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february 25, 2010
We are writing to you to express thanks for the political will shown by the state of Bahia regarding recognition of responsibility in the murder of journalist Manoel Leal de Oliveira, committed in Itabuna on January 14, 1998, in not having ensured freedom of the press, in addition to the lack of action by the judiciary, and we urge you to intervene so that the legal proceedings be reopened and thus those who masterminded the murder and those who carried it out can be identified and punished to the full extent of the law.
We applaud the important and praiseworthy gesture of the Bahia state government made in September last year – something that had never occurred in any other state in the country – of making this acknowledgement public, as to the handing over on April 7, by way of reparation, financial indemnity to the dead journalist’s widow and children.
Given the delay in the administration of Justice, this case caused the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) to have particular concern, leading the organization to submit it to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which having learned of the background made a number of recommendations to the Bahia state government.
In the view of the public, and of the IAPA in particular, it is highly satisfactory that your government has been complying with said IACHR suggestions, smoothing the way for justice to be fully done, the crime not to continue to go unpunished and to seek that the matter is not to be repeated.
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