62nd
General Assembly
Mexico City, Mexico
September 29 to October 3, 2006
Camino Real Hotel
Reports and Resolutions
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IMPUNITY-MEXICO
IV
Resolution of the Midyear Meeting
Quito, Ecuador
CONSIDERING
that in March 2004, the editorial director of El Mañana of Nuevo Laredo
(Tamaulipas), Roberto Javier Mora García, was murdered, and state authorities
have asserted that he was killed because of personal motives; although one of
the two men allegedly responsible for the crime was killed in jail, and there
exist inconsistencies and contradictions in the investigations and proof obtained
by the Attorney General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas, resulting
in many doubts concerning the crime, and yet the case appears to have been archived
because investigations have not been conducted in depth
CONSIDERING
that in August 2004, journalist Francisco Arratia Saldierna was severely tortured
and died as a result of his injuries in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and
that some weeks later, on September 24, Raúl Castelán Cruz, apparently
a member of the Gulf cartel and a former military man, was sent to trial as
one of the alleged accomplices of the murderers
CONSIDERING
that Castelán Cruz confessed that crime was motivated by the contents
of a column that Arratia Saldierna published in several state media
CONSIDERING
that 19 months have passed and no one else has been arrested in connection with
the crime, and the Attorney General´s office of the state of Tamaulipas
has not demonstrated any advances in the investigation
CONSIDERING
that in September 2004, the Mexican Attorney General´s office put under
his jurisdiction only the investigations connected with federal offenses presumably
committed by Castelán Cruz (carrying firearms of restricted use) and
not the investigations concerning the murder of Francisco Arratia Saldierna,
which remained under state jurisdiction
CONSIDERING
that in April 2005, the journalist Guadalupe García Escamilla, host of
the radio program ”Punto Rojo” on station XHNOE-91 of Nuevo Laredo
(Tamaulipas), was murdered by a man waiting for her outside the radio station,
and that months prior to her murder, she had received many threats, and that
up until now the Mexican Attorney General´s office has not shown any sign
of advancing its investigations
CONSIDERING
that radio announcer Ramiro Téllez Contreras was murdered on March 10,
as he was leaving his house to go to radio station EXA-FM in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas,
and that the radio personality, who was also coordinator of emergency services
for the municipal police, did not survive the gunfire shot by at least three
unknown assailants and that the Attorney General´s office in the state
of Tamaulipas has begun to investigate
CONSIDERING
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 insist that the Attorney
General´s office of the state of Tamaulipas deepen its investigations
concerning the murder of the editorial director of El Mañana of Nuevo
Laredo, Roberto Javier Mora García, so that the guilty parties can be
arrested and that no doubt be left about the crime´s motives, and that
a public report be rendered to clear up doubts and apparent contradictions in
the case
to exhort the Special Prosecutor
in Charge of Crimes Against Journalists in the federal Attorney General´s
office to revise the case of Roberto Mora García and to bring the case
under his jurisdiction, considering the contradictions in the investigations
carried out by the Attorney General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas
and the lack of confidence that exists concerning these local authorities
to demand that the Attorney
General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas advance in the investigations
into the murder of Francisco Arratia Saldierna in order to arrest and bring
to trial the responsible parties, both the gunmen and the masterminds behind
the murder
to ask the Special Prosecutor
in Charge of Crimes Against Journalists in the federal Attorney General´s
office to resolve the case of the murder of the journalist Guadalupe García
Escamilla, to arrest those responsible for the crime and to bring them to trial,
and to present a report in which the motives for her murder are spelled out
concretely
to demand that the Attorney
General´s office in the state of Tamaulipas clarify the murder of radio
announcer Ramiro Téllez Conteras, arrest those responsible and present
a public report indicating the motives for the crime.
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