IAPA: Press Under Siege in Latin America, U.S.

By: Mark Fitzgerald The hemisphere's press is experiencing a "disquieting wave of physical, economic, and legal attacks" -- and the United States is no exception, the chairman of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Committee on Freedom of Press and Information declared Sunday.

Opening a country-by-country review of press conditions in the Americas, Rafael Molina condemned the recent restrictions on foreign journalists working in the United States, including a requirement that they leave the country to renew their visas, which he called "a clear breach of freedom of the press." Similarly, Molina, of El Nacional in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, said there was a "serious risk to freedom of the press" in the several cases where reporters have been ordered to reveal confidential sources under threat of prison.

Since IAPA's last annual meeting, 10 journalists have been assasinated in Latin America. The Mexican-U.S. border has been a particularly deadly spot, with three journalists murdered for their work there since March.

As the 60th General Assembly opened in the colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, the violence that has affected many of the attending newspaper editors and publishers again made news. Victor Manuel Tejada of the Dominican Republic newspaper El Caribe told delegates that Saturday night one of its news vans had been shot at by unidentified gunmen. El Caribe journalists came under a similar attack last March, he said.

The hemispheric review was particularly emotional for many of the IAPA attendees when the discussion about Cuba was begun with a videotaped interview from Havana of Blanca Reyes, wife of the imprisoned independent Cuban journalist Raul Rivera. Rivera, who was sentenced to long prison terms in 2003 along with 75 journalists, independent librarians, and other dissidents, is a member of IAPA's board of directors.

While the Cuban dictatorship has been deaf to pleas to free the 30 imprisoned journalists, the United States also deserves criticism, Molina said: "The government of the United States maintains its inexplicable decision to deny asylum to a Cuban journalist, Bernardo Ar?valo Padr?n, who left prison last November after serving a six-year sentence for the alleged 'crime of insulting public officials' against the president of Cuba."

Some former trouble spots have turned friendlier for the press, journalists reported at the IAPA assembly. Jose ? Ernesto Borja Papini of the El Salvador daily Diario El Mundo said that the Central American nation's new president, El?as Antonio Saca, has been "surprisingly helpful" to the press by opening access to his administration. Saca and the newly elected Guatemalan President Oscar Berger were scheduled to speak at the IAPA meeting on Monday.