62nd
General Assembly
Mexico City, Mexico
September 29 to October 3, 2006
Camino Real Hotel
Reports and Resolutions
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IMPUNITY
– NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
Resolution of the Midyear Meeting
Quito, Ecuador
WHEREAS
that the majority of the 295 murders of journalists occurring in the past 19
years have not been resolved and that the violence against the press on the
part of organized crime has increased in several countries in the Americas
WHEREAS
that UNESCO, in its Resolution 29 de 1997, initiated by Uruguay, Colombia, Costa
Rica, and México, and supported by Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama,
Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, asks its member states to adopt
the principle that there should be no statute of limitations for crimes against
persons when these are perpetrated to prevent the exercise of freedom of information
and expression or when their purpose is the obstruction of justice;
WHEREAS
that the Organization of American States in its resolution of June 2, 1998,
called upon its member states to strengthen the measures needed for the investigation
and punishment, in accordance with their domestic law, of assaults upon freedom
of expression and crimes against journalists
WHEREAS
that the lack of action or the indifference of the authorities to investigate
crimes against journalists generates self-censorship in the media and uninformed
citizens, which constitutes a fissure in the freedom of expression and freedom
of the press
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 governments to fulfill their commitments to Resolution 29 of UNESCO
and the OAS Attacks Against the Exercise of Freedom of the Press and Crimes
Against Journalists and to adapt their domestic legislation so that it creates
a better legal and judicial framework with which to combat impunity.
 questions
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