Matt Sanders - Opening Ceremony of the Midyear Meeting

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Opening Ceremony of the Midyear Meeting

Remarks by the IAPA President, Matt Sanders

Friday, March 31, 6:30 p.m.

Welcome Cocktail

Atrium Plaza, Antigua, Guatemala

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Opening Ceremony of the Midyear Meeting

Remarks by the IAPA President, Matt Sanders

Friday, March 31, 6:30 p.m.

Welcome Cocktail

Atrium Plaza, Antigua, Guatemala

Good evening, President Jimmy Morales; mayor of Antigua, Susana Asencio; Rolando Archila and the Host Committee; esteemed officials who have joined us; and our dear IAPA colleagues. We have gathered here in this beautiful, historic city this afternoon to mark the official opening of our midyear meeting. Guatemala has already served as the backdrop for multiple gatherings of the IAPA. Twenty years ago in Guatemala City, we held one of the IAPA's most significant conferences on killings of journalists and impunity.

In Guatemala we investigated the killings of Jorge Carpio Nicolle and Irma Flaquer Azurdia, and we secured a number of commitments from the government in each of these cases. Twenty years later, on August 28 of this year, we will have an important date at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of the murder of Colombian journalist Nelson Carvajal. This will be the first time that a killing of a journalist will be reviewed by the inter-American court, and we are confident that it will set a precedent for future cases.

Guatemala has shown its willingness in these years to fulfill its commitments in cases of unpunished crimes against journalists, but we believe that an even greater effort is needed, not only for the cases to which press organizations are calling attention, but for all 37 killings that the IAPA has documented in Guatemala since 1987.

Mister President, we thank you for your presence here with us, and we particularly appreciate that you have agreed to endorse the Declaration of Chapultepec, a document that you had already signed as a presidential candidate on August 6, 2015.

As you know, the Declaration of Chapultepec contains 10 principles summarizing the thoughts and ideas surrounding freedom of expression and freedom of the press, as well as the commitment to upholding these freedoms. It is, therefore, a commitment to the precepts of access to public information, transparency, the fight against impunity, and respect for fundamental rights.

The first principle of the Declaration of Chapultepec reminds us of the inalienable right of persons to seek out and receive information and to freely express and disseminate opinions, as well as the obligation of the authorities to ensure and promote these freedoms, with the understanding that there can be no democracy without press freedom.

That is precisely what our gatherings are all about: identifying the challenges facing the press and identifying violations of freedom of expression and press freedom. We also strive to develop tools to help promote these freedoms, such as the SipAlert mechanism, opportunities for life insurance for journalists, and the search for technology partners to help us deal with new challenges, such as Google's Project Shield.

Our gatherings help to keep the flame of freedom alive, even in my country, where we now face greater tension between the president and the press — or in Venezuela, Honduras, or Ecuador, and all other countries in the region — because beyond any business interests, our commitment is to defending press freedom as a question of the public's right to know, and to preventing actions that would suppress this fundamental human right, as set forth in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Thank you.

Mr. President, the floor is yours.

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