IAPA asks to investigate the murder of a photographer in Barbados
The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) mourned the death of a photojournalist for The Nation newspaper in Barbados on Wednesday during a journalistic coverage and asked the authorities of that Caribbean nation to immediately clarify the case and punish the person responsible for the crime.
The IAPA, based in Miami, indicated that on June 22, photographer Christoff Griffith was apparently killed by an individual who had recently killed another person in the parish of Saint Michael, in the Bridgetown area, the capital. .
The journalist appeared at the scene before the police and shortly afterwards also lost his life.
This would be the first case of a journalist killed in the English-speaking Caribbean, the IAPA said in a statement.
"One of our colleagues has been killed in the exercise of his duties and the perpetrator has to be brought to justice," said Christopher Barnes, IAPA President.
"This very unfortunate event should draw our attention to the risks journalists face at work in informing their communities," said Barnes, executive director of the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner, who offered his condolences to The Nation, the IAPA partner newspaper. , as well as Griffith's relatives.
For his part, the president of the IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Roberto Rock, stated that the suspect in the double murder in Saint Michael, who has already been arrested, must receive the full weight of the law to prevent the impunity encourages other acts of violence against journalists.
"Hopefully it will be an isolated case and that, through the correct action and application by the justice mechanisms in Barbados, we will never have to regret the loss of another journalist in that country," said Rock, director of the Mexican website La Broken chair.
