The Costa Rican Journalists’ Guild has asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to sue the government for not investigating one of the worst attacks on the press in Central American history, El País reports.
The case in question is a 26-year-old bombing during a press conference on the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border, which left three journalists dead and 15 others wounded. According to Terra, the decision to appeal to the commission was prompted by a letter from the Attorney General to the guild, which said “there is no real likelihood of making any advances in the case.”
The so-called “La Penca bombing" took place during a press conference by Nicaraguan guerrilla leader Edén Pastora, on May 30, 1984. The explosion killed Costa Rican cameraman Jorge Quirós, his assistant Evelio Sequeira, and U.S. journalist Linda Frazier, the Tico Times explains. In April of last year, May 30 was designated Costa Rica’s “Day of the Journalist” in remembrance of the attack.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
