At the annual assembly of the Inter-American Press Association, journalists from all over Latin America released a joint statement condemning Mexican president Felipe Calderón for his government’s failure to prosecute the recent wave of journalist deaths in Mexico.
At the annual assembly of the Inter-American Press Association, journalists from all over Latin America released a joint statement condemning Mexican president Felipe Calderón for his government’s failure to prosecute the recent wave of journalist deaths in Mexico. Responding to Calderón’s keynote address, in which he assured the delegates of his firm commitment to defeating organized crime in the country, the IAPA accused him of creating “a climate of impunity” for those who attack reporters. According to the Sinaloan daily El Noroeste, the Mexican Commission on Human Rights has registered the death of 65 journalists since 2000, and has recorded the disappearance of twelve communications professionals and sixteen attacks on media outlets since 2005. “There is no other country in the hemisphere in which the IAPA has invested more energy and requested more investigations than in Mexico,” IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre told delegates in his inaugural address. “Our statistics are chilling. Since 1987 there have been 106 Mexican journalists murdered, eleven of which happened this year,” he added.
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