Impunity - Mexico IV

WHEREAS the IAPA met in September 2007 with Senate Speaker Santiago Creel and later with Gerardo Priego, chairman of the Chamber of Deputies’ Special Committee to Monitor Assaults on Journalists and the Media, and both of them separately agreed to support the proposed constitutional amendment to establish federal jurisdiction over grave violations of individual rights, so that cases involving violations of freedom of information may be investigated by the Federal Office of the Attorney General, as the IAPA has been requesting since 1997 of Presidents Vicente Fox and Ernesto Zedillo WHEREAS the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Journalists in the Federal Office of the Attorney General still lacks the legal authority and the human and technical resources it needs to thoroughly investigate cases, and therefore its work is limited and has not mitigated the pressures, threats and killings to which journalists in Mexico are subjected, nor has it built confidence in the authorities WHEREAS Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec says “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 GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to urge Mexican legislators that, as soon as the bill to establish federal jurisdiction is introduced, they pass the reforms that will allow federal authorities to take charge of investigations into grave violations of human rights, such as those involving freedom of information to urge President Felipe Calderón and Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora to provide greater technical and human resources to the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Journalists and to review and amend its legal status.