Horacio Verbitsky

70-year-old journalist Horacio Verbitsky presides over Argentina’s Center for Legal and Social Studies. He is a member of the Board of Human Rights Watch/Americas and former member of the Board of the Iberian-American New Journalism Foundation, created by Gabriel García Márquez. Verbitsky is author of twenty books on political, economic, social, religious and military subjects and on the process of democratization. He has been granted the Martín Fierro Award as the best journalistic anchorman in Argentine TV. The Latin American Studies Association granted him its 1995/96 Media Award “in recognition of a long-term journalistic contribution to analysis and public debate about Latin America”.  The jury commended “his behavior during the military regime from 1976 to 1983, when Verbitsky performed an absolutely essential role investigating humans rights violations”. In march 2001 a case brought by CELS jointly with the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, got the declaration as null and void of the pardon laws. This ruling permitted that today 300 cases are open in Argentine domestic courts and 167 convictions for gross human rights violations of the past dictatorship have been already pronounced.