Mexico

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WHEREAS In the states of Coahila, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua and Veracruz there reigns a serious and worrisome state of concern over attacks, abductions, and threats against journalists, media outlets, and users of social networks, and in all cases neither federal nor state authorities have acted; WHEREAS On March 6, a group of unknown persons entered the parking lot of El Diario de Juárez, in Chihuahua, and fired seven times on the building with .45 calibre weapons, and half an hour later a new attack was reported at the facilities of Channel 44 news, also in Ciudad Juárez, which damaged a security shed and part of the building; WHEREAS At the beginning of the year in Coahuila, at least seven employees of media outlets, five of them from El Siglo de Torreón, were abducted for several hours, for the only purpose of the crime organization trying to manipulate the news content disseminated by the companies; WHEREAS In the week of February 25, El Siglo de Torreón received in less than 72 hours, and in full light of day, three gun attacks on its facilities; WHEREAS During January threats were recorded against users of social networks who, in the absence of information in the traditional media about insecurity in Tamaulipas, have used this means to denounce the violence in that area, with no information yet on who was responsible for those threats; WHEREAS Given the conditions of impunity and insecurity that Mexico is living through, it is a concern that threats and attacks are recorded against journalists in which local government workers could be involved, along with certain political or economic groups of different entities, without any authority having investigated those cases and brought those responsible to justice; WHEREAS The IAPA regretted the absence of the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, from the IAPA’s Mid-Year Meeting; 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 MID-YEAR ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES: To demand that authorities investigate criminal acts against journalists in the states of Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, and Veracruz, especially where there have been the most attacks, abductions, and murders recorded against informers in recent years; this means solving those cases up to the point of conviction of those responsible, and dismantling those groups; To urge the governments of the states of Chihuahua and Coahuila to investigate fully the attacks against the facilities of the newspapers El Diario de Juárez and El Siglo de Torreón; To demand that the governments of the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Nayarit investigate and sanction, in an exemplary way, the workers and groups that threaten journalists for carrying out their work; To deploy an IAPA special mission to Mexico at the request of the organization’s local members.

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