MIAMI, Florida (July 26, 2010)—Amid innumerable irregularities in legal proceedings occurring in Mexico the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), in conjunction with the international community, today asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to convince that country’s authorities to see that justice is done in the case of the death of journalist Francisco Ortiz Franco.
In a note sent to IACHR Executive Secretary Santiago Cantón hundreds of readers of more than 400 printed and online newspapers throughout the Americas added their voice to that of the IAPA in the hope of putting an end to the impunity surrounding the murder of the editor of the weekly newspaper Zeta, committed on June 22, 2004, in Tijuana, Baja California state.
The note adds that given the lack of effectiveness shown by the Mexican government in having this crime solved newspaper readers of the Americas would like the IACHR to issue a resolution that influences the Mexican authorities to solve the crime and bring those guilty of it to justice.
In the last 13 years the IAPA has submitted 27 cases to the IACHR, giving details of the murders of journalists that have not been solved under the justice system of each country concerned. These have included on five occasions the deaths of news men in Mexico, the country most beset by violence in the Western Hemisphere: Alfredo Jiménez Mota, Benjamín Flores, Víctor Manuel Oropeza, Héctor Félix Miranda and Francisco Ortiz Franco.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. The IAPA Impunity Project is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and has the mission of combating violence against journalists and lessening the impunity surrounding the majority of such crimes. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org; http://www.impunidad.com
FUENTE: nota.texto7
