Impunity - Mexico IV

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CONSIDERING that in March 2004, the editorial director of El Mañana of Nuevo Laredo (Tamaulipas), Roberto Javier Mora García, was murdered, and state authorities have asserted that he was killed because of personal motives; although one of the two men allegedly responsible for the crime was killed in jail, and there exist inconsistencies and contradictions in the investigations and proof obtained by the Attorney General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas, resulting in many doubts concerning the crime, and yet the case appears to have been archived because investigations have not been conducted in depth CONSIDERING that in August 2004, journalist Francisco Arratia Saldierna was severely tortured and died as a result of his injuries in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and that some weeks later, on September 24, Raúl Castelán Cruz, apparently a member of the Gulf cartel and a former military man, was sent to trial as one of the alleged accomplices of the murderers CONSIDERING that Castelán Cruz confessed that crime was motivated by the contents of a column that Arratia Saldierna published in several state media CONSIDERING that 19 months have passed and no one else has been arrested in connection with the crime, and the Attorney General´s office of the state of Tamaulipas has not demonstrated any advances in the investigation CONSIDERING that in September 2004, the Mexican Attorney General´s office put under his jurisdiction only the investigations connected with federal offenses presumably committed by Castelán Cruz (carrying firearms of restricted use) and not the investigations concerning the murder of Francisco Arratia Saldierna, which remained under state jurisdiction CONSIDERING that in April 2005, the journalist Guadalupe García Escamilla, host of the radio program ”Punto Rojo” on station XHNOE-91 of Nuevo Laredo (Tamaulipas), was murdered by a man waiting for her outside the radio station, and that months prior to her murder, she had received many threats, and that up until now the Mexican Attorney General´s office has not shown any sign of advancing its investigations CONSIDERING that radio announcer Ramiro Téllez Contreras was murdered on March 10, as he was leaving his house to go to radio station EXA-FM in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, and that the radio personality, who was also coordinator of emergency services for the municipal police, did not survive the gunfire shot by at least three unknown assailants and that the Attorney General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas has begun to investigate CONSIDERING that 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 insist that the Attorney General´s office of the state of Tamaulipas deepen its investigations concerning the murder of the editorial director of El Mañana of Nuevo Laredo, Roberto Javier Mora García, so that the guilty parties can be arrested and that no doubt be left about the crime´s motives, and that a public report be rendered to clear up doubts and apparent contradictions in the case to exhort the Special Prosecutor in Charge of Crimes Against Journalists in the federal Attorney General´s office to revise the case of Roberto Mora García and to bring the case under his jurisdiction, considering the contradictions in the investigations carried out by the Attorney General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas and the lack of confidence that exists concerning these local authorities to demand that the Attorney General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas advance in the investigations into the murder of Francisco Arratia Saldierna in order to arrest and bring to trial the responsible parties, both the gunmen and the masterminds behind the murder to ask the Special Prosecutor in Charge of Crimes Against Journalists in the federal Attorney General´s office to resolve the case of the murder of the journalist Guadalupe García Escamilla, to arrest those responsible for the crime and to bring them to trial, and to present a report in which the motives for her murder are spelled out concretely to demand that the Attorney General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas clarify the murder of radio announcer Ramiro Téllez Conteras, arrest those responsible and present a public report indicating the motives for the crime.

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