His Excellency Alfonso Portillo Cabrera
President
Casa Presidencial
Guatemala City
Guatemala

Fax: (00502) 239 00 90

Vienna, 7 September 2001

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, strongly condemns the killing of radio journalist Jorge Mynor Alegria.

According to IPI’s sources, Alegria, host of a call-in programme on Radio Amatique, which broadcasts from the port of Puerto Barrios throughout Guatemala’s eastern Izabal district, was shot and killed near his house late on Wednesday, 5 September. One man was arrested in connection with the killing, according to the police.

Alegria, who regularly denounced alleged wrongdoings by Izabal district officials on his weekday show and encouraged callers to air their complaints, had been receiving death threats for some time, colleagues said.

Unfortunately, the death threat remains one of the most widely used methods of silencing journalists, not only in Guatemala, but in much of the Americas.

In March, IPI wrote to Your Excellency, expressing our concern over the safety of Silvia Gereda, editor of the investigative unit of elPeriódico, as well as two reporters for the same daily, Luis Escobar and Enrique Castańeda, who received death threats after elPeriódico published stories about corruption at the state bank, Credito Hipotecario Nacional.

In May 2000, several reporters from elPeriódico were threatened while working on a story about a secret intelligence agency run by the Presidential High Command (Estado Mayor Presidencial) under the direction of a retired military officer, Jacobo Salán Sánchez. One of the reporters was followed by a car without licence plates, while others received threatening telephone calls. Other journalists covering the military in 2000 also reported receiving threatening phone calls, including a journalist for the daily Nuestro Diario and two reporters for the daily Siglo Veintiuno.

Although such threats are all too often the precursor to murder, the authorities seldom take them seriously. Given Guatemala’s tragic history of violence against journalists, the failure to act upon these threats is all the more alarming.

IPI therefore urges Your Excellency to authorise an immediate and thorough investigation into this latest incident and to do everything in your power to ensure the safety of journalists working in Guatemala.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director