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IAPA Says “Most Tragic Year in Two Decades” For Latin American Journalists
August 2, 2011
By: Carlos Aramayo | Printer Friendly

On August 1, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) President Robert Rivard identified that restrictions on the media in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala have contributed to the deterioration of freedom of the press in the region. “In seven months, journalists from nine countries have been killed. This is the most tragic year in the last two decades for the Latin American press,” Rivard stated.

According to the IAPA, in 2010  there were five journalists murdered in Mexico, four in Brazil, four in Honduras and one each in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. Another Mexican reporter has gone missing, Rivard said. Violence by organized crime and the legal harassment of independent journalists and the news media have made the situation worse, the IAPA added.

The IAPA also singled out Ecuador, calling on the government of President Rafael Correa to “cease persecution of the press” and withdraw a lawsuit against the daily newspaper, El Universo. Executives at the newspaper were sentenced last week to three years in prison on libel charges and ordered to pay 40 million dollars in damages to Correa. “President Rafael Correa is trying to take away our editorial independence,” said El Universo publisher Carlos Perez.

The IAPA also said “judicial harassment” was used in Brazil, El Salvador, Paraguay and Venezuela, where journalists and news media have been censored and fined.

Cuba  recieved  special criticism, with the group saying it remains the “most restrictive” country in terms of press freedom in the hemisphere where” independent journalists are still hounded, arrested and temporarily jailed.”

Additionally, the IAPA also denounced the discriminatory use of official advertising and electoral propaganda to punish independent news media, a common practice in countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.  Furthermore, IAPA described as “hypocritical and destructive” the policy of governments such as those of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. According to the IAPA these governments have assembled a large number of news media outlets which they use as  political propaganda tools. By doing so these governments distance themselves from their constitutional obligation to create and maintain publicly-owned media that serves the community. 

Sources:
Inter American Press Association – IAPA calls this “tragic year for journalism”