Adds that Mexican government should adopt legal reforms to combat violence, impunity

The IAPA welcomed the arrest of three believed to be linked to last week’s abduction of four journalists in the Mexican state of Durango and highlighted the importance of swift action in safeguarding the victims’ lives.

The organization also called Congressional statements in support of legal reforms that would improve protection for the working press and freedom of expression a positive sign. Included is a proposed agreement by the Political Coordination Boards of the upper and lower houses to set up a joint Executive Committee to push the measures forward.

On the other hand the organization emphasized the existence of far too many cases of murdered and missing journalists, the absence of justice, and the lack of convictions or even charges against those responsible.

IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre, editor of the Miami, Florida, Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas, declared, “We praise the swift and effective action by the authorities and we hope that the same urgency is applied in investigations into other cases. It’s a matter now of continuing the inquiries to identify the instigators and bring them to justice too.”

The IAPA has called on the federal and state governments to take concrete action in the cases of eight journalists missing so far this year and 11 others between 1987 and 2009 whose whereabouts remain unknown, recalled chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas.

The arrested are members of the Sinaloa drug cartel who on July 26th abducted and held for several days reporters Jaime Canales, a cameraman with Multimedios Laguna television; Alejandro Hernández, a cameraman with Televisa Torreón; Héctor Gordoa from Televisa México and Oscar Solís, a reporter for the newspaper El Vespertino. The kidnapping took place in the town of Gómez Palacio in Durango state.

According to local media the suspects were arrested by Federal Police officers on the border of Gómez Palacio and the Coahuila town of Torreón; they are Jesús Antonio Villa, Gilberto Cervantes Pinto and Óscar Manuel Gutiérrez Gómez.

The IAPA stated that it will follow closely the government’s actions and legal proceedings conducted in this and other cases because, according to IAPA officers, “the elimination of impunity is the only way to prove the government’s will to defend freedom of expression and the people’s right to be informed.”

For over a decade the organization has organized forums, missions, seminars and public awareness campaigns in support of making crimes against journalists federal offenses, eliminating statutes of limitations, sentence reductions and early paroles in these cases, stiffening penalties, creating a system of protection and providing resources to the institutions that work for such changes.