Reports that 22 journalists were murdered in Paraguay during 36 years of democracy

A report established that 22 Paraguayan communicators, of whom three were women, were murdered since 1989, when the democratic period began in the country, because they were critical voices against drug trafficking, organized crime and corruption, stated this Friday the Paraguay Journalists' Union (SPP) and the NGO Human Rights Coordinator (Codehupy). "We are talking about 22 journalists murdered in Paraguay, which shows us or indicates a pattern of silencing voices even in a democratic era," said the general secretary of the SPP, Santiago Ortiz, who presented the report "Breaking the Silence", along with the general secretary of Codehupy, Dante Leguizamón, whose father, Santiago Leguizamón, is on that list, having been shot to death in 1991. The report was released at the National Congress headquarters during an event held by the Senate's Human Rights Commission, in the presence of several relatives of the victims who provided testimonies and photographs for the field investigation carried out for the report by communicators Andrés Colmán Gutiérrez and Desirée Esquivel.

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Paraguay recovered democracy after the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner in the period 1954-1989. Ortiz stated that the murders of journalists were not isolated or casual events, but rather part of "an economic, political, socio-social, institutional model that seeks to silence critical voices". "We are talking about the fact that the colleagues have been murdered in a context where drug trafficking, organized crime, smuggling, and public corruption are rampant," he added. The victims mostly worked in radio and dealt with those issues locally in border cities or departments and, sometimes, touched on the interests of local political "caudillos", according to Ortiz. Of the 22 reported cases, only three have been investigated up to the sentence, which represents "a message of impunity" from the State for the perpetrators of the crimes, lamented the union leader. Likewise, he highlighted the case of three communicators, whose stories had not been made visible until now, but whose "voices also formed part of the historical struggle in defense of freedom of expression". In turn, Leguizamón said that, after the death of his father in 1991, "it was much easier for the mafia, local bosses and other powers that are in the shadows and not so much, to continue assassinating journalists as a tool of silencing." Therefore, he considered it important to cite the informants and the year of their assassination: Calixto Mendoza (1997), Benito Jara (2000), Salvador Medina (2001), Yamila Cantero (2002), Samuel Román (2002), Ángela Acosta (2006), Alberto Palma (2007), Martín Ocampo (2009), Merardo Romero (2011), Marcelino Vázquez (2013), Carlos Artaza (2013). The list includes Arsenio López (2014), Fausto Alcaraz (2014), Édgar Fernández (2014), Pablo Medina (2014), Antonia Almada (2014), Gerardo Servian (2015), Édgar González (2017), Lorenzo "Leo" Veras (Brazilian, 2020), Humberto Coronel (2022) and Alexander Álvarez (2023).