IAPA, AMC Conference in Honduras
Miami (August 7, 2012)—Honduras President Porfirio Lobo, together with ministers and officials of his cabinet, Congress Speaker Juan Orlando Hernández and other federal lawmakers, will take part in the conference “Security, Protection and Solidarity for Freedom of Expression” organized by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the Honduras Association of News Media (AMC) August 9-10 in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.
The objective sought by the organizations is to discuss and seek consensus on reforms of public policies to combat attacks on the press and the impunity surrounding crimes against journalists in Honduras, where violence has claimed the lives of 18 members of the press since 2009.
The event will begin on August 9 at 2:30 p.m. with a keynote speech by Julieta Castellanos, rector of the Autonomous National University of Honduras, whose personal case – the loss of a university student son due to the violence of last year – represented a tipping point regarding public security in her country.
The IAPA has also called upon Mexico’s Special Prosecutor for Dealing With Crimes Against Freedom of Expression, Laura Borbolla, the head of Colombia’s National Protection Unit, Andrés Villamizar, and Peruvian Supreme Court Justice Duberlí Apolinar Rodríguez to refer to the measures adopted in their countries, which could be a source of consultation and inspiration to pursue reforms to public policies in Honduras.
Representing the IAPA will be, among others, its president, Milton Coleman, senior editor of The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.; the chairman of its Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gustavo Mohme, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, and that committee’s vice chairman, Roberto Rock, editorial director of Mexico’s El Universal.
Also invited to the conference are the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Promotion and Protection of Freedom of Expression and Opinion, Frank La Rue, and the U.N.’s senior public information official, Suzanne Bilello, to expound on the alternatives that exist on an international level for protection of journalists, and investigation and prosecution of offenses against freedom of expression.
The free-of-charge conference, to be held at the Real Intercontinental Tegucigalpa Hotel, has the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Open Society Foundations, UNESCO, and Dromeinter, S.A., Gildan, Honduras companies, and members of the IAPA and AMC.
To ensure your participation it is recommended that you register online at http://impunidad.con/conf_honduras.php. Also go to the conference Web site, http://www.sipiapa.org/v4/conferencia2.php?idioma=sp.
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.
