02 September 2011

IAPA urges nothing be ruled out in investigation into murder of two journalists

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The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed repudiation of the murder in Mexico of women journalists Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocío González Trápaga and called on officials not to discard any theory as to the motive, despite the fact that it was thought initially that it might have been a common crime or an anti-feminist act.
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The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed repudiation of the murder in Mexico of women journalists Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocío González Trápaga and called on officials not to discard any theory as to the motive, despite the fact that it was thought initially that it might have been a common crime or an anti-feminist act. “We strongly condemn these events and urge the authorities not to discard any theory,” IAPA President Gonzalo Marroquín, president of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Siglo 21, said. “We have gathered sufficient experience in these last few years to feel that there should be no pre-judgment of any action against a journalist until exhaustive and conclusive investigations are carried out.” Yarce Viveros was public relations director of the magazine Contralínea. González Trápaga was a freelance reporter, she worked for 20 years in Televisa television and was also owner of a foreign exchange bureau at the Mexico City international airport. The two were about to launch together a business publication. Contralínea editor Miguel Badillo said they had not been investigating any delicate matter for the magazine and he was unaware whether they had received any threats. The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, said he was “greatly upset by this third murder of journalists in recent days” – a reference to the Hemisphere Conference that the IAPA held in Mexico last week to come up with strategies to combat violence against members of the press and lack of punishment for such crimes. The two journalists, both aged 48, were last seen on Wednesday evening. Their nude bodies, tied hand and foot, a cord around the necks, with one shot wound each, both covered with a tarpaulin, were discovered yesterday morning in a park in the town of El Mirador in the Federal District. Their families, who had reported their disappearance, identified the victims. The Federal District Attorney General’s Office indicated the murder could have been committed by a woman hater. The Special Prosecutor’s Office for Dealing With Offenses Against Freedom of Expression, an agency of the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, announced that it has opened a case file to aid the Federal District investigators. Six other journalists have been murdered in Mexico so far this year – Humberto Millán Salazar of Sinaloa; Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, Miguel Ángel López Velasco and Noel López Olguín of Veracruz, and Luis Emmanuel Ruiz Castillo and technical engineer Rodolfo Ochoa Moreno of Coahuila. In addition, the whereabouts remain unknown of Marco Antonio López of Guerrero, who disappeared in June.

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