62nd
General Assembly
Mexico City, Mexico
September 29 to October 3, 2006
Camino Real Hotel
Reports and Resolutions
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IMPUNITY-COLOMBIA
Resolution of the Midyear Meeting
Quito, Ecuador
WHEREAS
that the Colombian Attorney General, in response to a February 22 request from
the IAPA, transferred the assignment of the dossier regarding the murder of
the deputy editor of the newspaper La Patria, Orlando Sierra Hernández,
killed on January 30, 2003, from the prosecutor´s office in Manizales
to the Unit on Human Rights in Bogotá, since no advances at all had been
made in the investigation of the masterminds of the murder
WHEREAS
that the Attorney General´s office accepted the IAPA request to participate
in the role of oversight in a friendly agreement to clear up the murder of journalist
Nelson Carvajal Carvajal, who was killed in Pitalito, Huila, on October 16,
1998
WHEREAS
that 34 percent of the cases of murder between 1993 and 2005 involving 55 journalists
killed as a result of their profession remain in the same stage of the initial
gathering of evidence—in some cases for almost 10 years—and that
some cases have merely been filed away or put on hold in a clear demonstration
of impunity
WHEREAS
that in spite of the commitment of the Colombian Attorney General to reactivate
the division that dealt with crimes against journalists and that was handling
15 cases, in the last semester, there was not one single sentence against gunmen
or those masterminding crimes against journalists, maintaining in a state of
impunity the cases, among others, of Jairo Elias Márquez (Armenia Quindío,
November 20 1997), Hernando Rangel Moreno (El Banco, Magdalena, June 10, 1999),
Francisco Castro Menco (Majagual, Sucre, November 8, 1997), Efraín Varela
(Arauca, June 28, 2002) and Gerardo Bedoya (Cali, Valle del Cauca, March 20,
1997), Alfredo Abad Colorado (Florencia, Caquetá, December 13, 2000),
Flavio Bedoya Sarria (Tumaco, Nariño, Abril 27, 2001), Jaime Rengifo
Revero (Maicao, Guajira, April 29, 2003) and Guillermo Bravo Vega (Neiva, Huila,
April 28, 2003)
WHEREAS
that Article 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes: “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 MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE
IAPA RESOLVES
to exhort the Colombian Attorney General that once he receives the dossier for
the murder of the deputy editor of La Patria, Orlando Sierra, in the Unit for
Human Rights in Bogotá, that he will take the necessary steps to discover
and punish the masterminds of this murder, guaranteeing all the technical, human
and economic resources necessary
to emphasize the Attorney
General´s decision to accept the role of oversight in the context of the
friendly agreement that is being reached between the Inter American Press Association
and the Colombian government under the auspices of the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights CIDH to clarify the murder of journalist Nelson Carvajal Carvajal.
 questions
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