IAPA - 1983/10/26

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Argentina Declassification Project - The "Dirty War" (1976-83)
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05545493
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: April 3, 2019
• Document Release Date: April 12, 2019
• Publication Date: October 26, 1983

Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05545493
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UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
26 October 1983
LIMA, PERU
IAPA
BY TRACY WILKINSON
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U.S. and Latin American newspaper publishers and editors said Wednesday
journalists were arrested, harassed, muzzled or subjected to other violations of
press liberties in 23 Western Hemisphere nations in the past year.
"Attacks against freedom of the press are coming with more frequency and
with greater rage," Andres Garcia Lavin, Inter American Press Association
president, told the opening of the group's 39th annual general assembly.
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The group said journalists have been kidnapped, jailed, wounded or killed in
Argentina, Grenada, Chile, Haiti, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Garcia Lavin said the IAPA sent protests to 23 nations during the last 12
months objecting to abuses of press freedom. Among the governments cited were
those of Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and El Salvador.
In preliminary meetings earlier in the week, the IAPA warned of encroachment
of the freedom of the press in the United States, citing a "continued
campaign" by the Reagan administration to censor government information.
The IAPA, a generally conservative organization, charged Reagan was abusing
his power by changing FBI and CIA guidelines to allow those agencies to
infiltrate the news media.
Some 375 members of the IAPA, principal press organization in the hemisphere,
are meeting to study the gains and losses in press freedom throughout the
Americas.
The IAPA was most critical of the leftist Nicaraguan government, accusing. it
of imposingdrastic censorship and invoking death threats against the La Prensa
newspaper, which it described as the only independent publication in the Centel
American nation.
An IAPA report said the Sandinista government forbids La Prensa from
publishing a significant amount of news -- sometimes as much as 90 percent of
its material.
Arbitrary "national security" laws muzzle the press in many countries, the
press group said.
In Uruguay, six magazines were shutdown by the military government this year
-- one because it published a photograph of Spanish King Juan Carlos with a
Uruguayan opposition leader.
The IAPA criticized the emergence of journalism profession societies in many
Latin American. nations. Membership often is mandatory or a reporter is not
allowed to work in the country.
The association warned the regional economic crisis could put an end to
dozens of newspapers.
CONTINUED
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05545493
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