MIAMI, Florida (March 5, 2019)—An international delegation of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) headed by the organization's president, María Elvira Domínguez, will be in Washington, DC, March 6-8 with the objective of taking up the issue of violations of press freedom and civil rights in Nicaragua.
In addition to Domínguez, of the Cali, Colombia, newspaper El País, the delegation will be made up of former president Edward Seaton, The Manhattan Mercury, Kansas; Roberto Rock, chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, La Silla Rota, Mexico City, Mexico; José Roberto Dutriz, Executive Committee chairman, La Prensa Gráfica, San Salvador, El Salvador; Gabriela Vivanco, Membership Committee chair, La Hora, Quito, Ecuador; Ernesto Kraiselburd, Press Institute president, El Día, La Plata, Argentina, and Executive Director Ricardo Trotti.
Also accompanying the IAPA group as special guest is Carlos Fernando Chamorro, editor of Nicaraguan media Confidencial and Esta Semana, currently in exile in Costa Rica.
The IAPA and the institution Inter-American Dialogue (IAD) on Wednesday (March 6) will be celebrating at their Washington headquarters the "Forum on Freedom of Expression and Democracy in Nicaragua." This discussion panel will be integrated by president María Elvira Domínguez, journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro and the Special Rapporteur for the Freedom of Expression of the IACHR, Edison Lanza.
The IAPA delegation will in addition be holding meetings with the head of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, José Miguel Vivanco, with staff of the foreign policy office of Florida Senator Marco Rubio and with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro.
On Thursday (March 7) the IAPA will hold meetings with officials of the State Department and other government dependencies.
Domínguez and Rock will represent the organization in panel discussions on anti-media rhetoric and fake news in a conference titled "Media and Democracy in the Americas II", sponsored by Fundamedios USA (Ecuador), OAS, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Reporters Without Borders (RWB), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), Pan-American Development Foundation, and the IAPA.
On Friday, International Women's Day, the IAPA president will take part in a panel discussion on safety of women journalists within the framework of the presentation of the IACHR report "Women Journalists: Discrimination and Violence" at George Washington University. For his part, Rock will speak in the "Freedom of Information Day" conference organized by the Freedom Forum Instute, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), the American Society of News Editors at the Knight Conference Center in the Newseum.
The mission to Washington, DC, complies with the IAPA commitment to keep on the international public agenda the serious situation that freedom of expression and of the press is undergoing, following a visit to Managua in August 2018.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida.
