MIAMI, Florida (May 20, 2011)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed outrage at a new murder of a journalist, committed yesterday in a rural area of Guatemala, warning of “the greater risk that the press faces” in inland parts of countries in the Americas.
According to sources consulted in Guatemala Yansi Roberto Ordóñez Galdámez was shot to death and his body discovered in an automobile. He hosted a show business program on Canal 14, a municipal television station in the southern province of Escuintla. He also was engaged in spicing up parties and was a school teacher.
There were no immediate clear indications of what was the motive for his murder. The theories range from it having been a crime of passion to its being in reprisal for his work as a journalist.
IAPA President Gonzalo Marroquín, president of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Siglo 21, expressed concern at the wave of violence “that continues being waged against journalists, especially all those who live and work in inland areas of countries,” where, he said, “the press is more unprotected and more vulnerable.”
Marroquín called on the provincial and federal authorities to investigate this case promptly.
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.
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