The greatest danger that journalists have to face is physical violence and crimes against them, the IAPA concluded after five days of deliberations during its General Assembly in Lima, Peru, which wound up yesterday, saying that the lack of justice surrounding such crimes “is one of the most important factors to keep alive the tragic wave of aggressions against press professionals that has been going on for decades” and “shameless impunity has reigned for their perpetrators.”

The hemisphere organization which on October 14 to 18 reviewed the state of press freedom in the region added that “some organized groups of drug traffickers resort to these methods without hesitating to commit homicide, which has meant that 21 professional journalists have lost their lives over the past six months as a direct result of their work.”

In its end-of-meeting document the IAPA declared that “the killing of journalists has reached its greatest rate in Honduras and Mexico,” where in each of these countries five members of the press were murdered in the last few months. “The crimes are a reflection of a climate of aggression and attack, characterized by threats against the professionals and independent media intended to intimidate, and finally, silence them.”

Since April there have also been murders reported in Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru. The IAPA further expressed alarm that “in all of these countries and others where similar crimes have been recorded before, shameless impunity has reigned for their perpetrators. Even in countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Paraguay, the statutes of limitations are running out for murders committed twenty years ago, without suspects or convictions, which means that those horrible crimes will remain permanently unpunished.”