Impunity - Paraguay

WHEREAS Curuguaty's acting district attorney Gladys Vallejos has acknowledged that the police did not give the proper attention to the case of Salvador Medina Velázquez, president of Ñemity Comunicaciones and manager of the Ñemity FM community radio station, who was murdered on January 5, 2001 in Capiibary, located in the Department of San Pedro WHEREAS based on complaints filed by relatives, Salvador Medina Velázquez had been threatened frequently because of the radio station's revelations of irregularities in the area, and news provided to his brother, Pablo Medina Velázquez, a correspondent for the newspaper ABC Color of Asunción in Curuguaty, who received death threats on the day of the interment and on other occasions and he and his family had to flee Capiibary when the police protection initially afforded to him at his home was withdrawn WHEREAS the revelations that may have angered some local people had to do with a local crime family and the theft of bolts of valuable timber logged from a forest reserve, and police inaction in investigating the occurrence and immediately apprehending persons suspected of involvement in the crime some of whom are still at large WHEREAS Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes that "[f]reedom of expression and of the press are severely limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping, pressure, intimidation, the unjust imprisonment of journalists, the destruction of facilities, violence of any kind and impunity for perpetrators; [s]uch acts must be investigated promptly and punished harshly" THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to request that the government of Paraguay review the investigation and court case, and look into the conduct of the police to request that the government of Paraguay afford the proper protection to the Medina Velázquez family, making allowance for the fact that Pablo Medina Velázquez continues to work as a journalist at the risk of his own life to request that the government of Paraguay take appropriate steps to apprehend the four suspects still at large.