Miami (January 23, 2009).- An international mission of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) will visit Nicaragua from this Sunday to next Tuesday (January 25-27) to look into developments concerning freedom of the press and free speech in the Central American country.
The delegation, headed by the organization’s president, Enrique Santos Calderón, is acting on a decision taken at the IAPA’s General Assembly in Madrid, Spain, last October to conduct an on-site investigation into complaints it had received about press freedom abuses.
While the IAPA has not yet received a response to its request for a meeting sent to the office of Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, Santos Calderón said, “We trust that we will be able to speak with the president to hear his views and ask him about some situations which from our perspective have thrown a shadow over freedom of the press in the region.”
As customary for this type of visit the delegation will meet with senior officials of the branches of government, political leaders, representatives of civic and human rights associations, and journalists and news media executives.
Accompanying Santos Calderón, editor of the Bogotá, Colombia, newspaper El Tiempo, will be IAPA 2nd Vice President Gonzalo Marroquín, editor of Prensa Libre of Guatemala City, Guatemala; Robert Rivard, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, editor and executive vice president of the San Antonio Express News, San Antonio, Texas; Jorge Canahuati, chairman of the International Affairs Committee, editor of La Prensa, San Pedro Sula, Honduras; José Roberto Dutriz, regional vice chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, editor of La Prensa Gráfica, San Salvador, El Salvador; Ed McCullough, regional editor of Latin America of The Associated Press, United States; Executive Director Julio E. Muñoz, and Press Freedom Director Ricardo Trotti.
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