Mexico

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Resolution of the 62nd General Assembly Mexico City, Mexico September 29 – October 3, 2006 WHEREAS Rafael Ortiz Martínez, a reporter for the daily El Zócalo of Monclova and host of a morning radio news show run by the same company, disappeared in the early morning of July 8, 2006; his whereabouts are still unknown, and he is feared dead WHEREAS the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Coahuila began an investigation but has nothing to show for it nearly three months after the disappearance of Ortiz Martínez; the federal Office of the Attorney General opened a file on the case but has not produced solid results either; and none of the authorities have shown interest in the case WHEREAS on August 9 the body of Enrique Perea Quintanilla, editor of the magazine Dos Caras, Una Verdad in the city of Chihuahua, was found with two bullet wounds and extensive signs of torture, and the state government admitted that the murder may be linked to organized crime WHEREAS several weeks later, the investigation into the murder of Perea Quintanilla was taken over by the federal Office of the Attorney General, which followed several leads, all of them related to bands of drug traffickers in the region; so far no information has been released about the culprits WHEREAS radio host Ramiro Téllez Contreras, who was also the emergency services coordinator for the city police, was shot and murdered by at least three unknown assailants as he left home for station EXA-FM in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas on March 10, 2006; the Attorney General’s Office of Tamaulipas state opened the investigation but has yet to announce any progress, and the reasons behind the murder remain unknown WHEREAS since August in the city of Oaxaca, media outlets and journalists have been under attack from state authorities, former officials and political groups who have physically assaulted reporters and threatened them with weapons; the buildings have been besieged on several occasions, and groups protesting the state government have forcibly taken over several radio stations; and masked individuals opened fire on the facilities of the state-run Corporación Oaxaqueña de Radio y Televisión WHEREAS on August 9 two armed men took over the offices of the daily Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca and fired shots, injuring two of the newspaper’s vendors, Isabel Cruz and Adrián Cervantes; this is one of many attacks on the newspaper since 2005, none of which have been investigated by the proper authorities WHEREAS reporters Manuel Acuña López, Jaime Vargas Chable and Víctor Lara Martínez of the newspaper Por Esto! in Yucatán state have been attacked in various incidents since October of last year; Acuña López and Vargas Chable were attacked with Molotov cocktails, while Lara Martínez was jailed for several hours without cause, which he blamed on Yucatán Governor Patricio Patrón Laviada and other members of his administration; and in none of these cases has the Attorney General’s Office of Yucatán state arrested the culprits WHEREAS on August 23 and September 1, unknown assailants threw hand grenades at the offices of Por Esto! in the cities of Mérida, Yucatán and Cancún, Quintana Roo, injuring four employees and causing minor property damage; newspaper executives said the assault was carried out by members of organized crime groups with the complicity of certain state authorities; and though the federal Office of the Attorney General took over the investigation, no progress has been reported WHEREAS on September 6 of this year in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, an armed commando group shot at two vehicles carrying journalist Eugenia Cícero Rivera of the evening newspaper PM and photographers Aurelio Suárez Núñez (also of PM) and Jaime Murrieta Briones (of the newspaper El Diario) WHEREAS Article 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states: “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 GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to demand that the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Coahuila renounce its jurisdiction over the investigation into the disappearance of Rafael Ortiz Martínez, a reporter for the newspaper and radio station owned by the Zócalo Group of Monclova, Coahuila, and that it hand over the case to the federal Office of the Attorney General, in view of the apparent involvement of drug traffickers from the region to demand that the Special Unit for Crimes Against Journalists of the federal Office of the Attorney General take over the investigation into the disappearance of journalist Rafael Ortiz Martínez in view of the lack of progress after nearly three months, the lack of confidence in the state authorities, and the apparent involvement of drug traffickers to ask the federal Office of the Attorney General to pursue and expedite the investigation into the murder of Enrique Perea Quintanilla, editor of the magazine Dos Caras, Una Verdad of Chihuahua to urge the Attorney General’s Office of Tamaulipas state to properly investigate the murder of radio host Ramiro Téllez Contreras to demand that the Oaxaca state government and the federal government guarantee the safety of all journalists in the city of Oaxaca so that they are no longer subjected to assaults and threats from protestors and armed groups to urge the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Oaxaca to renounce its jurisdiction over the investigation into the assaults on radio and newspaper journalists and facilities, in order to make the investigation more transparent to urge the Special Unit for Crimes Against Journalists of the federal Office of the Attorney General to take over the investigation into the threats and assaults against journalists in Oaxaca in recent months, as well as attacks and takeovers at radio facilities by protestors and at the newspaper Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca by authorities and unknown groups to demand that the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Yucatán announce the results of its investigation into the assaults on journalists of the daily Por Esto! to press the federal Office of the Attorney General to announce the results of its investigation into the attacks on the facilities of the newspaper Por Esto! in Quintana Roo and Yucatán, in order to keep these crimes from going unpunished and encouraging similar attacks to urge the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Chihuahua to continue pursuing the investigation into the attacks on journalist Eugenia Cícero Rivera and photographers Aurelio Suárez Núñez and Jaime Murrieta Briones, and that all culprits be prosecuted.

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