At Executive Committee meeting in Miami it reviews ‘deteriorated’ state of freedom of expression in the Americas
Miami (July 29, 2011)—Officers of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) concluded that “the state of freedom of the press in the Americas has further deteriorated this year” as a result of violence by organized crime and the legal harassment of independent journalists and the news media.
IAPA President Gonzalo Marroquín, president of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Siglo 21, and Carlos Perez, publisher of the Ecuadorean daily El Universo, called on the government of President Rafael Correa “to cease persecution of the press” and withdraw a lawsuit against the paper after executives were sentenced last week to three years in prison and ordered to pay damages of $40 million to the president.
Pérez, who was sued along with other executives of the newspaper and a former columnist, said, “President Rafael Correa is trying to take away our editorial independence” and added “he says there are three subjects that are untouchable: his family, his honor and September 30th,” a reference to the police rebellion last year.
“I agree,” Perez said, “with the first two items, the September 30th isn’t owned by the president – it’s an historical event belonging to all Ecuadorians and it is our duty to talk about it, discuss it and investigate it.”
During a press conference following the meeting of its Executive Committee at the organization’s headquarters in Miami, the IAPA stated its “intense alarm and concern” over the murder of 19 journalists during the first seven months of 2011,” which the chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, described as “the most tragic year in the last two decades for the Latin American press.”
Rivard recalled that in recent days Yolanda Orda de la Cruz in Mexico and Auro Ida in Brazil were murdered. In total, and by country, there have been five murders in Mexico, four in Brazil, four in Honduras and one each in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. (See details below.) Also during this period a Mexican reporter disappeared and remains missing. Still under investigation is whether motives related to the victims’ work is behind the murders; five similar murders are not considered in the calculations as they were not related to the victims’ work as journalists.
The IAPA protested the absence of punishment and of “political will” by governments to solve the crimes and pointed to the “seriousness of the fact that many cases are subject to statutes of limitations.” Among these it cited the cases of Víctor Manuel Oropeza in Mexico, Jorge Torres and Julio Daniel Chaparro in Colombia, and Santiago Leguizamón in Paraguay.
Marroquín, joined by IAPA First Vice President Milton Coleman, the Washington Post, cited the unmet commitments made by Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón who promised to push for making crimes against journalists and freedom of the press federal offenses during a meeting with an IAPA delegation in September last year.
Marroquín officially announced a Hemisphere Conference of Universities to be held by the IAPA in Puebla, Mexico, August 25-26m where representatives from more than 20 Latin American universities will recommend public policy reforms to combat impunity.
IAPA officers raised the important issue of legal attacks on freedom of expression. Claudio Paolillo, co-chair of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and editor of the Uruguayan weekly news magazine Búsqueda, referred to the bill for a Communication Law in Ecuador that mandates the creation of a Communication Council, to be composed primarily of members of government. As the bill stands, the Council would have the power to censor content that it regards as violent or discriminatory, it would require media to set up codes of ethics and would set penalties which include fines and shutdowns of media, including newspapers.
On the legislative front the IAPA expressed concern over last night’s approval by the lower house of the Telecommunications, Information Technology and Communications Law that skews the distribution of licenses from private media to state and similar media, and that will regulate internet issues.
They also spoke of their disappointment that on June 27 Costa Rican legislators threw out a bill that would have decriminalized libel and expressed hope that a similar bill in the Peruvian Congress will win the approval of the newly-installed President Ollanta Humala so that journalists do not face prison sentences when they are accused of contempt.
In addition, the IAPA supported an appeal of unconstitutionality presented to Ecuador’s Constitutional Court. to repeal of the crime of contempt or protection of the president and other senior officials from criticism.
The IAPA evaluated numerous legislative bills and decrees involving excessive regulation of the media, declaring it to be “essential that there is greater public debate,” in reference to a bill in Nicaragua that would prohibit advertising of alcoholic beverages, a similar bill in Chile, as well as another that would restrict advertising of products “high in grease and salt,” and an executive decree in Argentina that bans the broadcast of messages with sexual content.
In connection with the sentence handed down to the Ecuadorean newspaper El Universo, the IAPA criticized judicial harassment, a practice also noted in Brazil, El Salvador, Paraguay and Venezuela, where journalists and news media have been censored and fined. Also mentioned were administrative actions taken against Globovisión in Venezuela and Teleamazonas in Ecuador.
As part of its report the IAPA also denounced the discriminatory use of official advertising and electoral propaganda to punish independent news media, a common practice in countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
The IAPA described as “hypocritical and destructive” the policy of governments such as those of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which in recent years have assembled a large number of news media outlets which they use as organs of propaganda, distancing themselves from their constitutional obligation to create and maintain publicly-owned media that serves the community.
As examples they cited the case of Ecuador, where Rafael Correa’s government owns 19 news media, and the concentration of governmental media in Nicaragua, “where the situation has worsened.” The government of Daniel Ortega owns the radio stations Radio Ya, Sandino, Primerísima and Nicaragua; TV channels 4, 8, 91 and 13, and soon to be added UHF channel 47, and several internet news pages. The IAPA stated that these governments use their media to defame opposition members, independent journalists and privately-owned media.
The IAPA cited attacks upon freedom of expression that are committed through attempts to restrict and control the Internet, labeling as restrictive the bill for a Communication Law in Ecuador, executive regulations in Venezuela and official policy in Cuba.
Despite the installation of a fiber optic cable from Venezuela to Cuba that increased penetration on the island, the IAPA said that Cuba remains the most restrictive in all the hemisphere. It denounced the fact that apart from the hope for economic reforms in Cuba, independent journalists are still hounded, arrested and temporarily jailed as a form of harassment.
Journalists murdered in 2011:
Brazil:Auro Ida (July 22); Edinaldo Filgueira (June 15), Valério Nascimento (May 3) and Luciano Leitão Pedrosa (April 9).
Colombia:Luis Eduardo Gómez (June 30).
El Salvador: Alfredo Hurtado (April 25).
Guatemala: Yansi Roberto Ordóñez Galdámez (May 19).
Honduras: Nery Jeremías Orellana (July 14); Adán Benítez (Julu 4), Luis Mendoza (May 19) and Héctor Francisco Medina Polanco (May 10).
México: Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz (July 26); Miguel Ángel López Velasco (June 20); Noel López Olguín (June 1); Luis Emmanuel Ruiz Carrillo (March 24) and Rodolfo Ochoa Moreno (February 10). Disappeared: Marco Antonio López (June 7)
Paraguay: Medardo Moreno (March 3).
Perú: Julio Castillo Narváez (May 3).
Venezuela:Wilfred Ojeda (May 17).
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
