MIAMI, Florida (February 24, 2009)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today called on newspaper readers throughout the Americas to add their signature to an open letter to Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, urging him to take action to have the April 26, 1991 murder of journalist Santiago Leguizamón finally solved.
Hired gunmen shot Leguizamón, a radio commentator in Pedro Juan Caballero, Amambay province, at point-blank range in revenge for his nonstop exposure of corruption, smuggling, drug trafficking and money laundering on the Paraguay-Brazil border. The investigation into the crime has suffered a number of setbacks, with judges and prosecutors receiving threats and evidence and witnesses disappearing. This means that the crime remains unpunished, 18 years after it was committed.
The IAPA is conducting a hemisphere-wide campaign titled “Let’s Put an End to Impunity” so that those who have committed more than 300 crimes against journalists or been involved in the disappearance of dozens of others in the last 20 years should not continue to go free. The organization has on a number of occasions gone before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to denounce cases of such unpunished crimes.
As part of the campaign interactive ads appear in some 400 print media outlets around the hemisphere, inviting the public to go to the Web site www.impunidad.com and sign a letter posted there, in this case to President Lugo, calling for official action. The initiative is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
