MIAMI, Florida (January 28, 2009)—Having exhausted all legal resources in the countries concerned the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), in unison with the international community, today called the attention of the office of the executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to the details it has submitted concerning cases of the murder of journalists, with the intent that this body would intercede with the respective governments for justice to be done.
The note sent to IACHR Executive Secretary Santiago Cantón and signed by hundreds of newspaper readers from throughout the Americas stresses the wish to see an end to the impunity surrounding the murder of journalists Juan Carlos Encina and Carlos Quispe of Bolivia and Reinaldo Coutinho da Silva and Luiz Octávio Monteiro of Brazil.
The IAPA, through a hemisphere-wide interactive campaign publicized by more than 400 newspapers in the region, is determined to make the general public in the Americas aware of the vital importance of freedom of expression and ending impunity in crimes committed against news men and women.
The organization’s Anti-Impunity Project includes the training of editors and reporters in personal safety and ethics in the practice of journalism and the monitoring of the state of press freedom in the Western Hemisphere. The campaign is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
