Impunity - Peru

WHEREAS on April 21, 2004 Alberto Rivera Fernández, host of the program “Transparencia” on radio station Frecuencia Oriental of Pucallpa, was killed WHEREAS while those who committed the crime were convicted, the Supreme Court overturned the acquittal of the alleged masterminds, and therefore a decision is pending from the criminal branch of the Supreme Court concerning a request to transfer the case to the jurisdiction of the court that will finally sentence them WHEREAS one of those accused of being behind the killing, the former mayor of Coronel Portillo, Luis Valdéz Villacorta, is in a maximum security prison in Lima awaiting trial on money laundering charges WHEREAS Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec says, “Freedom 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. Such acts must be investigated promptly and punished harshly THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to ask the chief of the judiciary Javier Villa Stein and the judges of the criminal branch of the Supreme Court to support the petition to transfer case of the killing of journalist Alberto Rivera Fernández from the Superior Court in Ucayali to one in Lima because it is not possible to guarantee due process in Ucayali to urge the chief of the judiciary Javier Villa Stein to consider setting up the mechanisms necessary to establish a special branch to guarantee due process in crimes against press freedom as proposed by his predecessor and current chief judge Francisco Távara during the Hemispheric Conference on the Judiciary the Press, Impunity in Santo Domingo in July 2007.