PERU II

PERU-II WHEREAS Canal 2’s independent and free editorial line has been affected, since 1997, by judicial action as a consequence of the unconstitutional withdrawal of the Peruvian citizenship of its majority owner, businessman Baruch Ivcher WHEREAS powerful political authorities intensified the police and judicial pressures to neutralize Ivcher’s efforts to seek justice in different fora and to prevent his wife and daughter from assuming the administration of Canal 2 after their rights to do so were upheld by civil court judges WHEREAS the national police and Interpol still hold court-ordered arrest warrants for Ivcher and his family, as evidenced by his brief detention in June at Warsaw’s airport WHEREAS within the framework of the OAS-promoted strengthening of Peruvian democratic institutions an agenda was drawn up, with one of its aims being the achievement of press freedom, including a resolution of the case of Baruch Ivcher’s loss of citizenship and the seizure of the administration and property of Canal 2 WHEREAS the government took its first step to resolve the case with a proposed executive decree aimed at normalizing the citizenship documents of Canal 2’s majority owner WHEREAS that the Inter-American Human Rights Court of the Organization of American States next month will hear the Baruch Ivcher case WHEREAS Principle 1 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states that “no people or society can be free without freedom of expression and of the press; the exercise of this freedom is not something authorities grant, it is an inalienable,” Principle 2 states that “every person has the right to seek and receive information, express opinions and disseminate them freely; no one may restrict or deny these rights,” Principle 5 states that “prior censorship, restrictions on the circulation of the media or dissemination of their reports, forced publication of information, the imposition of obstacles to the free flow of news, and restrictions on the activities and movements of journalists directly contradict freedom of the press,” Principle 10 states that “no news medium nor journalist may be punished for publishing the truth or criticizing or denouncing the government” THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to call on President Alberto Fujimori to quickly, fully and efficiently resolve the case of Canal 2, the first step of which should be revoking the July 1997 Directorial Resolution stripping Baruch Ivcher of his Peruvian citizenship to call on the Peruvian judiciary, in line with the revocation of the aforementioned directorial resolution, to return the administration of Canal 2 to its legitimate majority shareholder, Baruch Ivcher, and that judges of proven impartiality and probity handle any eventual revisions – or nullification, if merited – of the criminal legal actions brought against him, his family and collaborators to send a representative of the IAPA to the session of the Inter-American Human Rights Court to inform it of the IAPA’s position on the matter.