Impunity / Peru

WHEREAS on May 26, 2010 in Administrative Resolution No. 187-2010-CE-PJ of the Judicial branch of government’s Executive Council the powers of the National Criminal Court and of the Lima Provincial Courts were increased to enable them to hear cases of murder, serious injury, kidnapping and extortion committed against journalists in the course of their work WHEREAS on November 24, 2010 in Peruvian Attorney General’s Office Resolution No. 1956-2010-MP-FN the powers of the National Criminal High Court and the Lima provincial criminal courts were increased to enable them to hear cases of murder, serious injury, kidnapping and extortion committed against journalists in the course of their work WHEREAS in April 2012 the defense counsel of journalist Pedro Flores Silva, murdered on September 7, 2011 when he was working for Canal 6 de Televisión TV channel in Casma, Ancash province, requested, under terms of Peruvian Attorney General’s Office Resolution No. 1956-2010-MP-FN, that a Lima provincial criminal court hear the case and several months later the request was accepted and in December 2012 public prosecutor Fanny Escajadillo of the Lima Provincial Public Prosecutor’s Office took up the case and continued with the investigations, and in early January 2013 Escajadillo asked the coordinator of the Provincial Public Prosecutor’s Offices, Víctor Cubas Villanueva, if she had powers to deal with the case, which to date has not been resolved, thereby stalling investigations WHEREAS the perpetrators of the murder of journalist Alberto Rivera Fernández, committed in Pucallpa on October 21, 2004 while he was working at Frecuencia Oriental de Pucallpa radio station, were convicted but the alleged masterminds were not and in an oral hearing against them numerous irregularities were reported, for which reason the hearing was annulled three times by the Supreme Court, which ordered that a new oral hearing be held WHEREAS in the case of the Rivera Fernández murder, the Lima Higher Court Third Criminal Tribunal for Freed Defendants acquitted former Coronel Portillo, provincial mayor Luis Valdez Villacorta and dismissed Ucayalli Higher Court judge Solio Ramírez, despite new evidence and testimonies presented by the defense lawyer of Rivera Fernández’ family, while the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the journalist’s defense counsel appealed, the case going, on September 20, 2012, to the Supreme Court’s Transitory Criminal Tribunal, and then on October 5 it was forwarded the Public Prosecutor’s Office headed by prosecutor Pablo Sánchez for it to give its opinion on the matter, which so far has not happened WHEREAS on May 12, 2012 in the Hualmay district in the Huaura zone of Lima province the remains were found of journalist Pedro Yauri, who had gone missing 18 years earlier WHEREAS the case of journalist Yauri was added to the investigation into crimes in Barrios Altos and El Santa committed by the Colina Detachment and which on September 24 the Inter-American Human Rights Court declared to be incompatible with commitments made by Peru on ratifying the American Convention on Human Rights, the ruling of the Supreme Court’s Permanent Criminal Tribunal which reduced the Colina group’s penalties, for which on September 27, 2012 the Supreme Court overturned this sentence, which the Court’s Permanent Criminal Tribunal will now to have resolve 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 IAPA MIDYEAR MEETING RESOLVES to ask the Attorney General of Peru, Dr. José Peláez Bardales, that within the limits set by law, he take the appropriate action with the objective that a Lima provincial public prosecutor’s office promptly investigate the murder of journalist Pedro Flores Silva, with the aim of identifying those allegedly responsible for said crime and that in a timely manner they be denounced before the judiciary, so that this case be later heard by a Lima Provincial Court, in line with Administrative Resolution No. 187-2010-CE-PJ to ask the Criminal Higher Court’s Public Prosecutor’s Office to as soon as possible issue its opinion regarding the murder of journalist Rivera, and ask the Supreme Court’s Transitory Criminal Tribunal to, within the framework of what the law indicates, resolve this case with impartiality and objectivity, with the objective that the masterminds of this murder be duly punished to ask the Supreme Court’s Permanent Criminal Tribunal to promptly solve the murder of journalist Pedro Yauri and punish those responsible for this crime.