Impunity - Mexico II

WHEREAS in April 1998, Héctor Félix Miranda, “Felix the Cat,” editor and columnist of the weekly Zeta in Baja California, was murdered, and that in spite of evidence, state officials neglected to investigate the existence of a mastermind of the murder WHEREAS in May 2004, representatives of the state of Baja California and the Mexican government signed an agreement with the Inter American Press Association under the auspices of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to create a working group to revise the criminal dossier for the case WHEREAS three work sessions have been held, and the Attorney General of Baja California presented to the IAPA in September 2005 his preliminary technical and legal observations on the dossiers concerning the murder of Héctor Félix Miranda and the concealment of one of the accomplices in the murder, in which the Attorney General of Baja California concluded that the crime had been prescribed and that it was not possible to conduct further investigations; this, however, not being a definitive position WHEREAS the Mexican State, through its Secretary of Foreign Relations, promised a month later, in October 2005, to send a document to the IAPA for it to revise and present its observations, but the IAPA has not yet received said document WHEREAS in July 1991, journalist Víctor Manuel Oropeza, a columnist for El Díario de Juárez (Chihuahua, Mexico), was murdered and to this date no one has been convicted of the crime WHEREAS after the IAPA and representatives of Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations and the Chihuahua Attorney General´s office in February 2005 revised the dossier concerning the crime, it became evident that previous authorities had not fully investigated the crime, that some evidence had been lost, that the possible motive connected to the journalist´s work had not even been considered and that other hypotheses had been inconclusive WHEREAS since that time, the prosecutor´s office in Chihuahua has reopened the case and furthered all aspects of the investigation, achieving promising results that will permit, after more work, to identify the killers and, perhaps, the masterminds behind the murder; but that, to achieve this, the authorities of the state of Chihuahua need the state´s judicial branch to ensure, within its legal possibilities, that all the necessary inquiries are made and that the Mexican Attorney General hand over all the information he has regarding the case WHEREAS Article 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes: “Freedom of expression and of the press are severely limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping, intimidation, the unjust imprisonment of journalists, the destruction of facilities, violence of any kind and impunity for perpetrators. Such acts must be investigated promptly and punished harshly.” THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to demand that the Attorney General of the state of Baja California fulfill the recommendation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (case number 11,732), accepted by the Mexican State, to investigate in a serious, deep and fair manner all those possibly involved in the murder of columnist Héctor Félix Miranda; and in a similar fashion, to investigate officials that may have impeded obtaining and administering justice in this case to demand that the Mexican State and the Attorney General´s office of Baja California fulfill the agreements signed during the working groups and send, with due haste, the final report on the technical-legal observations on the dossiers concerning the murder of Héctor Félix Miranda to call upon the Attorney General of the state of Baja California not to find the case of Héctor Félix Miranda prescribed, taking into account international legislation that Mexico has ratified, and to get to the bottom of the murder so that it does not continue with impunity to encourage the work of the Attorney General of the state of Chihuahua to resolve the crime against columnist Víctor Manuel Oropeza and to prompt those who are responsible for the inquiries to obtain definitive results by next June, when a new working group is scheduled to meet, and that those results should allow the identification, arrest and trial of the responsible parties, including possible masterminds to insist that the federal Attorney General´s office support and strengthen proceedings presented by Chihuahua authorities to locate and extradite Samuel de la Rosa Reyes, one of the persons presumed responsible for the crime, from the United States to exhort the judicial branch of the state of Chihuahua to keep on supporting, within the framework of Mexican and international legislations, the necessary investigations to resolve the murder of journalist Víctor Manuel Oropeza.