Impunity / Peru

WHEREAS on May 9, 2012 the Criminal Investigation Section of Peru’s National Police (SEINCRI) delivered to the Casma District Attorney’s Office police report No. 038-2011 that charges Comandante District Mayor Noel Marco Rivera Huerta with being the alleged mastermind of the murder of journalist Pedro Flores Silva of Casma, Ancash province, television station Canal 6 WHEREAS on May 26, 2010 the Judiciary’s Executive Council increased the jurisdictional capacity of the National Prosecutor´s Office and the National Tribunal hear cases of homicide, murder, serious injury, kidnapping and extortion committed against journalists in the course of their work and in November of that same year the competency of other district attorney’s offices for them to deal with proceedings for those same crimes committed against journalists WHEREAS under terms of the Resolution of the Peruvian Attorney General’s Office No. 1956-2010-MP-FN the investigation of the murder of journalist Pedro Flores Silva has been transferred to a Lima super-provincial district attorney’s office WHEREAS on April 21, 2004 journalist Alberto Rivera Fernández, host of the program “Transaprencia” broadcast by radio station Frecuencia Oriental in Pucallpa was murdered WHEREAS the perpetrators were convicted of the crime against Rivera, but not the alleged masterminds, and in the oral hearing against these latter defendants numerous irregularities were raised, for which reason the trial was annulled on three occasions by the Supreme Court, which ordered a new oral hearing; however, on May 10 the Lima High Court’s Third Criminal Tribunal for Accused Out on Bail acquitted the former provincial mayor of Coronel Portillo, Luis Valdez Villacorta, and the dismissed judge of the Ucayali High Court, Solio Ramírez, despite new evidence and testimony given by the defense attorneys of the radio reporter’s family WHEREAS on May 12, 2012 in Hualmay district, Huaura province, Lima department, the body of journalist Pedro Yauri, who went missing 18 years ago, was discovered WHEREAS the Yauyi case was added to the investigation of crimes in Barrios Altos and El Santa being carried out by the Colina task force and on September 24 the Inter-American Human Rights Court considered it to be incompatible with the commitments made by Peru on ratifying the American Convention on Human Rights, and with the ruling of the Permanent Criminal Court that reduced the sentences of the Colina group and for this reason on September 27, 2012 the Supreme Court annulled this sentence, the case having to be heard again by another court WHEREAS Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states “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 68th IAPA GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLVES to ask the Lima super-provincial district attorney’s office, in line with the Resolution of the Peruvian Attorney General’s Office No. 1956-2010-MP-FN to investigate the murder of journalist Pedro Flores Silva and act with due speed and diligence with the objective of identifying those allegedly responsible for the crime and at the earliest opportunity denounce them before the judiciary, with the aim that this case be later heard by a Lima Super-Provincial Tribunal in accordance with Administrative Resolution No. 187-2010-CE-PJ to ask the Supreme Court’s Criminal Tribunal to hear the appeal for nullification presented by the District Attorney’s Office and the family of journalist Rivera which within the framework signified by law would solve the case impartially and objectively, with the purpose of having the masterminds of this crime duly punished to ask the Supreme Court’s Criminal Tribunal that will hear the case of journalist Pedro Yauyi to hand down due punishment of those responsible for such a horrendous crime.