UNESCO - ACADEMY EVENT: Criminalization and Violence against community and indigenous media
On November 1st, 2023, the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, in collaboration with UNESCO, hosted a seminar titled "Criminalization and Violence against Community and Indigenous Media in Latin America and the Caribbean: Challenges and Responses." The event took place at the Washington College of Law at American University and attracted over 80 participants, both in person and online. The decision to schedule this event close to November 2nd was to commemorate the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
The event was moderated by Claudia Martin, Professor of Law at WCL and Co-Director of the Academy. Claudia highlighted the decline in democracy related to this phenomenon, particularly affecting indigenous communities.
Rosa González, Regional Adviser for Communication and Information at UNESCO, initiated the discussion jointly with Diego Rodríguez Pinzón, Professor of Law at WCL and Co-Director of the Academy. Diego emphasized the strong correlation between violence against journalists and the use of torture, an internationally prohibited practice. Rosa emphasized the importance of disseminating information about indigenous community access to media and the importance of creating their own methods of communication without undue interference from the State.
We also had the privilege to have outstanding panelists such as Ricardo Pérez Manrique, who is the current President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and served as the President and a member of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uruguay since 2012. The President began the discussion with a prerecorded video, emphasizing some of the critical case law related to the rights of free speech and the indigenous community. Then we talked with Damián Loreti, Legal Advisor at OBSERVACOM, a lawyer from the University of Buenos Aires. Mónica Váldes, a journalist and anthropologist, joined us online. She is the President of the World Association of Community Radios - Latin America and the Caribbean.
The event also featured the participation of Adriana Sunun, Representative of the Association of Maya Lawyers and Notaries of Guatemala, and Pedro Vaca, Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), as well as the author of the hypothetical case for the Moot Court Competition 2024.
The closing remarks of the event were conducted by Eduardo Bertoni, Representative of the Regional Office of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights for South America and a former Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, who was recently elected as a new director of American University WCL Center for Human Rights.
The speakers emphasized that in recent years, Latin America and the Caribbean, along with Asia, have consistently experienced the highest rates of journalist homicides in the world. UNESCO's annual reports have shown that the majority of violence victims are local journalists covering local news. Despite some progress in the past five years, the global impunity rate for journalist murders remains alarmingly high at 86%, creating a chilling effect on the work of journalists and jeopardizing freedom of expression worldwide. This highlights the urgent commitment to combating impunity, necessitating further international cooperation.
This event is another outcome of the ongoing collaboration between the Academy, UN institutions, and the Inter-American system. We are proud of the successful outcome of this event and eager to organize new ones while the Academy is taking significant steps to create awareness of the importance of indigenous community access to media.
If you want to learn more, please watch the event’s recording at the UNESCO office in Montevideo official channel: https://bit.ly/49NgDY3