It also protests attack on Mexican newspaper
Miami (November 15, 2011)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed concern for the health of Leocenis García, publisher of the Venezuelan weekly newspaper Sexto Poder, who has been on a hunger strike for the past six days at the Caracas headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) political police. García is requesting the upholding of due legal processes and his release during court proceedings.
García turned himself in to face charges of “public instigation to hatred, defamation of a public official, and a gender-based public violation” due to the August 21 publication in Sexto Poder of a satirical photo montage mocking several women who hold senior positions in President Hugo Chávez’s administration. García has remained in preventive custody since August 30 at the offices of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service.
IAPA President Milton Coleman, senior editor of The Washington Post, Washington, DC, said “It is unfortunate that a journalist must go on hunger strike to highlight the right to express opinions about public officials that hold public office thanks to the People, including journalists, who might have voted for them.”
Coleman added that “cases like the one involving Sexto Poder lead to self-censorship and deprive citizens from expressing their opinions about the individuals chosen to represent them in a democracy. It should be left to the People and the press, not to the government, to decide when opinions about government officials exceed the limit of what is appropriate.”
Concurrently, the chairman of IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gustavo Mohme, urged Venezuelan authorities “to release journalist Leocenis García while legal proceedings are under way.” Mohme, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, also called for a “due legal process that avoids politically motivated reprisals, such as the ones that apparently underlay this case.”
Mexico
The IAPA also condemned the armed attack on the offices of the newspaper El Siglo de Torreón in Coahuila state that occurred early today.
Executives of the newspaper told the IAPA that at around 2:40 a.m., three people riding two automobiles parked their vehicles outside the building’s main door, set fire to one of cars, and began shooting at the building. No injuries were reported.
This was the third attack on the newspaper chain El Siglo. In 2009, El Siglo de Torreón and El Siglo de Durango plants were also shot at, causing damage and panic.
The La Laguna region, comprised by the states of Coahuila and Durango, has been ravaged by organized crime, leading to self-censorship due to attacks on media outlets, and threats, abduction and the murder of journalists.
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. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
