brought to trial, but the remaining cases are still unsolved

WHEREAS
Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec says, “Freedom of expression and of the press are severely limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping, pressure, intimidation, the unjust imprisonment of journalists, the destruction of facilities, violence of any kind and impunity for perpetrators. Such acts must be investigated promptly and punished harshly”

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES
To urge the State Attorney General’s Offices to apply themselves to the investigation and review of all the cases of journalists killed or missing in their states

To demand that the Federal Attorney General’s Office, the Federal Public Security Minister, the Defense Minister and the Navy Minister take sufficient measures to prevent attacks against journalists and media outlets under their protection by combating organized crime and that the PGR, on its own initiative, deal with the public criminal reports made about this type of attacks by means of its the Special Prosecutors’ Office for Crimes against Journalists

To demand that the Special Prosecutors’ Office for Crimes against Journalists reexamine all cases of journalists killed or missing in the country, take them under its jurisdiction, investigate them and report on every one of the cases in a clear and serious fashion, in order to fulfill its mission of doing justice and ensure that does not contribute to impunity

To request that Secretary of State fulfill all the commitments made before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) regarding the cases of Héctor Félix Miranda and Manuel Oropeza.        

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