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Alert

IAPA urges president to re-open investigation into journalist's unsolved 2002 murder

(IAPA/IFEX) - The following is a 25 January 2006 IAPA press release:

IAPA urges Colombian president to pursue investigation into journalist's murder

MIAMI, Florida (January 25, 2006) - In a further step in its campaign aimed at garnering support for its demand that the unpunished murders of journalists be solved, on 25 January the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez to intervene to have the investigation into the murder of journalist Mario Prada Díaz reopened and the guilty brought to justice.

Prada, editor of the weekly newspaper "Horizonte Sabanero", was murdered in Sabana Torres, in the Colombian province of Santander, on 12 July 2002, after exposing the mishandling of public funds in the local city administration. One year after his death, the Attorney General's Office called off the investigation into the crime, saying that it was impossible to identify those responsible.

A total of 290 journalists have been murdered in the Americas in the past 18 years. Through advertisements in more than 340 publications throughout the Western Hemisphere, IAPA is inviting readers to join a campaign titled "Let Us Put and End to Impunity," on its Web site http://www.impunidad.com.

Beginning next week, the campaign will also be broadcast on radio, under an agreement between IAPA and the International Association of Broadcasting (IAB/AIR). Spots to be aired will recount the murders of journalists that continue to go unpunished and call on listeners to go to the Web site to sign a letter of support.

The campaign is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and includes investigative reporting programs, training for reporters working in dangerous areas, and the monitoring of the state of press freedom in the Americas.