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The 81st General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) concluded on October 19, 2025, in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with a formal declaration emphasizing the growing threats to press freedom in the Americas.
The key outcome of the assembly was a set of conclusions highlighting the growing hostility toward journalism, fostered by official discourse, which undermines democratic systems and the safety of journalists.
These conclusions were based on reports presented during the event, including country-by-country assessments of press freedom violations over the past six months.
The document serves both as a denunciation of current problems and a call to action to defend journalism as a pillar of democracy.
The assembly reaffirmed the IAPA’s commitment to monitoring and denouncing threats, although no new specific resolutions were detailed beyond the conclusions in public statements.
Historically, IAPA assemblies pass resolutions on country-specific issues, often urging governments to defend press freedom, investigate attacks, and reform laws. In this case, the conclusions implicitly resolve to continue the defense, based on positive judicial precedents in some countries.
The conclusions warn of a “critical juncture of sharp democratic decline,” in which official rhetoric fosters hostility toward the media.
This includes the stigmatization of journalists as “gangsters” or enemies, leading to self-censorship and reduced public access to information.
Common tactics include judicial harassment, economic sanctions (e.g., exorbitant fines), physical and digital intimidation, censorship, surveillance, forced exile, imprisonment, and murder.
These factors erode media sustainability and inhibit news coverage.
Amid the bleak outlook, the assembly highlighted encouraging developments, such as court rulings in Costa Rica (affirming access to public information and critical expression) and Colombia (classifying crimes against journalists as attacks on democracy, not simply homicides).
Dominican President Luis Abinader’s inaugural address was praised for defending press freedom, stating, “A government that fears the press fears the truth.”
Institutional challenges in the United States were singled out as particularly influential, weakening the hemisphere’s most prominent democratic model and exacerbating problems elsewhere.
These problems reflect a “cascading effect” resulting from attacks on powerful figures, which proportionally increases violence and displacement (for example, patterns in El Salvador similar to those in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba).
Increased physical risks (murders, assaults), psychological stress (intimidation, exile), and economic burdens (fines, lawsuits) lead to forced displacement, incarceration, and closures. This results in a drain of talent and a decline in media pluralism.
Citizens face reduced access to reliable information, which weakens accountability and facilitates corruption or authoritarianism. The findings emphasize that these threats “directly impact citizens’ right to complete information,” eroding the democratic foundations throughout the Americas.
The situation in the US amplifies the problems to the south, which could normalize anti-press tactics. The long-term consequences include fragile democracies, increased polarization, and slower progress on issues such as human rights and governance.
The assembly’s focus on adaptive strategies (e.g., legal defenses against digital harassment) and recognition of court victories could inspire reforms.
The awards presented during the event (e.g., the Chapultepec Grand Prize to the Thomson Reuters Foundation) highlight resilient journalism and foster international solidarity.
The assembly underscored the IAPA’s role in ongoing monitoring, and the conclusions served as a roadmap for policy advocacy. The event also included discussions on innovation, artificial intelligence in journalism, and sustainability, but the main emphasis was on countering the “dark period” of press freedom.
the conclusions drawn from semi annual reports on press freedom, detailing violations in over a dozen countries. Below is a table summarizing key problems, with examples of impacts and consequences:
