17 February 2009

IAPA condemns murder of Mexican journalist

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Miami (February 17, 2009)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today voiced its outrage at the murder of a news photographer and attack on a reporter that took place last Friday in the town of Iguala in the Mexican state of Guerrero. The organization has appealed to officials to hold a quick, thorough and convincing investigation.
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Miami (February 17, 2009)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today voiced its outrage at the murder of a news photographer and attack on a reporter that took place last Friday in the town of Iguala in the Mexican state of Guerrero. The organization has appealed to officials to hold a quick, thorough and convincing investigation.

Photographer Jean Paul Ibarra Ramírez from the newspaper El Correo was killed around 10:00 p.m. He was on his motorcycle on his way to cover a traffic accident with passenger reporter Yenny Yuliana Marchán Arroyo from the newspaper Diario 21 when another motorcycle approached, one of its riders firing a 45 caliber handgun at them. The motives for the attack were not immediately known.

IAPA President Enrique Santos Calderón, editor of the Bogotá, Colombia, newspaper El Tiempo, expressed his sympathy to the colleagues of the two journalists and urged the local authorities to “act with urgency and investigate thoroughly every single violent act against the press. In order to stop this violence what is needed is to draw flawless conclusions, discover what the motives are and bring both those who carry out the crimes and those behind them to justice.”

Ibarra, 33, was shot in the shoulder and chest and after losing control of his motorcycle and falling to the ground was given the coup de grace. Marchán, 22, who received several gunshot wounds to the legs, was in critical condition. The two journalists covered security and justice topics.

The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor and executive vice president of the San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio, Texas, declared, “The widespread violence unleashed largely by groups operating outside the law also affects journalists and news media who, in order to ensure their own safety and ability to carry on their work, sometimes resort to self-censorship with the result that limited information reaches the people.”

In earlier incidents in Mexico this year the IAPA reported that the home of the editor of the newspaper Debate in Guasave, Sinaloa state was shot up, Molotov cocktails were launched at the home of the editor of the weekly El Correo de Oaxaca in Oaxaca, and shots were fired and hand grenades thrown at the building of Televisa television channel in Monterrey, Nuevo León state.      

 

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