Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009americas: nicaraguaWidespread corruption has rendered the criminal justice system so dysfunctionalthat most journalist killings remain unsolved. In the few cases where authoritieshave obtained convictions, CPJ research shows, questions have emergedabout the culpability of the accused. One such case, the 2007 murder of AmadoRamírez Dillanes, Acapulco correspondent for Televisa, was officially closed inMarch when a defendant was sentenced to 38 years in prison. But in Acapulco,where Ramírez was a star journalist, colleagues said authorities had allowed thereal murderers to go free. The National Human Rights Commission later foundthat police had tortured the defendant and manipulated evidence.CPJ research shows that local and state authorities in Mexico have been particularlyineffective in solving press-related crimes—and, in some instances, appearto have been complicit. In a 2008 report, CPJ examined the possible involvementof local police and public officials in the disappearances of several journalistssince 2005. At least five missing reporters had investigated links between localofficials and organized crime in the weeks before they vanished.Congress moved in fits and starts to combat crimes against the press. TheChamber of Deputies approved a measure in April imposing special penalties forcrimes against “journalistic activity.” The bill would impose penalties of up to fiveyears in prison for anyone who “impedes, interferes, limits, or attacks journalisticactivity.” Sentences could be doubled if the assailant were a public official. Themeasure was pending in the Senate in late year.The legislation, if passed, would be an encouraging but preliminary step incombating deadly violence against the press, a CPJ analysis found. The enactmentof new penalties, CPJ found, would have a significant effect only if accompaniedby adoption of a constitutional amendment granting federal authorities the jurisdictionto prosecute all crimes against free expression. The proposed amendmentwas still before the Chamber of Deputies in late year. In a setback for press freedom,the Chamber of Deputies decided to disband a special committee examiningviolence against the press. The committee, created in 2006, had helped keepanti-press violence in the public eye.Reporters and photographers in several states told CPJ about threats, beatings,and arbitrary detentions at the hands of local police officers and soldiers.While some filed complaints with state and federal authorities, others told CPJthey were too afraid to file official reports. In at least one case, a provincial reporter,who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, told CPJ he had receiveda death threat from a high-ranking police official.Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a Chihuahua journalist who fled to the United Statesafter facing harassment, was awaiting a decision in late year on his applicationfor political asylum. Gutiérrez Soto, a correspondent for El Diario del Noroeste inNuevo Casas Grandes, fled Chihuahua in 2008 after being threatened by militarypersonnel in response to articles alleging human rights abuses.CPJ documented four instances in which buildings housing news organizationsor their employees were attacked. In January, gunmen hurled a grenade andshot at the premises of national broadcaster Televisa in Monterrey. (A spokesmanfor Televisa later told CPJ that its crime reporters had been using bulletproof vestsfor more than a year.) The next month, assailants shot at the home of the editor ofEl Debate, a daily newspaper in Guasave, in the state of Sinaloa. The weekly Ríodoce,which covers drug trafficking in Sinaloa, was hit by an explosion in Septemberthat caused structural damage. In each case, senior editors said they weren’t surewhy they had been targeted. No arrests were made in any of the cases.In August, the federal government released a controversial report into thekilling of Bradley Will, a U.S. documentary filmmaker. Will was shot in November2006 while filming clashes in Oaxaca between antigovernment protesters andsupporters of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. Despite photographic evidence that pro-governmentgunmen were shooting from a distance at demonstrators and journalists—including Will—authorities concluded that the fatal shots had instead been firedby a protester at close range. In October 2008, a Mexican judge ruled that therewas enough evidence to bring Juan Manuel Martínez to trial for Will’s killing.Martínez remained in jail in late year. No witness has placed Martínez at thescene, no motive has been disclosed, and no weapon has been produced.The government’s report on the Will case contradicted findings by the NationalHuman Rights Commission and Physicians for Human Rights, a Bostonbasedindependent organization, both of which concluded that the two bullets thatstruck Will had been fired from a distance of 130 to 165 feet (40 to 50 meters). Thegovernment report also contradicted the autopsy, which found that the wounds toWill’s body and damage to his clothing were consistent with long-range shots.NICARAGUAThree decades after a revolution swept the sandinistas into power,the government of President Daniel Ortega still cast private media as enemiesand moved forcefully to curtail their influence. Ortega—who led the 1979 uprisingagainst the Somoza dictatorship and reclaimed the presidency in 2006elections—employed a range of tactics to marginalize the press, including legalpersecution, smear campaigns to discredit adversaries, and manipulation of stateadvertising to punish critical outlets.The administration ignored private media outlets and disparaged their work.Local reporters had no access to Ortega or his close advisers, and were often excludedfrom government events. Ortega himself remained an elusive figure: His agenda9 09 1