OAS » IACHR » Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression » Violence against or murder of journalists

Freedom of Expression

Violence against or murder of journalists

The Commission has repeatedly emphasized that violence against or murder of journalists or others in retaliation for their exercise of the right to freedom of expression violates not only the right to life and physical integrity, but also the right to freedom of expression.

This issue was first addressed in a 1996 case from El Salvador.[1]  In that case, agents of the Government of El Salvador were alleged to have committed violent attacks, torture, and persecution against the Comadres Committee, a support group for families of disappeared persons.  The Commission found a violation of Articles 5, 7, 11, 16, and 25. The Commission did not find a violation of Article 13, which was alleged by the petitioners.  The Commission provided no specific reasoning as to why it did not find a violation of Article 13.[2]

In another 1996 case,[3] Petitioner Carlos Gómez, an active member of labor organizations, alleged that he was the victim of an attempt on his life by members of the Guatemalan military and that he had been denied legal protection by the State.  Mr. Gómez was shot, left for dead, and robbed of photos and the camera and equipment with which he had documented the situations of persons displaced by the armed conflict and their mistreatment by the Guatemalan army.  The Commission concluded that because the attackers took Mr. Gómez's photos and equipment and because they attempted to kill him to prevent the distribution of the photos, they interfered with Mr. Gómez’s right to freedom of expression, among other rights.

In 1997, the Commission considered the issue of the murder of the journalist Hugo Bustíos Saavedra.[4]  Mr. Saavedra was murdered in 1988, allegedly by members of the Peruvian military patrol while he and another journalist were investigating two murders.  Eduardo Rojas Arce, Mr. Saavedra’s colleague, received gunshot wounds from the incident.  The two journalists had been investigating murders in the context of the state of internal armed conflict in Peru at the time.  The Commission found that the State was responsible for violating Article 13 of the Convention, as well as Articles 4, 5, and 25 of the Convention and common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.  The Commission held that the State was responsible for violating the individuals’ right to freedom of expression, as the government knew that journalists were in an area of armed conflict and did not provide protection for them.  Further, the Commission found that claims that the Shining Path had carried out the attacks were not viable.  The Commission maintained that the murder of Mr. Bustíos and the injury to Mr. Rojas interfered with their right to conduct their journalistic activities and intimidated other journalists from reporting on issues related to the armed conflict.  The Commission further concluded that the State violated society’s right to information by perpetrating violence against the two journalists.  The Commission asserted that journalists play an important role in reporting on armed conflicts by providing an independent source of information to the public, and that journalists working in these situations should be accorded the highest level of protection available.

The Commission again addressed the issue of violence carried out by state agents in retaliation for the exercise of freedom of expression in the case of Tarcisio Medina Charry of Colombia.[5]  Mr. Medina, a university student, was abducted in 1988 by agents of the National Police.  According to a witness, on the night Mr. Medina was taken, an official said he was going to take Mr. Medina after seeing copies of the Communist Party newspaper in Mr. Medina’s backpack, suggesting that Mr. Medina was a “subversive.”  Another witness observed the officials chastise Mr. Medina for selling the newspapers.  Mr. Medina was disappeared.  The Commission held that the State violated Article 13 because the State agents disappeared Mr. Medina in part as a consequence of his decision to exercise his right to freedom of thought and expression.

In 1999, the Commission took the analysis of this type of case a step further in the case of Héctor Félix Miranda.[6]  Mr. Miranda, a journalist, frequently included gossip and sarcastic remarks about government officials in a column he wrote.  He was assassinated in 1988 in apparent retaliation for his writings.  The main perpetrators of the crime were arrested and sentenced, but the intellectual author of the crime was never apprehended.  Although the petitioners did not allege a violation of Article 13, the Commission found that the State had violated Article 13, among others, of the Convention.  The Commission considered that aggression against journalists and the State’s failure to conduct a full investigation of such aggression creates an incentive for violators of human rights and causes a chilling effect among journalists and others who fear denouncing abuses or other illegal acts.  The Commission followed that these effects can be avoided only by “swift action” on the part of the State to prosecute and punish perpetrators.  In supporting its reasoning, the Commission cited its “General Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico,” in which the Commission stated, “Attacks on journalists are specifically intended to silence them, and so they also constitute violations of the right of society to have free access to information.”[7] The Commission concluded that it is the obligation of the State to prevent, investigate, and punish the perpetrators of assassinations and other acts of violence perpetrated with the objective of silencing the exercise of freedom of expression and that the State of Mexico did not meet its obligation in the case of the assassination of Mr. Miranda.

The same year, the Commission decided the case of Victor Manuel Oropeza.[8]  Victor Manuel Oropeza, a journalist, was assassinated in 1991, apparently in retribution for articles he had published that criticized Mexican authorities.  The petitioners alleged that the State did not carry out a good faith investigation of the murder.  As in the Miranda case, the Commission did not conclude that the State was responsible for the killing of Mr. Oropeza, but it did confirm that Mr. Oropeza was the target of threats because of his journalistic activity.  Therefore, the Commission concluded that the State’s failure to investigate violated Mr. Oropeza’s right to freedom of expression.  The Commission also concluded that because attacks on journalists constitute “aggression against all citizens inclined to denounce arbitrary acts and abuses to society,” the State’s failure to investigate the assassination violated society’s right to freedom of expression, right to receive information, and right to learn the truth about what occurred.[9]

Index of cases

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