62nd
General Assembly
Mexico City, Mexico
September 29 to October 3, 2006
Camino Real Hotel
Reports and Resolutions
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IMPUNITY
MEXICO II
Resolution of the Midyear Meeting
Quito, Ecuador
WHEREAS
in April 1998, Héctor Félix Miranda, “Felix the Cat,”
editor and columnist of the weekly Zeta in Baja California, was murdered, and
that in spite of evidence, state officials neglected to investigate the existence
of a mastermind of the murder
WHEREAS
in May 2004, representatives of the state of Baja California and the Mexican
government signed an agreement with the Inter American Press Association under
the auspices of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to create a working
group to revise the criminal dossier for the case
WHEREAS
three work sessions have been held, and the Attorney General of Baja California
presented to the IAPA in September 2005 his preliminary technical and legal
observations on the dossiers concerning the murder of Héctor Félix
Miranda and the concealment of one of the accomplices in the murder, in which
the Attorney General of Baja California concluded that the crime had been prescribed
and that it was not possible to conduct further investigations; this, however,
not being a definitive position
WHEREAS
the Mexican State, through its Secretary of Foreign Relations, promised a month
later, in October 2005, to send a document to the IAPA for it to revise and
present its observations, but the IAPA has not yet received said document
WHEREAS
in July 1991, journalist Víctor Manuel Oropeza, a columnist for El Díario
de Juárez (Chihuahua, Mexico), was murdered and to this date no one has
been convicted of the crime
WHEREAS
after the IAPA and representatives of Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations
and the Chihuahua Attorney General´s office in February 2005 revised the
dossier concerning the crime, it became evident that previous authorities had
not fully investigated the crime, that some evidence had been lost, that the
possible motive connected to the journalist´s work had not even been considered
and that other hypotheses had been inconclusive
WHEREAS
since that time, the prosecutor´s office in Chihuahua has reopened the
case and furthered all aspects of the investigation, achieving promising results
that will permit, after more work, to identify the killers and, perhaps, the
masterminds behind the murder; but that, to achieve this, the authorities of
the state of Chihuahua need the state´s judicial branch to ensure, within
its legal possibilities, that all the necessary inquiries are made and that
the Mexican Attorney General hand over all the information he has regarding
the case
WHEREAS
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 demand that the Attorney General of the state of Baja California fulfill
the recommendation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (case number
11,732), accepted by the Mexican State, to investigate in a serious, deep and
fair manner all those possibly involved in the murder of columnist Héctor
Félix Miranda; and in a similar fashion, to investigate officials that
may have impeded obtaining and administering justice in this case
to demand that the Mexican
State and the Attorney General´s office of Baja California fulfill the
agreements signed during the working groups and send, with due haste, the final
report on the technical-legal observations on the dossiers concerning the murder
of Héctor Félix Miranda
to call upon the Attorney
General of the state of Baja California not to find the case of Héctor
Félix Miranda prescribed, taking into account international legislation
that Mexico has ratified, and to get to the bottom of the murder so that it
does not continue with impunity
to encourage the work of
the Attorney General of the state of Chihuahua to resolve the crime against
columnist Víctor Manuel Oropeza and to prompt those who are responsible
for the inquiries to obtain definitive results by next June, when a new working
group is scheduled to meet, and that those results should allow the identification,
arrest and trial of the responsible parties, including possible masterminds
to insist that the federal
Attorney General´s office support and strengthen proceedings presented
by Chihuahua authorities to locate and extradite Samuel de la Rosa Reyes, one
of the persons presumed responsible for the crime, from the United States
to exhort the judicial branch
of the state of Chihuahua to keep on supporting, within the framework of Mexican
and international legislations, the necessary investigations to resolve the
murder of journalist Víctor Manuel Oropeza.
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